Like every other (aspiring) designer, I started out with Photoshop and Illustrator. Spending countless hours working on editing a photo to trying to get the pen tool to work according to my will, I tried creating designs and illustrations of my own. Eventually, I ran into Figma—an all in one tool that lets me edit (to a slight extent) photos, create vectors, and aid design and prototyping in the UI/UX workflow. Since I first started using it, Figma has grown to include communities, plugins, templates, jamboards, and various other features—all of which I use on a regular basis. And yet, the biggest challenge for me as a designer will always remain finding that one transparent PNG asset for my design!

My first tryst with programming was in 11th grade when I learnt the basics of data structures and implementation of algorithms using C++. Rushing through stacks, queues, linked lists, and a variety of searching techniques, I got introduced to mobile app development using Flutter in the first year of my college. Gradually, I shifted to web technologies, with the last few years being dominated by NodeJS and NextJS based projects. Alongside, I also worked on data cleaning/analysis and implementation of ML algortihms using Python. More recently, I have familiarised myself with coding in PHP and Go as well. Needless to say, I believe in what they say—if it works, don't touch it!

Once I learnt how to develop my own applications, scripts, and tools that the wider web can utilise, I learnt how to make it accessible through the internet. Starting from Heroku to Netlify and Vercel, I have explored SaaS technologies to a good extent. Outside of that, even though I have used Azure and GCP—albeit, sparingly—I found myself using the AWS ecosystem for almost every small deployment. However, that still does not make me immune to pipeline crashes and failed deployments on a Friday evening!

In my journey to become a proficient software developer and maintainer, I have learnt other necessary skills like using version control, databases of different types, and other cloud services as well. This has piqued my interest in the field to quite a large extent. Apart from work, I love to travel, play sports, explore new places and meet new people—for it is what keeps the world going!