From Hawaiian Farms to Helpful Human — The Story of How I Became a Developer by Accident
I grew up on the beautiful Big Island of Hawaii.
My father moved to the Big Island 36 years ago to sell “puka shell” necklaces (shell necklaces with holes) at his retail shop, Sunset Traders. My mother moved out to Hawaii to house sit for some family friends a few years later. After deciding that she wanted to stay in Hawaii permanently, she found a job working for my father. They got married several years later and had me as their first of three children. My parents now own 5 acres of farmland on the Kona Coffee Belt where they have been growing and selling our family’s 100% Kona Coffee for years.
A core family value I was raised with, was to always help others. This principle was exhibited by my parents through canned food drives, feeding the homeless, highway trash cleaning, and other voluntary opportunities. In addition to the volunteering, as a kid, I began to find ways to make some spending money as well. This primarily included yard work for neighbors and other family friends.
In the summer of 2005, my next door neighbor hired me to pick the weeds that were suffocating the native ‘Ohi’a Lehua plants that she was cultivating on her property. In repayment, she promised to buy me Apple’s 30GB iPod Video — “excited” would undermine my enthusiasm at this offer.
Instigation
In elementary school, there were lessons being taught which challenged everyone’s thinking of what they wanted to be when they grow up. While my friends had ideas of becoming professional soccer players and firemen, I had no idea what I wanted to do.
Somehow, between the lovely weather and the farmland with access to hikes, waterfalls, beaches, and all of the things I now long for, I developed a deep love (addiction, really) for video games. Little did I know this was the foundations of my career in the making.
Starting with Super Mario 64 on my Nintendo and leading up to RuneScape and Guild Wars on my family’s PC, I enjoyed immersing myself into the video game scene. Due to the high cost of computers back then, I was always looking for a way to upgrade my computer without spending much money. This forced me to look for ways to upgrade the computer’s internal parts or find ways to optimize what it already had. This is how my deep interest in computers began.
I went home that day my teacher challenged our thinking about our futures, and I distinctly remember sitting on my bed wondering what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I knew I wanted to help people, but I wanted to do so with technology. How was that going to be possible?
Decisions, Decisions
After much thought into what skills I already had, I decided that I wanted to fix people’s computers for the rest of my life.
Was I naïve? You bet.
In order to make this dream a reality, I began to dumpster dive and scrape together parts of broken and thrown away computers in my school’s dumpster. Fortunately, due to a PC upgrade initiative that my high school was undergoing, the dumpsters were constantly filled with old computers. I would sift through these to find and salvage parts to put together a working machine.
I would then take the “new” machine and donate it to families that couldn’t afford their own computer. I’d even take the time to teach them how to use it — how helpful!
Entering The Workplace
Assembling new computers turned into my high school business (using “business” loosely). People would hire me to fix/repair/build their computer and those that couldn’t afford to would simply make me dinner or say thank you — and that was enough. I wasn’t doing it for the money; I was doing it because I wanted to help people.
Mac vs. PC
Up until this point, my only interaction with Apple and its products was my iPod Video. I liked it because it was simple and easy to use. To put it in the words of Apple, “It just works.”
I was becoming fascinated by Apple products and their entire ecosystem. I would spend as much time as I could at our local Authorized Apple Retailer, Kona MacNet, attending workshops and geeking out on Apple’s newest and upcoming technologies.
Although my interested in Apple was growing, my area of expertise was mainly on the Windows PC side of things — so much so, that Dell had reached out to me and asked if I was interested in being trained to become a certified technician for the entire Big Island.
My First Job
While working for Dell as a certified technician seemed like a good idea, especially having a job lined up right out of high school, I ended up turning the opportunity down in favor of a job offer from Kona MacNet who had become keen on me working in their retail shop.
My role was primarily to sell Apple products and services. However, I was also in a unique position to teach and empower my customers through conversations and lessons.
At a Crossroads
My high school career was coming to a close, and it was time to begin considering college and making strides towards the next phase of my life — whatever that was.
After meeting with my high school’s career counselor, who simply handed me a printed list of colleges that exist in the U.S., I felt dazed and confused. I started thinking about my goal of helping people and how I was going to use technology to do that. I ended up choosing Computer Science because I thought that would teach me how to fix people’s computers “professionally.”
