I learnt to code (although it was very amateurish) when I was a teenager in the 90s, living in California. A friend of mine hooked me up with a job where I was essentially writing Javascript code and also helping with sysadmin stuff. Back then it was called a "web developer". The job was essentially a retired older gentleman's quasi-startup who wanted to bring technology to schools. Essentially his idea was multimedia curricullum, but he didn't really know what he wanted, it never went anywhere. It was a very part time thing, I made $100/week, all of which I spent on buying computers and monitors and running an FTP site. I did it for about a year, then I went off to college.