I have been employed as a software engineer (programmer) for nearly 20 years now. I have worked for IBM, Siemens, Tandem, as well as smaller companys. I even worked 5 years at a very small company and eventually took them public, though I got nothing out of it, except for education. I had my own business for 2 years back in the late 80's. I eventually made my money when Amazon.com bought the start-up I worked for, for 20 million dollars in 1999.
I originally started my own business thinking I would make a living selling automated software regression test systems.
But I eventually made a living selling SlotPuters (slot car lap counters) which proved more lucrative.
I worked hard for 18 years never having more than an extra $10,000 in the bank, but in 1999 the company I was working for in Norcross Georgia was purchased by Amazon.Com, for 20 Million dollars. Being one of the 10 members of the original company (Convergence), I made a decent amount of money by moving to Seattle Washington.
I now work in an old hospital which is knownas the PacMed (Pacific Medical) building (shown here).
When we were acquired, Convergence Corporation was a 10 member company, of which 7 decided to move to Seattle. We 7 are shown here.
Amazon.com complemented us with several good guys. Added to the team (actually the guy who acquired us) was Warren Adams, an excellent business development kind of guy (pictured upper right), I miss him dearly. The Indian looking cat near the lower middle is Nayeem Islam, who I would eventually butt heads with.
This is an example of the kind of crap I do for a living. A typical Call Flow Diagram for a speech application.