One of the things I love most about the tech community is that there isn't a single path to becoming a developer.
Some people wrote their first li...
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It's urgent. Can I have talk with you?
Yes!
Can I have your microsoft teams id? or whatsapp number?
There is a guy who suggested me to do some AI stuffs for side income so that i can fix my 0 budget problem and invest it in akhouri systems.
Sorry, Anmol, but this is against the privacy policy.
Ok. Is there any platform where we can chat privately or in dev.to is there is any private chat option? It's important.
Please let me know what you want to discuss with me.
My Journey
As a 2002 kid, my world was filled with: spiderman, ironman, power rangers, kiteretsu, doraemon,ninja hattori!
All of them had something in common, science!
I wanted to become a scientist like kiteretsu!
Waiting for school bell to ring and going home as fast as I can!
Trying to build cardboard armour of iron man, sling shot web shooter of spiderman.
Playing with my cousins.Those were the days!
After getting into high school, took science seriously and later did 10+2 with Maths Physics Chemistry.
Then came a gap, some health issues and then came the pandemic!
At that point as I said before in fear of math took some time and then officially started BCA!
Goals
My initial goal was to be an astronomer!
Current goal: to be a computer scientist!
I like science and am kind of lazy person who wants to be sitting in his room with just a computer and do all the things, so I thought of astronomy and later programming as the right thing!
Advice to myself
Just believe in the flow and jump into the ocean!
Working on my habit of quitting easily!
@technogamerz
I love this idea of telling everyone about their story!
Thank you for this post!
And I really want to thank you for reading my posts and your support!
☺️
Hey!! Hope you are doing well ❤️
Your journey proves that life can give you gaps and obstacles, but what matters is where you are heading next. The transition from wanting to be an astronomer to a computer scientist makes perfect sense—both fields require a deep curiosity about how things work.
Acknowledging the habit of giving up easily is the first step to beating it. Coding will test your patience, but the satisfaction of seeing your logic work is worth every failed attempt.
Please don't thank me at all! To borrow what @xulingfeng said, we are all here to support each other, and I'm just doing my part to back up a fellow developer.
You've got a fantastic mindset. Trust the flow, keep experimenting, and all the best for your future goals! 🔥💞
Love seeing this — that's exactly what I meant when I said it. Passing it forward is the whole point. You're doing great work here, Divyanshi 🙌
Also I feel like one of those motivational quote posters hanging in a school hallway right now 😂 Gotta stay humble. Gotta stay grounded🤣
😊 💯 🙌✨
1. How did your tech journey begin?
My parents got me my first computer but skipped the antivirus. From then on, every time something broke, I had to figure it out myself.
2. What was your biggest challenge when you started?
Staying away from the screen. I was hooked — late nights, every single night. Still am, kinda 😅
3. What kept you going?
Mentors and friends who had my back. Especially the test manager at my second company — she's the reason I got to build my first real test automation platform, one that ran the entire project.
4. What are you learning today?
Sneaking in some writing between the chaos. Might just switch careers and become a writer 😂
5. If you could go back and talk to your beginner self, what advice would you give?
The world's bigger than your screen. Go see it. You're not as alone as you think.
This is honestly such a beautiful and inspiring tech journey!!! ❤️
I absolutely love how your story started—getting a computer without an antivirus and having to fix everything yourself. They say challenges shape the best engineers, and you are the living proof of that! 🖥️✨
That addiction to the screen and those countless late nights is a phase every passionate developer knows too well, but the way you turned that obsession into building something as massive as a core test automation platform is incredible. It’s also so heartwarming to see how much you value your mentors and the people who backed you up early in your career. That gratitude shows exactly what kind of a person and professional you are.
And please, keep sneaking in that time to write! Your bio says you write about the 'systems behind the systems and the 3 AM calls,' and honestly, you already have the voice of a storyteller. If you ever decide to make that career switch to becoming a full-time writer, just know that I’ll be the very first person to buy your book! 📝✍️
Your advice to your beginner self absolutely hit home. That is a profound piece of wisdom not just for coding, but for life itself.
I am incredibly proud to call someone as talented, humble, and brilliant as you a close friend. Keep shining, keep writing, and keep breaking boundaries. Always rooted for you! 🌟🔥✊
Divyanshi, this reply genuinely caught me off guard. I was just sharing my story like everyone else — didn't expect to get a whole essay back ❤️ The way you connected the "no antivirus" start to "challenges shape the best engineers" was something I hadn't even thought about myself.
And "I'll be the first to buy your book" — that line hit. Might just be the push I needed to actually sit down and write one 😂
Thank you for reading that carefully and for being this kind of person in the community. Means more than you know.
How did your tech journey begin?
I was always a gamer. I spent many, many hours sitting in front of a PC playing games, so at first I wanted to become a game developer.
