ex-software engineer at Khan Academy, ex-PM at Microsoft
I learned web development on my own and got a full-time position as a software engineer at Khan Academy in 5 months.
Super-detailed blogpost about my strategy and process here: http://stephjang.com/blog/khan-academy-job
I designed and executed a series of lean experiments at Khan Academy to explore and assess risky/unproven product directions. These experiments helped the team avoid costly investments into product features that would have yielded low ROI, a mistake that too many companies make.
One such experiment, called the "Teams" experiment, is briefly described here:
http://stephjang.com/blog/my-year-long-free-masters-program