Yo devs! 👋 Having a literal breakdown right now (the good kind though!). Remember that feeling when your code works after 47 failed deployments? Yeah, multiply that by 100 - that's me today.
Let me take you back to 2018. There I was, a random guy from Bardiya, Nepal, armed with a potato laptop and dreams bigger than my RAM size. Started like every other small-town dev - HTML, CSS, and enough Python to print "Hello World" in rainbow colors (jk, it was console only 😅).
Created my first Fiverr profile with some janky Photoshop gigs. Thought I was gonna be the next big thing, you know? Spoiler alert: zero orders lol. My SEO game was trash back then. Like, absolute garbage. We're talking "I'll edit your photo professional" type listings with descriptions that'd make GPT-3 cry 💀
Fast forward to 2020. I'm grinding through college, studying science; Chemistry, Physics, Maths, and Computer Science. Covid struck, college closed. And I had to return to my home town.
Back home, I am learning Python because everyone said it's "beginner-friendly" (narrator: "The friendly part was debatable"). That's when my dad drops this casual reminder about Fiverr. Now, if you're from a small town in Nepal, you know that your parents usually want you to chase government jobs or move abroad. But my dad? Man's out here telling me to keep trying on Fiverr. GOAT behaviour fr.
Started pushing out WordPress gigs because that's what everyone was doing. But guess what? Still crickets in my inbox. Why? Because your boy thought keyword research was beneath him. Imagine being too lazy to Google how to get clients. That was me, peak imposter syndrome hours 🤦♂️
But here's where it gets interesting. I fell into the Django rabbit hole between failing at Fiverr and questioning my life choices. We're talking stay-up-till-4am-debugging kind of obsession. My friends are out there living their best lives, gaming and goships and all, and I'm getting hyped about successfully running python manage.py runserver without errors.
I bought my first shared-hosting cPanel-based server, thinking I was about to revolutionize. Narrator: "He was not." Failed FOUR TIMES trying to deploy a basic app. Each failure felt like a personal attack from the tech gods. But that fifth try? When everything finally clicked? Better than any energy drink high! Took me a week and a half.
September 26th, 2020 - Created this galaxy brain gig: "I will install Django App on cPanel" (I know, I know, should've won an award for that title). Dad's friend dropped this wisdom bomb: "Stay online 24/7 if you want orders." So there I was, phone glued to my hand like it was delivering breaking news about semicolons.
November 12th, 2020 - THE NOTIFICATION. First order slides into my inbox like that one bug that actually helps your code. Nearly yeeted my phone across the room. Delivered it on November 20th, hands shaking like I'm performing heart surgery. Client drops that 5-star review and my brain just goes Windows shutdown sound.
After that first review? Orders started flooding in like npm installing node_modules. From "please hire me" to "sorry, I'm booked" real quick. Task failed successfully, I guess?
But this isn't even the good part. Wait till I tell you about how Svelte walked into my life and flipped my whole code editor upside down.
Aight, where were we? Oh yeah - your boy just started popping off on Fiverr. But hold up, because 2023 was about to go CRAZY.
So I'm vibing with Django, getting comfortable with deployments, thinking I've got this dev thing figured out. Then someone mentions Svelte in a Discord server. "Fastest growing framework" they said. "Better than React" they said. Me, being the curious idiot who can't stick to one technology (we've all been there), decided to check it out.
First reaction? "Wtf is this black magic?" 🤯 No virtual DOM? Reactivity that just makes sense? Components that don't make you write a thesis worth of boilerplate? Sign me tf up! But the lockdown got a little mild, college started.
I returned to my college life and started leaving college to learn game dev in C# and Unity. I tried developing a few games, mostly 2D. I finished college, and I went here and there from my hometown to the capital city. Got an on-site job in the capital city, Kathmandu, as a mid-level Python dev.
I had Svelte in my mind; I started learning it and building with it. I created web apps for myself with Svelte. I already had a website, earning a little bit built in Django. I got a new Fiverr gig during that time to develop an AI-blog writing platform; I completed the task and delivered it, and it was awesome. They hired me as a remote full-stack developer. During that time I also did a lot of open-source development.
Started building this text editor called Tipex because apparently, I love pain and suffering. But for real though - took everything I learned from my Django days about clean code (lol) and poured it into this project. Late nights, endless debugging sessions, more coffee than a human should consume - you know, the usual dev lifestyle.
July 2023 - I did a post on reddit about how my salary is, and bragged about my skills. Then the real plot twist hits. This company slides into my DMs. They're looking for a Senior Svelte Developer. Remote work, $3000/month. Now listen, in Nepal, that's not just a good salary - that's "my parents finally think programming isn't a waste of time" kind of money. Work there continued, they hired me instantly.
October 19, 2024 - Svelte 5 was launched.
Quick flex: Used Svelte 5's runes to rewrite the whole thing, Tipex, my personal web apps, and other Svelte-related open-source libs. No more fighting with reactivity patterns (iykyk). The $state and $derived stuff? Pure genius. Made the floating toolbar butter-smooth, content syncs instant, and markdown support that actually doesn't suck.
