“Just an inspector? You’ve got no tech skills at all?”
The hiring team’s doubt was written all over their faces. I had tried to jump three job tiers at once—from site inspector to software project lead.
On paper, it made no sense.
Yet six months later, I had the job. Not by luck. Not by charm. But by a hack so few talk about: the right kind of networking.
My Odd Path Up
Let me pull back the curtain a bit.
In nine years, I went from:
Radiographer (With a degree)
Field inspector (with a hard hat)
Data analyst (with no formal training)
Software project manager (with no tech degree)
Each jump should not have worked. The odds were slim.
But I had found a way in. Not by what I knew at first. But by who knew what I could do.