I bought my domain to post my resume. It cost me four years.

In 2010, during the kind of recession that gives construction project managers time to think, I bought michaelcolenso.com. The plan was a resume site. Professional. Evidence I existed.

I had no idea how to build a website.

I knew what they were. I’d used them. But the gap between using something and making it turned out to be the most interesting problem I’d walked into in years, and I couldn’t look away.

So I read. I broke things. I fixed them. That’s the curriculum — there isn’t another one.

A year in, I had a portfolio. One application. An agency in Los Angeles.

Got the job. First interview.

What I didn’t understand yet: the real education hadn’t started. It happened on the job, sitting next to people who were genuinely good at this and had no patience for code that didn’t earn its place. Six months of that taught me more than the year before it.

I spent four years writing software professionally. I built things for companies you’ve heard of. I fed my family. I got good at it.

Then I went back to construction.

Not because the work wasn’t interesting — it was. Not because I couldn’t cut it — I could.

My first professional project as a web developer was a Walmart marketing site. Built for Black Friday. It took longer to build than it lasted. Three days, then gone.

I’ve built a $200M hotel tower in Pioneer Square. It’s still there.

That’s the whole answer.