Now, here's where it gets wild. I'm just chilling one day, probably arguing about tabs vs spaces on Reddit, and BOOM! Get this - Tipex gets featured on the official Svelte site. Not once. TWICE! In both October AND December 2024 newsletters. Had to check if I was hallucinating from all the Red Bull.
Remember that feeling when your first "Hello World" prints successfully? Multiple that by 1000. That's how it felt seeing my library there, right next to posts about Svelte 5 and other actual legit projects. Me, that same guy who couldn't get Fiverr orders, now had Rich Harris and the Svelte team looking at my code. No pressure, right? 😅
But wait - it gets better. Company's like "Hey, how do you feel about traveling to the Philippines for some team building?" Me, who'd never left Nepal: "Yeah sure, I travel all the time!"
Narrator: "He did not, in fact, travel all the time. And his first international journey was about to become the stuff of legends."
But that story? That's for Part 3. Trust me, you're gonna want to hear about how I managed to turn a simple flight into an international adventure involving missed connections, immigration drama, and somehow ending up in business class.
Okay, Part 3 - aka "How I Turned a Simple Business Trip Into an International Crisis" 💀
First things first - a few days before my big Philippines adventure, life decided to hit me with a critical error. My friend Bibek, who was crushing it in the US (studying Computer Science, living that American Dream), died in a car accident. That shit broke me.
But life doesn't wait for your try-catch blocks to resolve, right? So there I was, first time at Kathmandu International, heart heavy but trying to keep it together. Pro tip: when they say "international flight," they mean you actually need to know how this international stuff works. Your boy did not. 🤦♂️
Made it to China for my connection to Manila. Remember that meme about "this is fine" with the dog in a burning room? Yeah, that was me watching my connecting flight take off without me. Standing there in this massive airport, surrounded by announcements I couldn't understand, trying not to panic.
Eight hours and three booking attempts later (goodbye savings), managed to book new flights through Taiwan. Finally landed in Manila, then made it to Mindanao. Stayed in Cagayan de Oro for two weeks, after that we travelled to Cebu and El Nido. Not gonna lie, those Philippine beaches hit different when you're a mountain boy from Nepal.
But the REAL entertainment? The return journey. Big brain time: team member booked a transfer between Suvarnabhumi and Don Muang airports in Bangkok. Spoiler: Thai immigration was NOT impressed with my no-visa speedrun attempt.
Got stuck in their holding area for 19 hours. NINETEEN. HOURS. Felt like debugging a production bug with no logs. Then they're like "Nope, back to Manila you go!"
Here's where it gets spiritual. Ended up in NAIA's waiting area, but Philippines Airlines clutched - put me in their uncomfy lounge for another 22 hours. Trying to sleep there when suddenly, these African travellers start worshipping. Couldn't understand a word, but bro… that hit different. Found myself playing worship songs on my phone, straight up crying while this security guard's probably thinking "devs are weird fr" (He did not know I was a dev though).
Even helped this Indian dude who was stuck there too - man was trying to meet his Filipino girlfriend (they met in Goa 1.5 years ago). Love really makes you do crazy things, huh? Let him use my phone to call her. Sometimes the best debug solutions are the simplest ones.
Plot twist incoming: I bought a business class for my flight to Malaysia. Your boy went from missing flights to sipping fancy coffee in airport lounges. Task failed successfully?
Final boss level: Landing back in Kathmandu. And there she was - waiting with flowers, smile brighter than a fresh npm install. Remember that Indian guy's love story? Well, I had my own running in parallel. Between all these commits and crashes, found someone who actually finds my git jokes funny.
That taxi ride home? Pure poetic cinema. Just us, some stolen kisses, and the realization that sometimes the best code runs on love and chaos.
So here we are - 2024, and life's running in production mode. 🚀
Remember that little Django gig from Fiverr? Now I'm out here building Tipex, a text editor that's getting love from the Svelte community. JoyOfCode starred it (still fanboying tbh), and the official Svelte newsletter featured it twice. TWICE! Not bad for a kid who used to practice Python on a potato laptop in Bardiya, right?
Speaking of Bardiya - man, what a journey. From a place where having a computer was luxury to building tools that devs worldwide are using. Got this sick offroading motorcycle now (because apparently devs can have hobbies outside their IDE), and every ride through those village roads hits different. Like, "yo, this is where I used to debug my first Python scripts" kind of different.
The remote Svelte gig? Still going strong. $3k/month sounds fancy, but the real flex? Building our tech community right here in Nepal. Every day I see more devs from small towns following me, asking questions, building stuff. We're not just writing code - we're changing the game for the next generation of Nepali devs.
Remember that girl from the airport with flowers? Yeah, about that… we're getting engaged soon! 💍 Found someone who not only gets my "array of emotions" jokes but actually laughs at them. Living proof that even devs can find love between debug sessions.
To every dev grinding it out in their small town, every coder questioning if they're good enough, every dreamer thinking their location limits their potential - this one's for you. Your localhost can be worldwide. Your pull requests can change lives. Your dreams are valid af.
Keep pushing those commits. Keep asking those "stupid" questions. Keep building, breaking, and rebuilding. Because one day, you'll look back at your git history and realize - every failure was just a failed test preparing you for production.
Your boy from Bardiya is signing off. ✌️
P.S. Still can't believe Rich Harris knows my code exists. Mother, I made it! 🎉
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