About

I build things and write about what I learn along the way.

Formative Years

Some of my earliest memories is being disciplined for taking things apart, just to see how they worked. I was always inquisitive, even though it got me into trouble.

My Ironic Adolescence

Growing up, I didn't have any money. At the ages of 13-16, I spent most of my free time at the local library, hacking the html of my own website on Yahoo Geocites, on the public computers. I taught myself HTML, CSS 2, and a little JavaScript.

During my first year of high school, I taught my friends a little HTML, so we could compete for the local rotary clubs website. Sadly, we came third. However, they did pay for us to attend multimedia technology course, at our local college, which I attended at nights.

My first computer was an old (at the time) pentium computer, that a friend kindly donated to me. I couldn't afford Windows 98, ME or 2000. That's when I discovered SUSE 8, a free and open source linux distribution. This was the start of my hacking phase.

I never intended to become a software engineer. In fact, I didn't believe that I was smart enough. I wanted to be able to play music on my old computer, but to do so, meant that I needed to download the source code, build and link the code manually. I needed to learn how to use software engineering tools, such as compilers, vim, and the terminal. At the time, I didn't realise that I was using the same tools that professional software engineers use.

Early Adulthood

I graduate high school, but I fell short of what I needed to go to university. So I endeavoured through the working world instead, and was employed in call centres, doing sales and customer service.

After facing homelessness, I knew that I needed a direction in my life. As luck would have it, I landed job working as a customer service agent for the student loans company. The training taught me how the funding side works, for students going to college and university. This gave me the confidence to apply for a computing diploma at my local college. I later graduated with my degree in computer networking.

Present

I have been a professional software engineer for over 14 years. I started my journey working on the open source SuiteCRM software. I later moved into marketing automation, through to health care - where I currently work.