I had a degree in electrical engineering, but only coded substantially in VC++ (self-taught) in my fourth year of university. The university syllabus only covered the basics of Java and C++, not enough for a real job.

Thereafter, I served my National Service, and worked for 5 years in non-development roles in the Civil Service.

About 2 years before I left the Civil Service I taught myself HTML, CSS, Javascript, Linux, PHP and design, and did maybe about 2-3 free websites/web apps for friends. Just before I left the Service I was able to code small web apps in PHP.

At that point I still wasn't very confident, so applied for a developer/sysadmin role in a small company where the pay was way below market average, trying to "break into the industry".

After about 2 years of developing larger web apps, and working with major clients, I finally had some substantial development work to put on my portfolio, so I'm applying for a real developer position now.

So it took about 4 years for me to transition from being a civil servant to considering myself good enough to apply for a developer role.