The autobiography of a software engineer named Raz

As a software engineer, there are two main questions I find myself asking: Why is this code not working? and… Why is it working?

These are the questions that keep me intrigued and always make me want to learn more. I enjoy working with leading edge technologies and adapting to the constant changes in today’s technologically dependent world.

So how did it all start?

About 12 years ago, I wanted to be able to control the lights in my house from my cell phone. I bought a bunch of microchips, electronics and a soldering kit and I started reading, soldering, learning, programming, failing and, in the end succeeding. I had learned the basics of embedded development, electronics, wireless communication and others. I was able to text my house things like “Turn off the kitchen lights” or “set the ac to 72” from anywhere in the world and it worked. Then I kept learning. I learned Arduino, C, C#, Java and C++ and started making robots. As I got better at it I started making tutorials and uploaded them to YouTube and Instructables.com. At this point people started noticing my work and showing their appreciation. I got chosen to be the Technical Reviewer of a book called Learn Electronics with Arduino published by Apress. Soon after I became a freelancer as an embedded programmer working with microcontrollers like Arduino and RaspberryPi. I had also started teaching programming in high school and founded the Electronics and Programming clubs. I was also the President of the Physics Club and the Engineering Club. In college I started teaching programming and physics. I became a physics TA and double-majored in Physics and Computer Engineering. The pace of the college courses was not quite what I was expecting and the University did not offer an accelerated program. This pushed me to continue learning on my own and I ended up getting a job as an embedded developer. I've changed companies a few times in the past decade looking for the right fit, ultimately occupying the role of Senior Full Stack Software Engineer at Promethean World where I still work today. Each day I push myself to learn new concepts, sometimes failing, but always growing.