The craziest shit (and the most basic, self explanatory) I’ve ever heard that is actually too fucking insanely true is that you get better at building things the more that you build.

Shocker isn’t it? I’ve always wondered why it was so hard for me to bootstrap anything new, from creating a website or building something like Pencil (which for your information is 13k+ lines of client code, desktop app, chrome extension, VScode extension, MCP server, landing page) was so hard. It turns out it’s actually just because I didn’t build enough 0-1 shit in companies or my actual “engineering” jobs.

It’s a different type of engineering I’d say, but I’m thankful for that experience. I look back at the code I wrote for any of my projects, it’s clear that it’s not good (to the standard of a hardcore engineering org) but it is cleaner than anything I’ve written when I was in highschool or first few years of uni.

I feel this pride for myself coming so far and actually being able to apply the skills I learn in the companies I work at — the exchange really does go both ways (employee and company), I’m truly better at being an engineer.

I feel so much pride (and yes I am aware I have much to learn as a person and engineer) for the skills I’ve built up — I can see firsthand how people can’t build the same things engineers can without the rigorous experience and actual design principles. It feels surreal and I love it.