I was late with getting into programming and only started considering it after completing an education in animation before (unwillingly) working jobs outside of that field for a few years.

I had to really dig to try and figure out what I'd enjoy doing, and it's when I asked myself what I enjoyed about things in the past like railroad tycoon that I got on the track (eh?) of putting stuff together and making it work.

I remember seeing my friend play and I was screaming internally at his "who cares it works" solutions. When we later played ottd I would try to set up my stuff so that it was readable and because I realized how annoying it is when I can't figure out what my friend's tracks are supposed to do without asking him.

I was basically a developer all along. It's just that my only programming language was railroad tracks and signals.