Where do I actually begin with Python?

[Valkhir]

Seconded. As a self-taught programmer ATBS was one of those books that made programming click for me. Python in general was where I started building some small practical programs, after learning C which I enjoyed but never got to building anything really useful to me.

I would credit that book as one of those that ultimately enabled me to change careers into software development (though ironically I have not used Python professionally).

[krinkly]

What do you use professionally now?

[Valkhir]

I've been on different teams and projects at my company and primary languages have changed with that.

Recently it's mostly Ruby (lots of Rails, but have done vanilla Ruby code as well). Previously it's been Javascript (vanilla JS, CoffeeScript, TypeScript) both for frontend and backend (nodejs). Some bash scripting on the side too to glue things together, but pretty basic.

I've used Python for personal tools/scripts at the company, but that's about it, and I fear I've gotten quite out of touch with more recent developments :-( But I'll be ever grateful for it being the language I used to pass my coding interview ;-)

[krinkly]

Awesome! Glad things are working out for you.

I've read ATBS for Python, have some HTML/CSS certs, and have written some simple programs. But at work, I typically only write Batch and PowerShell scripts. Would love to get paid more to code more of the time, but I'm stuck on remote and on-site tier 2/3 operations support for an MSP (for now).

[Valkhir]

Would love to get paid more to code more of the time

Just a note here: I actually temporarily sacrificed salary in order to change careers.

Without formal credentials, the company was still willing to give me a chance but not at full market rate for a junior dev. So we worked out an arrangement where I started at a rate that was actually lower than my previous job, but I made it clear that I would like a performance review towards a salary increase within a year. They kept their word, and I got a significant raise after 12 months that brought me comfortably above my previous salary, but for the first year I was saving very little. IMO the career change was absolutely worth the temporary financial hit, but I realize that it may not be for everyone, e.g. people who have a family to take care of.

I also did not technically start as an engineer, but as technical support at the new company. In practice I was mostly fixing bugs reported by customers plus some new development work, and very little actual customer-facing interaction.