I started off my working life in a local bank processing car loans.

It wasn't the most interesting job in the world, but it was a good first taste of banking. I'd say it was a pressure cooker. It made one more efficient, focused and intentful in your work simply because of the volume and demand of the job. At that time, I still didn't know what I wanted to do, but I knew what I didn't want to do - routine work.

The next few years got me curious about technology. A friend got me started on React and I began building simple static webpages for fun. React is this Javascript framework that was introduced by someone from Facebook. Most experienced programmers say that your first programming language is always the hardest. But I found that React starts off easy, but mastering it is hard. Even now, I'm still coding the same way as when I began learning it.

@pexels

That being said, I don't think it's wasted. Learning how to code even at a shallow level taught me tech empathy. I made up that word, but it's basically how people and businesses relate to technology.

1. I learnt that code is written for people, not machines. Another programmer reading your code should understand exactly what it does without ever having to meet you or rely on comments. They have to understand it as if reading from the middle of a book without having to start from the front.
2. I understood that maintaining code can be like fixing an airplane in mid flight - you can't bring it down to implement changes.
3. I understood that large organisations have legacy systems that are not easily replaced even if they're expensive or unstable - especially in banks. These systems grew to meet the business demands in the early days of the organisation. Over time they became more complex and interconnected, held together with chewing gum as a quick fix.
4. I learnt that technology is no longer just a business enabler. Today, business drivers are the technologists themselves. When Uber was still around in Malaysia, its CEO branded themselves as a tech company, not a transportation company. Vehicles were not part of their assets, the app was.

I'm now working in a technology role - worlds apart from car loans. No, I still don't write code. This role simply connects the business to the tech they need and plans out the journey to deployment. I'm thankful for it because I think it gives me a bird's eye view of the organisation's IT architecture - a bit like viewing a building with a drone. Of course like most people, I didn't intentionally plan this out. And I still don't know what got me here. I guess the interest just stuck on and gravity did the rest.