All In The Family
My interest in Software Engineering came from a familiar source; My brother.
I came from humble beginnings, although one might say it’s never humble to advertise that kind of thing. I was raised in a single mother home with my two older brothers and even though we didn’t have much in terms of material things, we were rich with spirit. Our creative sensibilities in particular were always active. My older brother Aaron started playing guitar when he was 15. I was 9 years old at the time and impressionable, so of course I had to jam with him. It was here that a mentor relationship began. I got my first bass guitar that year and he taught me the basics of how to play and my basic music theory. Although Aaron eventually went to College for Classical Composition, that wasn’t ultimately where he landed.
Given the importance of our roots, one could imagine my reaction the first time I came down to visit him in New York City and Aaron picked me up from Penn Station in a Benz and brought me back to his apartment on the Lower East Side. I had to know how this happened, because I’m certain had he won the lottery he would’ve mentioned. I myself, although still active in music had been scraping by as a waiter and a bartender. There’s a lot of great things about working in the service industry but after 15 years of it, I was naturally feeling a bit stagnant and itching for a career change. When I witnessed all of the positive changes that came to Aaron’s life after getting into Web Development, I was curious about it to put it mildly. He showed me a couple of basic things in HTML and I just had to follow suit. I guess some relationships never change.
They say that money can’t buy happiness and as a stand alone statement it’s hard to argue against that. However, when you’re raised in poverty, that type of success has a much deeper meaning than just a great outfit and social status. It means achieving something great. However, it’s not only a bigger paycheck. Working in tech means to play a role in the big wheels that make up everything that’s fascinating about living in the modern age. Technology plays an increasingly larger role in our daily lives in every way possible and I can’t think of anything more exciting than to learn about the process behind the machine and to apply that knowledge with a larger team. I’m at the start of my journey into Software, but the road ahead is calling me to lean further into what can only be a promising adventure.
