I started at 16 during a summer while still highschool as a SQL developer for a staffing agency, it was technically an internship according to the company handbook but I had real deadlines and the code I wrote ran in production until the owner retired and shut the company down about 1 year ago. That experience lead me to advise anyone that asks me how to learn to code to start with SQL. It's easier to go Excel -> SQL -> OOP than Excel -> OOP -> SQL. SQL is such a small language, great docs and a much smaller envelope of operational freedom that a general purpose language. Also teaching SQL first provides more career path options earlier in their careers, mainly because they could screw the OOP and pursue positions as a DBA, which made me feel better about firing or laying off people. Most enterprise projects involve databases anyway.

He did say he has no degree so it seems plausible.

Yeah, you're right. By the numbers he gave it sounded like he could have been even younger than 17. It's always interesting to hear how very young people get into a programming job. I worked with a 15 year old intern who was probably the smartest person I've ever worked with, and we probably would've hired him at 16 if he was looking for a job.

lol strange, you are right, I actually started at 21. Worked til 30, got out for 7 years and then got back in. In my head I have always said 10 years. Weird I have been living a lie this whole time.

Ah ok. Not that it would be that weird to start working at 17 right after graduating high school.