10 years of coding: a short retrospective

why write this? maybe bc 10 years feels like a number that's supposed to mean something. am i supposed to look back and go “wow, i'm a real swe now"? i just wanted to see if i could even remember why i started.

so, why did i start? i was 15, terminally online, anime-pilled, and stressed out by piano recitals. i needed an out. code seemed like a cheat code for life, or at least a way to make something that wasn't another failed hobby. started with frontend bc it felt tangible: html/css was like painting with pixels, except everything was always slightly broken.

i tried being a contrarian and dabbled in python, ruby, c++, but javascript was the only one that stuck. probably bc everyone hated it and i thought i was smarter than the hivemind. nodejs was new, the whole backend/frontend divorce was happening, and i just wanted to make something that worked.

every year after that was basically the same: find a problem, get annoyed, build a janky solution, repeat. interest never died bc i kept using code to fix my own annoyances. if something was slow, i'd rewrite it. if something was ugly, i'd make it uglier but at least it'd be mine.

didn't care about “best practices” or whatever, just cobbled together libraries and code snippets to make something that worked. eventually, you learn to optimise, to write cleaner, and think in systems. even though i was never formally taught, i learned to code by doing.

nowadays it gets demoralising seeing people who started in uni leapfrog me into big tech gigs or faang pipelines. but then i realised: i never optimised for that. envy is a waste if you didn't even play the same game. i kept going bc i actually liked it, not bc i was grinding for a badge. discipline? never needed it (it's a double-edged sword).

at some point, i found a niche: chatbots. discord had just gone live, so i kept building stuff for friends until suddenly it was strangers - building a rewrite for one of the biggest bots on discord at the time. then it compounds - i found myself working for startups, SMEs, MNCs, and even govt clients.

i'm not “cracked” by any normal metric, and those metrics are fleeting at best. what i'm most fortunate, and thankful for, is i never felt like i sacrificed anything except maybe sleep.

time spent doesn't equal output, and output doesn't equal success. i got lucky: i found something i'd do for free, something i have opinions about, something i can always come back to and still make stuff.

what would i do differently? nothing, really. maybe just accept earlier that storytelling is the cheat code for turning passion into a career. at some point, you have to stop exploring and start exploiting. set goals, but don't get religious about them.

rn, there's a lot of grindset slop online, about b2b saas or the next gen of 15yo cracked kids raising multi-mills hoping that a few years of scaling and runway will set them for life. if that's what you're into, go for it! i've learnt after so long that the advice you receive at 15yo becomes obsolete when you reach 25.

stay consistent, and dream (even if the dreams keep changing). build for your own pain, don't hoard envy, and if you're vibing with code, keep vibing. if not, go find your own weird thing to obsess over.

10 years in and i'm still just making stuff others find useful. and that's enough!

tl;dr:

• never feel less worthy for not being recognised in paths you didn't choose
• coding is a tool, not just an output - use it to solve problems
• if you love what you do, you'll never need discipline to get you out of bed
• length of time != output != success, but if you do it right, they should be proportional