Trying to move from support into a dev role at the same company — has anyone actually done this?

I'm in a support/QA-ish role and I've been learning to code on the side for about a year. There's an internal opening on a dev team and my manager knows I'm interested.

Part of me thinks the internal path is easier (they already know I show up, I understand the product); part of me worries they'll only ever see me as 'the support person.' If you've made an internal transfer into engineering — how did you position it, and did your existing reputation help or hurt?