Hello, world

Bear with me, I've never written any blogs before.

Introductions

Hi, I'm Alex. I'm a software engineer, and I've been working in startups since I turned 16 (back in May of 2022). So this is my fourth year working at The Startup (tm), and I've finally decided to start writing about my life and experiences.

Apparently, I'm supposed to write a bit about me, so here goes: I'm 20 years old, born in Vancouver, BC, Canada, and I learned to code at the ripe old age of 7. Funny thing, I never actually intended to learn how to code. At that time, I had just asked my uncle for a computer, since I wanted to watch videos, play games (Minecraft), and do other things on the computer. We had a family computer, which is how I'd learned about those things in the first place, but it wasn't mine.

My uncle, being the absolute genius that he is, gifted me a Raspberry Pi Model B. As a matter of fact, here's a picture I took of it today:

And anyone who's worked with the original early models of the Raspberry Pi (or, frankly, any Raspberry Pi...) will tell you it's not the most powerful computer in the world. Well, not that I remember much about it anyways. My earliest and fondest(?) memories of using this computer are about crying while learning to touch type on Tux Type. My father taught me how to touch type and refused to allow me to look down at the keyboard. I'm not too sure if this is a universal experience, but I'm sure that it's not unique.

Fast forward a little while, and I'd learned how to type. Quite well, actually. I remember being quite happy to hit 50 WPM for the first time. Later that year, my uncle decided to teach me how to write Python (2.7, I believe), which was included in Raspberry Pi Desktop at the time. I wrote my first few scripts, and eventually ended up writing some simple command-line games as well. And this is where it all really gets foggy for me. My elementary years, between the ages of 8 and 13, I don't remember much of anything at all. Especially not anything related to software or programming. The only thing I remember from that time is that I loved to play Cookie Clicker, Cool Math Games, and occasionally would make games on Scratch.

I made games on Scratch with a friend named Hinson Chan. Funnily enough, I don't remember much of anything that we did, other than that we did it. Later on, though, this grew to be one of the most important connections I ever made, and it just happened to be that I'd made it while in elementary school. At the end of Grade 10, just after I'd turned 16, Hinson messaged me on Discord:

EduBeyond

EduBeyond was not, in fact, a small company. It was a tiny company. Three highschoolers. Best friends from Vancouver who had big ambitions. EduBeyond was my first "venture," and my first "job." Our idea, originally, was a website to match tutors and tutees together, have them video call, and make tutoring available online at any time. We then pivoted to an AI learning management system, and eventually to an Enterprise AI Education SaaS. Don't ask me where all the ideas came from; at that time I was just a lowly developer.

I learned a lot at EduBeyond. Before AI took over the scene, we had to write everything by hand (funny to say, but worth mentioning), so I learned React, TypeScript, Docker, MongoDB, and a bunch of other infrastructure-related stuff too. This was one of the first interactive web apps I built. I chose all of the technologies that we used, even the bad ones (Mongo), and that was an excellent learning experience for me. The stakes were in the Goldilocks zone for me, which really let me explore, make mistakes, fix them, learn and grow as a developer. Unfortunately, in August of 2025, EduBeyond's founding team had a falling out, and the company died on the spot.

It really wasn't all that bad, though. EduBeyond gave me the space I needed at that time to graduate from the developer I was to the engineer I am today. If I could do it all again, I'm sure I would choose to work at that startup every single time.

Futurity

And from the ashes of EduBeyond, rose Futurity. One of the founders of EduBeyond, Miklos, decided to start again. So we started again. I am the Founding Engineer at Futurity. My responsibilities expanded. The stakes are higher. I've mentored at least a few people (hi Martin) as developers now, and the product I author and maintain is certainly the largest I've ever worked on. Futurity, like EduBeyond, is an Enterprise AI SaaS, in the age of AI SaaS. Very creative, I know.

The difference here, compared to EduBeyond, is that failure is no longer free. That's what makes the stakes so much higher. We've ventured beyond the Goldilocks zone. My team is made up of real people I care about, and they have rent to pay. We're not kids anymore, and we have a lot less to fall back on now than I'd like.

Anyways, this blog post isn't about Futurity; it's about me.

Me

Since Futurity began, I've learned so much. But where I've learned and grown the most is certainly outside of the professional part of my life. As of June 1st (the day this blog post was written), I've been dating my beautiful girlfriend for 527 days, or about a year and a half. I used to be a bit of a rat, I wasn't a great guy, I was pretty degenerate. I'd never really spoken to a girl seriously before, and at that point I certainly wasn't aware of what being with this girl would do to me. Ever since I met her, I feel like my life has improved a lot. My attitude, my behaviour, my sociality, etc. A lot has changed, and I think that a lot will keep changing.

Some other big things happened during the last year and a half as well. Outside of growth induced directly by my girlfriend, I also grew due to interactions with other friends, coworkers, and mentors. One of the biggest things I've developed: a sense of caring and responsibility for those around me. You might have noticed above that I did admit my decisions affect far more than just myself now.

The fun thing is, from my perspective, it seems as if barely anything has changed. Especially because I suffer from a terrible memory, it takes significant effort for me to remember anything at all. People have had to tell me that I've improved as a human, and I've really had to sit with that for a while until it clicked, and I reflected on all of that. Especially whilst writing this, actually.

I've taken up (well, this is the first step) writing because I want to be able to look back and read what I've written, and see how I've changed. I hope it's not too late for me to reap the benefits of doing so. I also want to write to share my knowledge and experience, wherever I can, and to have a bit of proof of my existence, and of all the great things I have accomplished and will accomplish.

So, as is tradition, Hello, world is my first post. Maybe come back later and we'll see what else I come up with.

Thank you for reading!