Power Rangers to Production Servers:
An Engineering Origin Story
When I was a kid, my life revolved around Power Rangers. The gadgets, the giant robot fights, the morphing sequences "chef's kiss". My walls were my canvas, and my masterpiece? Crude sketches of Megazords, lovingly drawn in crayon.
One day, 6-year-old me asked my dad for a robot like theirs. He looked me dead in the eye and said, "Nobody's made it yet." My follow-up? "Can I make one?" Dad: "Of course. You just need to become an engineer." And boom – my entire career path was decided before I could even spell "engineer."
The Early Years: From RC Cars to LED Masterpieces
Fast forward a bit, and I'm that kid dismantling RC cars to figure out how they work (spoiler: sometimes, they didn't go back together). I made extremely sophisticated LED circuits for my Hot Wheels garage, convinced I was an inventor in the making.
While other kids were glued to Nick or Disney, I was binging Discovery and Nat Geo like it was Netflix. Except, of course, for Phineas and Ferb. Those guys? Absolute legends.
High School: When Physics Became My Bestie
By high school, I'd graduated to calculus and was thriving. Physics wasn't just a subject – it was my partner-in-crime. On Teacher's Day, I gave a 2-hour lecture on the Theory of Relativity and how time travel could actually work. Yes, I was that kid, and no, I have no regrets.
But the big question loomed: What kind of engineer should I be?
The Big Decision: Coding Meets Creativity
I always loved designing and building stuff, so naturally, engineering made sense. In 12th grade, I discovered HTML and CSS – my first taste of coding. It was love at first <div>.
By the time I hit college, I was knee-deep in Java, solving diamond problems, and figuring out why "inheritance" wasn't just a rich family thing. I did it all: designing, developing, debugging, and yes, deploying. I was unstoppable – or so I thought.
Reality Check: Enter Recession
College was wrapping up, and I thought I had it all figured out. Then, boom – recession. Suddenly, the job market felt like a battle royale, and I was the guy without loot.
But hey, I wasn't going down without a fight. In my last semester, I bagged an SDE internship by throwing my resume around like Stuxnet. Things were great – until they weren't. Six months, no return offer, and a slightly bruised ego.
That's When I Unleashed Plan B: DevOps
That's when I unleashed Plan B: DevOps. I kept spamming my resume like a true engineer until someone said yes. Landed an internship, learned the ropes (let's not talk about that time I left an instance running and racked up a $900 bill), and within two weeks, I went from unemployed to employed in a brand-new city.
Now? I'm here, breaking pipelines, fixing servers, and absolutely loving the chaos.