I became a software engineer almost by accident.

I got into BS Computer Science at UET's KSK campus when the programme there had just started. It wasn't my first preference; my merit placed me there. I honestly didn't know what a Computer Science graduate did. I thought I might end up working somewhere as a computer operator.

Then one course changed things. I liked that programming hands you a problem and says: figure it out. Break it down, try something, debug it, make it work. That loop hooked me.

Hostel life at KSK was quiet. The internet wasn't great and there wasn't much to do, so my days revolved around two things: badminton and programming. Teachers like Sir Amjad and Sir Fahad pushed me to take projects seriously instead of doing just enough to pass.

I taught myself Android, built small apps and published some on the Play Store. They were simple, but seeing something I built go live felt huge. By 2018 I was being paid for Android work on Fiverr, the first proof that someone outside university valued what I could build. All of this was before AI coding assistants: documentation, Stack Overflow, and a lot of trial and error.

Near graduation I set one rule: I wouldn't spend a single day after university working out what came next. I had my first software job before I graduated, as a full-stack engineer working mostly on Android, with Node.js APIs on the side.

Every layer I understood made me curious about the next one: mobile, then enterprise systems and databases, SaaS products, AWS and cloud infrastructure, startups and DevOps, and now AI products and AI-native engineering.

Today I lead product builds for founders and small businesses, from the first MVP to production on AWS, and I stay hands-on in the code. I still work the way I started: curiosity, followed by consistency.