Went from working shit retail jobs like Walmart. Then I decided I should go to school. I wanted to go to a technical school, because they didn't have stupid classes. Chose ITT Tech because all of their instructors had work experience in the field they taught. Had to drop out because we were broke, my wife and I. Couldn't afford to make the drive (45 mins) three days a week. So one of my instructors liked us (wife and I were both going to school there) and she knew I had an interest in Linux. I was like the only dude in my class that did. ITT was mostly a Microsoft school. One of her former students reached out to her to see if he could recruit for an entry level operations job, and she recommended me. I did okay in the interview, not great, but like I said, it was entry level and they needed people. I almost didn't even bother going for it, but my wife pushed me. I love that woman. They started me out at 40k salary. I busted my ass there for five years then moved within the organization to a couple different Linux administration jobs for the next five years getting some pretty good pay bumps along the way as I picked up more skills. After ten years working in the same building and building a reputation I decided I had to move on. They wouldn't let me do full remote for reasons I won't go into, and where I wanted to move wouldn't permit commute to an IT job. So I searched around, and finally landed a remote job as an Ansible expert for a huge Linux shop in an industry that's not going away, making 103k salary now. Sorry if that was more than you wanted, but it was a wild ride for me. Long story short, be useful with useful skills, and follow opportunities wherever they present.