My story

How I got into coding

"Boys, no coding today—we’re playing Counterstrike!" said the instructor on the last day of my coding classes. It was the summer of 2017, and life was pretty chill. No big worries, just a bunch of people trying to learn to code and have some fun. I was learning C++ (yeah, C++! What kind of an idiot starts with C++?) It was tough and confusing, but I kept at it, somehow managing to write a few lines of code that didn’t completely blow up my computer.

C++ wasn’t exactly love at first sight. I guess it wasn’t even a sight. It felt more like tripping over a bunch of brackets and semicolons. But as stubborn as I was, I kept going. Then, 2018 rolled around, and I decided to try something new and started learning Python with some YouTube tutorials and random websites. I made a bunch of prediction models using basic libraries like NumPy and Pandas. It was fun to see the results on the screen, but it never really clicked for me. Funny enough, I never imagined a day would come when companies would start letting people go because they knew python (Yes, I am talking about Google). Tech changes fast, I guess.

Then came 2020—*the year of the apocalypse*. COVID hit, and I had nothing to do except eat all day (honestly, I kinda miss that). Out of sheer boredom, I made a website following a YouTube tutorial. It was just a basic HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, but hey, It counts! It was way more fun than messing around with Python or building those silly prediction models I used to before. I kept experimenting with web development and ended up building some pretty cool stuff using PHP and SQL (I still don’t understand why PHP- I’m guess I’m Fernando Alonso when it comes to making choices – *if you got this reference, you have all my respect.) Then school came back - not just any school, but High School. Sucks that everyone has to go through it. During that, I was a “semi-professional” web developer at a student-run startup/org, Robotics For All, during 2023 for extra-curriculars to get into a college. I stayed there until September 2023, mainly because I genuinely enjoyed contributing to their mission and honing my skills. Also, by that time, I had got acceptance letters from a bunch of colleges.

College was easy for me; maybe that’s just the “Asian kid” effect or perhaps because where I’m from, high schools are tougher than what it feels like to wake up for an 8 AM class now. In my first semester, I made up my mind to take web development seriously. I knew React and other frameworks before (thanks to Robotics For All), but this time, I tried to master them.

By the second semester, I got hired by a professor to work in an AI research. I got my hands dirty with all the fancy terms: RAG, embeddings, AGI… you name it. I spent my time building models, fine-tuning algorithms, and analyzing datasets to extract meaningful insights. But honestly, it wasn’t just about the buzzwords; it was the supportive team I had around me, which made the experience all the more rewarding.

Then came the summer of 2024, and I had already landed an internship at Primitive as a software developer - all thanks to the web projects I’d worked on earlier. But guess what? I ended up using PHP again, except it was Laravel instead of actual PHP. After all these years, I somehow circled back to it. I worked on both the front-end and sometimes the back-end of client websites like Mojave, CTSI, and West Texas Heart. I truly loved the job, and I have to say, my team was hands down the most fun team to work with!

So, here I am - just a guy who stumbled his way into coding, tried a bit of everything, made some crazy choices, and had a blast along the way. Over these years, I have learned the importance of teams and a good workspace. I’ve been super lucky with my teammates and coworkers, and I genuinely can’t be grateful enough for that.