But to be a game dev, you really have to be dedicated to it. And let’s be honest, not all game developers make the same money as developers in general. So I ended up as a boring corporate senior dev instead. 😁
What was your biggest challenge when you started?
I think the struggle and challenge never really ended. 😅 But at the beginning, syntax was probably my biggest struggle.
What kept you going?
Curiosity and the motivation that came from finishing side projects.
What are you learning today?
I’m experimenting with AI and all the new tools that come with it.
If you could go back and talk to your beginner self, what advice would you give?
Don’t be angry with yourself when you are not able to learn something in a few minutes that others spent months learning. 😅
Haha, thanks for sharing your journey, Daniel! I absolutely love your honesty. I can totally relate to the gamer mindset—honestly, I still end up losing at least 2 hours every single day just playing GTA and Call of Duty! 🎮 So I completely get how that passion draws you into tech.
Going from wanting to be a game dev to becoming a senior backend dev is such a solid transition. There is absolutely nothing boring about being a senior dev who solves performance and architecture puzzles!
Also, the advice you'd give to your beginner self is pure gold. It’s so easy to get frustrated when you don't grasp something immediately, forgetting that others spent months mastering it. Patience is definitely the hardest syntax to learn. Good luck with your AI experiments, and thanks for adding so much value to this discussion!❤️
Hey Divyanshi 😄
My journey has been a lot of learning by building (and breaking 😄). Every small project taught me something new.
If I could tell my beginner self one thing, it'd be to document the journey earlier. It's amazing how much you forget until you write it down.
Still learning every day, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
Sorry for the late reply! And thank you so much : D for sharing your journey.
I really liked what you said about documenting your learning early. It's such a simple piece of advice, but I can already see how valuable it is. The "building (and breaking)" part made me smile because that's honestly how most of us learn. Wishing you many more exciting projects and lessons ahead!
Thank you for sharing such a wonderful article, Divyanshi😎✨
I’ve just started my own tech journey here on DEV, and I’ve been able to keep working on iOS development — something I had wanted to try for years but couldn’t quite start💦.
Although I work in IT, I’m not a developer, so I don’t really have mentors or people around me who can guide me in development.
That’s why writing articles about what I learn and knowing that someone might read them definitely helps keep me motivated❤️🔥.
And congratulations on reaching 2K followers! 🎉
Hey Umitomo hope you are doing well ❤️
Thanks for sharing your journey!!
My tech journey honestly started with curiosity.
I did not enter tech through some grand master plan. It started with Linux.
At first, Linux felt like this strange world where everything looked powerful, but nothing explained itself politely. I remember experimenting with Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, and different desktop environments just because I wanted to understand how things worked under the hood.
The spark was simple: I wanted control over my own machine.
Windows worked, sure, but Linux made me curious. It made me ask questions like:
Why does this command work?
Why did this break?
What is a package manager?
Why did I just destroy my bootloader at 2 AM?
That curiosity slowly became an obsession.
My biggest challenge in the beginning was not programming itself. It was understanding the ecosystem. Terminals, permissions, filesystems, drivers, repositories, logs, documentation, forums, kernel updates, display servers, window managers, all of it felt overwhelming.
And yes, I broke things. A lot.
There were failed installs, broken desktops, missing Wi-Fi drivers, boot issues, weird errors, and many moments where reinstalling the OS felt like a personality trait.
But that is also what kept me going.
Every time I broke something and fixed it, I understood a little more. Every error message became less scary. Every forum post, man page, GitLab issue, and random late-night experiment taught me something.
Linux taught me patience.
It taught me that troubleshooting is not magic. It is pattern recognition, curiosity, and refusing to panic when the screen goes black.
Over time, that interest grew into open-source involvement, Fedora testing, experimenting with different distributions, learning how systems behave, and eventually building confidence in tech support, IT operations, and software projects.
Today, I am still learning.
I am exploring Linux more deeply, working on my own programming projects, understanding system design better, improving my Git workflow, and slowly building toward stronger skills in software, cloud, automation, and open-source development.
The best part is that I still feel like a student. Technology changes too fast for anyone to act like they know everything. The moment you think you are done learning, the industry politely throws a new tool, framework, or error log at your face.
If I could go back and talk to my beginner self, I would say this:
Do not be afraid of breaking things.
Break the system, but learn why it broke.
Read documentation, even when it feels boring.
Ask questions, even when they feel basic.
Do not compare your journey with someone who started earlier.
And most importantly, build things. Small things. Ugly things. Half-working things. Real learning happens when you stop only watching tutorials and actually try to make something yourself.
Linux did not just teach me technology.
It taught me how to think, how to troubleshoot, how to stay curious, and how to keep going even when nothing works the first time.
And honestly, that is still the most valuable skill I carry today.
@technogamerz
My journey started with curiosity, not a roadmap.
