Started C programming since Linux kernel 2.2.
Took interest in Ada.
Worked as a sysadmin/programmer for an automation engineering company; highlight is automating a military shooting range and creating diskless clients for all the companies employees.
Contractor for IBM for a couple of years; worked on ESS 800, DS 4000, DS 8000 and IBM SVC (google them) CIM server using OpenPegasus (C/C++ on Linux/Windows). Tested the CEI component of WebSphere on zSeries' z/OS and zLinux. Tested IBM TPC on x86, amd64, ppc, pSeries and zSeries with Windows, Linux, AIX and zLinux.