I started, like most as a developer working in C#.

One day my manager said "We have 6.5 terabytes of census and mapping data coming in. Build a database server handle it. oh, and make sure it's secure and we don't lose any of it."

I'd never even heard of SQL Server, or at least only as in something to connect to.

The next 14 years I basically taught myself: Backup/Restore, T-SQL, Jobs, Scheduling, Replication, Clustering, Mirroring SAN, NAS, Vmware and DoubleTake

SQL Server Central has been a great help over that time and continues to be.