I sort of lucked into it. I have worked in IT my entire life outside of a couple years where I worked as a server in a restaurant. I also have a 2 year degree in software dev. I left a large company where I did travelling IT repair services for business and private homes to work at a small company as just a standard help desk style technician. I have a tendency to look for inefficiencies in my day to day work and I write scripts to remove those tasks from my day and then I share them with my team. I also have a strong background in cyber security (from personal studying) and infrastructure/DevOps from my own personal projects and home study. So I started getting brought in for infrastructure and cyber security discussions and meetings as a resource. Over the last X years the company has doubled in size and they created a data department and they needed someone to help build out not just the software but the server architecture, CICD workflows, deployment strategies and data ontology. Because I have a proven track record at this company of being able to pick up new topics fast, as well as have shown the motivation to self study on nights and weekends, they approached me for this new role and I took it. And here I am.