A few notes on taking the long way around.

01

I didn't start in software

I studied biology. After college, I worked as a nursing assistant and became a certified EMT. My work at the time was a long way from software.

I also taught English online. That made me better at noticing when an explanation wasn't landing and trying another way to explain it.

02

Then I changed direction

I returned to school for a master's degree in computer science and eventually joined FIS as an intern. I expected the job to extend what I had learned in the program. Instead, I discovered that the team primarily worked in RPG, a language that had never come up in my coursework.

So I learned it on the job. I asked questions, read a lot of existing code, and gradually got comfortable working in a system I hadn't even known existed before I joined the team. I ended up working with RPG for a couple of years.

Later, I moved to a team using Java, Spring Boot, Angular, and APIs. It meant learning a different way of building applications, this time with a more modern stack.

03

I'm still doing it

I keep building things on my own because I'm curious. Right now that includes personal software projects and a mobile game, which has meant learning Godot as I go.

I've also been experimenting with AI-assisted development, local models, and agent workflows to see where they actually help and where they get in the way.

I keep learning because I enjoy it. Building something gives me a reason to keep going beyond the basics.