I want to start with something I don't see enough people talk about. Not the "I learned to code in 100 days" posts. Not the "here are 5 resources to get your first job" videos. I want to talk about what it actually looks like to get into tech when you have almost nothing working in your favor.
This is my story. And if you are reading this from a small town, with slow internet and zero connections in the industry — this one is for you.
It Started With a Simple Question
I have been around computers since I was a kid. Something about software always made me stop and ask one simple question: how?
How does this work? How did someone make this? How can a screen do all of this?
That curiosity never left me. I didn't know what software engineering was at the time. I didn't have a plan. I just had that question stuck in my head.
Then my older sibling gave me a direction. He told me that web development is a skill with a real future — that people make good money from it. That was enough for me.
W3Schools and a Friend Who Pointed the Way
A friend of mine, who was already in college while I was still in school, told me to start with HTML. There was no ChatGPT back then, no AI to ask questions to. It was just me, Google, and W3Schools.
HTML and CSS came naturally. It was fun. I enjoyed it. But I had a problem that I still deal with today — I learn fast, but I don't come up with creative ideas on my own easily. Once someone gives me a direction, I can execute. But starting from a blank page? That was hard.
And there was another problem. I was in a small town. There were no real developers around me. No one to look at, no one to ask, no one to say "you're on the right track." Just me figuring it out alone.
The JavaScript Spiral
A friend gave me a full web development course. I got through half of it, got to JavaScript, and kept going. But the course was already outdated by the time I was using it.
Then someone pointed me toward React. This was around 2021-22. I opened YouTube and got hit by what I now call the tutorial trap — clickbait thumbnails, shallow videos, no real depth. React felt impossible. I had no strong JavaScript foundation. Nothing was clicking.
So I quit React.
The Flutter Detour
Instead of giving up on tech completely, I pivoted. I picked up Flutter and spent six to seven months learning mobile app development.
And I actually built something. Before the official ChatGPT app existed on iOS or Android, I built my own app using the ChatGPT API. I used it personally for exam preparation. It worked. It was rough — I had no idea about security, so I just put the API key directly inside the app itself — but it worked.
I never released it. But I used it every day.
Looking back, that was a bigger deal than I gave it credit for at the time.
The Part Nobody Talks About
Here is what I have not told you yet. The part that made all of this much harder than it sounds.
I had no WiFi at home. In a traditional Pakistani family, getting a mobile phone as a young person was not easy. And once I had one, getting money for mobile data was even harder.
So here is what I did. I would go to my cousin's house where there was WiFi and download entire tutorials in one sitting. Then I would go home and study offline. When I absolutely needed the internet for something quick — checking a solution, loading a page — I would turn on my mobile hotspot on my 10 year old laptop, do what I needed in one or two minutes, then turn it off immediately to save data.
That was my setup. That was how I learned.
Graphic Design and the Long Pause
After Flutter, I stepped back from coding for a while and focused on graphic designing, something I had been doing on the side for a long time. It kept me connected to the creative side of tech without the overwhelm.
But at the start of 2025, something shifted. I decided to go back — for real this time.
One Year That Changed Everything
In the span of one year, I learned React properly. Then Next.js. I built websites. I worked with real clients. I learned about servers and databases. I switched to Linux. I kept going.
The kid who couldn't get through a React tutorial in 2022 was now shipping work for clients in 2025.
What I Want to Say to You
If you are reading this from a small town, from a country where opportunities feel far away, from a home where buying mobile data is a real sacrifice — I see you.
Believe in yourself. Not because it is easy. But because it is possible. I am proof of that.
And please, stop listening to the marketers and the social media gurus who promise you shortcuts and show you a version of tech that does not exist. They are selling you a dream that distracts you from the actual work.
The actual work is slow. It is boring sometimes. It means downloading tutorials at your cousin's house. It means turning your hotspot on for 60 seconds and then off again. It means building an app no one ever sees, just because you wanted to know if you could.
That is how it actually happens.
Keep going.