I'd best describe myself as a "computer person". Other than the first few years when I first started at around 15, my job has been Unix Systems Administrator / Engineer, but I've always thrown a lot of programming at my job too. Not just systems automation programming, but various utilities, apps, etc.
For example, back in 89 (I was 18 - 19 then) the company I was at had a need to access multiple screens at the same time in their green-screen (serial terminal) application. So I wrote a multi-session terminal emulator. Ended up being a lot like what GNU screen is today (not sure if screen existed then, this was pre-internet days for me).
Other times I'd write up software distribution systems, monitoring systems, etc. Or work on creating things like a custom interpreted language, just because an app developer at my company needed that. Or write hand-coded postscript, because someone's app needed that.
In my current company, I'm still a Linux systems engineer / Lead, but I've been on-loan to our app development team to help with C-based libraries that they need (this code is a couple decades old, and they don't have any C hackers that can work on it). This is software that interfaces with medical testing equipment, so it feels like I'm making some difference.
Lately I've been brushing up on my web development skills, becoming buzzword-compliant, and putting together web apps both for internal use, and related to maintaining our product.
I guess I should have went into full time development years ago, but I was always worried that I'd get shoved into boring business applications instead of working on really interesting stuff. So I've stayed in the Unix/Linux ops role, found out that a lot of what I've been doing is now called DevOps, and doing open source work on the side.
As for the trajectory, I haven't changed jobs that often. I've had a couple of dud-type jobs where I lasted 1 - 3 years (they didn't want someone who could do "extra" stuff, because that "made the rest of the team look lazy" as I was told in a performance review once). But when I start at a good place I try to make a good first impression, then a better second impression, and try to work and support as many people as I can (while doing my best to make them look good, but making sure I get recognized too). Helps to have a number of people that "have my back".
For example, back in 89 (I was 18 - 19 then) the company I was at had a need to access multiple screens at the same time in their green-screen (serial terminal) application. So I wrote a multi-session terminal emulator. Ended up being a lot like what GNU screen is today (not sure if screen existed then, this was pre-internet days for me).
Other times I'd write up software distribution systems, monitoring systems, etc. Or work on creating things like a custom interpreted language, just because an app developer at my company needed that. Or write hand-coded postscript, because someone's app needed that.
In my current company, I'm still a Linux systems engineer / Lead, but I've been on-loan to our app development team to help with C-based libraries that they need (this code is a couple decades old, and they don't have any C hackers that can work on it). This is software that interfaces with medical testing equipment, so it feels like I'm making some difference.
Lately I've been brushing up on my web development skills, becoming buzzword-compliant, and putting together web apps both for internal use, and related to maintaining our product.
I guess I should have went into full time development years ago, but I was always worried that I'd get shoved into boring business applications instead of working on really interesting stuff. So I've stayed in the Unix/Linux ops role, found out that a lot of what I've been doing is now called DevOps, and doing open source work on the side.
As for the trajectory, I haven't changed jobs that often. I've had a couple of dud-type jobs where I lasted 1 - 3 years (they didn't want someone who could do "extra" stuff, because that "made the rest of the team look lazy" as I was told in a performance review once). But when I start at a good place I try to make a good first impression, then a better second impression, and try to work and support as many people as I can (while doing my best to make them look good, but making sure I get recognized too). Helps to have a number of people that "have my back".