As a math major at Trinity College, Brian Manning knew people in computer science. Brian even had friends in computer science. Brian himself, however, was not in computer science.

That all changed when Brian realized the football team had binders upon binders of old playbooks lying around and that it might be worthwhile to try and digitize them. Working with his comp sci friends, he started to pick up web development and eventually created a bootstrap start-up. By the end of college Brian had been led happily astray, out of math and into software.

But this was just the beginning of Brian’s software career. Before winding up at Rocket as one of our Principal Engineers, Brian’s career took him across the country and to a variety of gigs at companies big, small, and in-between. Oh, and he still managed to take some time off and go adventuring in a tricked-out van that just wouldn’t stop breaking down.

Brian’s Origin Story is all over the place and you don’t want to miss it. Learn what it means to be  a self-taught engineer, how to go far as one, and what Brian’s advice is to the up-and-comers patiently figuring things out and banging their heads against their keyboards in the meantime.

Listen here, on Spotify, or on Apple Podcasts.