More than 20 years ago, I was the person who wanted to know how everything worked. If something broke, I didn’t just want to fix it—I wanted to understand why it broke.
Over the years, that curiosity led me through networking, Linux, system architecture, ERP systems, virtualization, cloud technologies, DevOps, cybersecurity, and now AI.
The biggest challenge wasn’t learning a programming language. It was learning that technology never stops changing. Just when you think you’ve mastered something, there’s another wave to ride.
What kept me going was building real systems. Every production issue, every outage, every bug became another lesson. Success teaches you confidence; failures teach you architecture.
Today I’m spending a lot of time exploring AI—not because it’s the latest trend, but because I believe understanding how to work with AI will become as important as learning programming itself.
If I could give my younger self one piece of advice, it would be this:
Don’t chase technologies. Chase fundamentals. Languages, frameworks, and tools come and go, but understanding systems, networking, databases, and problem-solving will always pay off.
And never stop building. Real projects teach lessons that no course ever can.
Hey Mustafa hope you are doing well!! ❤️
Wow, thank you so much for sharing this! Your story is incredibly inspiring, and honestly, it’s exactly what I needed to hear. That line—‘Success teaches you confidence; failures teach you architecture’—is just pure gold. It shifts the whole perspective on running into bugs and production issues!
Your advice about chasing fundamentals instead of just jumping from one trending framework to another makes total sense. Tools change so fast, but core logic and system design stay. Also, it’s amazing how you’re still driven by that same curiosity after 20+ years, now diving into AI. Thanks for passing down this incredible wisdom to the rest of us. Keep building, and keep inspiring! 🙌✨
I'm still early in my tech journey, but one lesson that's already made a big difference is not being discouraged by difficult topics.
There have been concepts that seemed impossible at first, but breaking them down and practicing consistently eventually made them click. Looking back, I'd tell my beginner self to trust the learning process.
Hey!! Hope you are doing well ❤️
Such a wise takeaway, especially for being early in your journey! Trusting the learning process saves so much anxiety. Thank you for this beautiful reminder, you're going to do amazing things!
I appreciate your kind words.
Hey!!👋🏻 Hope you are doing well ❤️
Aww, thank you so much for sharing your story! 💖 I absolutely loved reading your journey. It's amazing how you transformed your love for games and storytelling into something so creative. Balancing Class 10 with indie web game development is no small feat, and your passion really shines through. I especially loved what you said about focusing on "small, messy wins" instead of chasing perfection—that's such a valuable reminder for all of us.
I'm so happy you took the time to share this here. Wishing you lots of success, endless creativity, and many exciting projects ahead. Keep building, keep learning, and never lose that spark. ✨
Also, now I'm curious—what's the game you're most proud of building so far? I'd genuinely love to hear about it! 🎮
Love this. Mine's a weird one: I'm a physical therapist, not a developer — my "tech journey" started because I couldn't stand watching people redo the same paperwork by hand every month. The biggest obstacle was that I genuinely didn't know what code was; software felt like something other people made. What kept me going was pure stubbornness, plus AI being patient enough to answer my dumb questions at 1am. A year later there are 20+ small tools I built running at work. To my earlier self: stop waiting until you "know enough" — pick the one annoying thing and start. The understanding shows up after you ship, not before.
Hope you're doing well! ❤️ Sorry for the late reply, and thanks for taking the time to share your journey.
I honestly love how your story started with solving a real problem instead of trying to become a developer. Going from "software felt like something other people made" to building 20+ tools is such a satisfying transformation. And that line about understanding showing up after you ship is something I'll definitely remember. Thanks for sharing such a genuine experience—it was really motivating to read.
Thank you — this really made my day. 🙏
You caught the exact thing I hoped would land: I never set out to "become a developer." There was just a real problem in front of me, and shipping something imperfect taught me more than any course could have.
That line — "understanding shows up after you ship" — was the hardest part to trust at first. It feels backwards when you're staring at code you don't fully get yet. But it kept proving true, project after project.
If you're building something right now, I'd love to hear how it's going. I write more of these at fromzerotoship.com if you want to follow along — but either way, go ship that messy first version. 🚀
I was kinda nervous when I was starting but i had a supportive brother for the motivation he is now in Bangalore but still helps me specially when I am the Youngest child of the house 2012 kid still I loved the coding so much at that time that I sat crazy 12 hrs and i even led a School Science Exhibition in Class 7th where only 9th to 12th students were allowed to participate and I was the only one and Principal was grinning on me Idk why but she didn't came to my stall when it all happened. Then my Laptop's hard disk got corrupted leading me to losing everything i made all those years and i even had my own ai then all gone. It took me a year and a half to fix that hard disk with my own money. Then i made several projects on codepen for safety that they will survive any other corruption but still I am here Thx for reading! cya!👋
This doesn't feel like it was written by a dev, but by a writer who really understands our pain, especially the early-career grind
Thanks :D