Go Huskies!
Of the four universities that I applied to, I chose to attend the University of Washington (UW) because that was where my grandfather had taught geography after serving for the RAF in WWII.
Shortly after entering college, I got a job at the UW IT Department. This put me in a place where I was able to practice diagnosing and fixing people’s computer issues. Unfortunately, my aid to students and teachers was limited because the people actually allowed to fix computers were the ones with degrees. It was this realization that kept me thinking I was on the right career path that would allow me to help people with technology.
Programming
After my first two years, when I actually entered my degree, I was introduced to Java programming. To my astonishment, Computer Science wasn’t starting out by teaching you how to fix a computer. It was teaching me how computers work through code rather than how to fix them with my hands.
I was distraught because I couldn’t see how I could help people through coding. This led me to ask myself — had I entered the wrong career path?
Nevertheless, I had gotten this far, and I wasn’t going to give up now. Coding was always a mystery to me and I was curious what it was all about. Thus, I decided to continue down the path to what Computer Science is really about, mostly to see if I can do it. I promised myself that I would throw in the towel on CS only if I failed a class more than once.
Fortunately, that did not happen.
Apple
During my early stages in the Computer Science program, I was scouted out by Apple for a retail position. This was a huge moment for me as I was at the time your classic “Apple Fan Boy.” It was my dream since I was in high school to work for Apple, and this seemed like my opportunity to reach people through technology. I couldn’t turn the offer down, even though it would technically put me in a position where my CS degree was useless.
I quickly excelled in the Apple Retail environment — gaining awards for my ability to provide customers with a personalized experience and creating tailored solutions to fit customer’s needs.
While Apple Retail was going well for me, I was encouraged by my college friend @DianeKerstein to keep moving on with programming.
Turning The Page
At this time, my college career was coming to a close, and the last requirement I had was to find a summer internship. While I had a few opportunities surface, nothing really seemed to be intriguing or have the potential to lead to a full-time position after the internship was through. The deadline to have an internship locked in place was fast approaching, and my stress level was rising. However, on May 6, 2014, this all changed.
During a seemingly normal day at Apple Retail, in walked Mark Sandeno — a business entrepreneur looking for a new computer to serve as his “powerhouse” for the new company he was starting.
Looking for potential leads to refer to the Apple Business program, I asked Mark further questions to see if I could connect him with Apple’s Business team. As it turned out, he ran a software consulting agency located in Seattle called Helpful Human.
After my questions were through, he began asking about who I was and where my career was headed. I let him know that I was looking for a summer internship. Funny enough, he was looking for a summer intern to help take on some of the new work in the pipeline.
By 5:30 that evening, Mark had taken the information I provided him on my business card (really just my first and last name) and messaged me on Facebook. We organized an interview with him and the lead developer and co-founder of his company, Nicholas Glenn.
Internship
May 12 was my first interview, and by July 1 I started my internship with Helpful Human.
I attempted to balance being a full-time student, working at Apple for 25 hours a week, and working at Helpful Human for nearly 30 hours a week. Not surprisingly, it quickly became obvious that schedule wasn’t going to be sustainable. The following August, I decided to leave Apple so that I could invest more into my time at Helpful Human.
As my internship was coming to a close, Mark had begun to ask me about becoming a Helpful Human employee. I was drawn to the fun culture and creative minds that each of us brought to the table. It was obvious to me what the right choice was.
Software Engineer
Since joining Helpful Human, I’ve been given the opportunity to work on projects in many different sectors of society ranging from healthcare projects to mobile apps and large-scale hospitality game changers. Each brings new and exciting opportunities for me to apply my skills to different technical aspects of product development, keeping me constantly intrigued.
Occasionally, I talk to people that are interested in becoming developers but are too nervous to take the plunge and learn the new skill for various reasons. I’m constantly reminded that it doesn’t matter where you’ve come from or what field you were previously in, it doesn’t hurt to at least give programming a try. After all, I thought Computer Science was fixing/building computers. Little did I know I would become a developer by accident.
Wanting to help people has been one of my primary motivational drivers since I was a child — it was instilled in me as long as I can remember. I can attribute much of where I am today to that simple core value. One of the most attractive aspects that I saw in Helpful Human was the shared motivation I had with the rest of the team, which was to help and bring value to others through the work we do.
