I Thought I Would Become a Computer Operator

I became a software engineer almost by accident.

When I got admission into BS Computer Science at UET's KSK campus, the programme there had just started. Computer Science wasn't even my first preference. My merit placed me there, and that was that.

Honestly, I didn't know what people did after a Computer Science degree. I had a vague idea that I would graduate and work somewhere as a computer operator, or that a bachelor's degree would at least make me eligible for a decent job.

That's not where it ended up. Here's what happened in between.

One course changed the direction

Then I took Programming Fundamentals, and something clicked.

I liked that programming gives you a problem and basically says: figure it out. You break it down, try something, it fails, you debug it, and eventually it works. That loop was the first thing in my degree I genuinely enjoyed.

As more subjects came, including programming, databases and the rest of the CS curriculum, I found they came relatively naturally to me. I also had teachers, particularly Sir Amjad and Sir Fahad, who pushed me to take projects and assignments seriously instead of doing just enough to pass the semester. That mattered more than I realised at the time.

Badminton and programming

Hostel life at KSK was simple. The internet wasn't great, and there honestly wasn't a lot to do. So my days revolved around two things: badminton and programming.

Looking back, that boredom was useful. With few distractions, programming slowly stopped being a university subject and became something I did because I wanted to.

The first apps

During university I taught myself Android development. I built a few small apps and published some of them on the Play Store.

They were nothing extraordinary. But as a student, seeing something I built on my laptop go live, where real people could actually use it, felt huge. That was the first time programming felt like more than a degree.

This was also before AI coding assistants. Everything I learned came from documentation, Google, Stack Overflow, experimentation, and a lot of trial and error. That slow way of learning gave me a habit I still rely on: understand what the code is actually doing before you trust it.

Somebody paid me

In 2018 I created a Fiverr profile and started getting Android work.

These weren't massive projects. But it changed how I saw the whole thing, because now it wasn't just something I was studying. Somebody outside university was paying me to solve a real problem with a skill I had taught myself.

My final-year project was Android too, and considerably harder than anything I had built before. By the end of university I had a practical foundation, not just a transcript.

A job before graduation

Near graduation I made myself one promise: I didn't want to graduate first and then start figuring out what to do with my life. I didn't want to spend even one day after university wondering what came next.

So I set a target. I wanted a proper software job before I graduated.

I managed it. I started as a full-stack engineer working mostly on Android, with Node.js APIs on the side.

Every layer led to the next

From there, my career wasn't planned. It expanded.

Every time I understood one layer of technology, I became curious about the next one. Mobile led to backend APIs. Backend work led to enterprise systems and databases. Then came SaaS products, AWS and cloud infrastructure, startup environments, DevOps, and eventually AI products.

Today the way I build has changed again. I build AI products, and I build with AI: Claude, MCP servers, custom skills and subagents are part of my daily workflow. The difference from those early years is speed, not responsibility. I still read and own every line that ships.

What I'd tell a student now

I didn't start with a grand vision or an unusual background. It was curiosity, followed by consistency.

You don't need to know exactly where you're going when you start. You need to find one thing you enjoy enough to keep practising, build something real with it, and get it in front of people as early as you can. The clarity comes later.

I entered Computer Science without knowing what a Computer Science graduate did. Programming turned curiosity into a skill, that skill turned into paid work, and that work turned into a career leading product builds for founders and small businesses.

If you're building something and want that kind of engineer on your side, here's how I work.