In 2014, I started a Bachelor in Electronics (EE). Cool degree on paper, terrible degree in practice. Essentially learned things that I didn’t know how to use and where to apply. Lots of wasted time imo. Main takeaway was I learned how to think analytically.
In 2018, after a subpar undergrad but a great internship with a great recommendation, I started trying to find a trainee-ship for the next year, to work while studying. Went to a drone company I won’t disclose the name of. Had a great interview with the tech guy, then comes in old white ceo, who completely torpedoes the interview and starts asking me about my origins (crazy). I’ve experienced casual racism before ofc, I’ve experienced looks, I’ve experience “you’re one of the good ones”. But never had I experience someone literally feel like what I have to bring to the table is worth nothing at the sight of my skin color lmao. After this debacle was over, I really felt it. L’esprit shonen. I’d just endure, grind harder, prove them wrong. I decided to move to another city, university that was unrecognized by the state but promised an alternative way of functioning. Project based, no bullshit, just do stuff and learn as you do. My strong belief was that if I have to find a job, it’d be because I know how to do stuff more than the name on the door I came out from. (spoiler: semi-based take). Found my way to work 3 days a week in a start-up (embedded virtualized systems) and learned a big deal of things about good practices from great people I’m grateful I’ve been working with. Long commutes, stressful deliveries, but I genuinely enjoyed structured code/project management methods. Shipped a partially featured virtualized STM32F4 in 4 months. Recommendation letter hit hard back then. Money was horrendous but as a newcomer you take what you can get and you make the most out of it. But money being horrendous is why I started researching “passive income” and “how to be rich in 20 years” and “what to invest in”. I started with ridiculous leverage day trading and ramped up from $2k to $40k back to $0 in one day. Decided this wasn’t for me. Started investing in medical cannabis listed companies. Made some money there but nothing serious. I also had nothing to invest tbh lol. I then stubbled upon the Bitcoin/Ethereum/Litecoin trinity (but this will not be expanded on here).
In the summer of 2019, after a year in the project-based-learn-a-lot-do-stuff master’s and working at Hiventive, I did a summer internship @Ingeniariuslda in the @robotcraft6 program. Portugal was great, decided to make myself happy and wen to a student villa with individual rooms, nice pool, nice gym, nice cinema room. Big group of intern, project seems quite trivial now but showed to be challenging for most (they were mostly 2nd/3rd year in uni). Build a robot - has to solve a maze - you get the hardware and the instructions. Enjoyed every bit of it. Got me hooked on robotics. Fast forward to september 2019, I moved on from the project-based-learn-a-lot-do-stuff master’s . The school was going through restructuring and the program for the second year just seemed like a duplicate. At the time I started doing random stuff on github and learning by just trying and contribute, posting small projects I was doing etc, had a lot of confidence. Now that I knew how to “do stuff” I thought the smart play was to go back to a “big name on the door” school and basically enjoy the best out of both worlds. Applied, got accepted. @CentraleNantes was the 4th ranked eng. school in the country at the time. I was back to theoretical classes, but everything seemed… clearer ? I knew why we were learning the things we were learning, and how to apply them. Found struggle in the way the control theory classes were structured (bro needs to explain better why the fudge we need a nyquist diagram). Everything embedded was a walk in the park and I could really sit down with the theory we were applying. Looking back, I could’ve participated more in the whole student life experience and join the robotics club, participate in the robocup and all, but the only interactions I had with other people were through the basketball team (one of the best basketball years i’ve had, ever). Skipped tons of classes out of “optimizing time and mental health” because I had a competitive advantage, and missed out on lots of human connections. It is what it is.
2020, what a great year for everybody, right ? I was just doing my thing, turned some big school projects into research, playing ball, working on some personal projects to hone my skills. Got asked if I wanted to do my second year abroad and started an application to join @UTokyo_Komaba_E for the first semester, followed by @jouhouken for the second - all that with a phat scholarship + salary + benefits combo. Basketball team was out to play in the final phases of a national championship, grades were solid. And then COVID happened lmao. Blessing in disguise ? I got more time than ever to get into open-source robotics, building small modules and libraries for fun. Creating on Github really started to make sense. 2021, had to find a plan B for the Tokyo debacle. They offered me a fully remote unpaid semester, and I was like… no ? Opened google, checked “robotics hubs” in Europe. Found that @CityofOdense had a unexpectedly nice robotics hub. Looking back, not that unexpected as they host @MobileIndRobots and @Universal_Robot, companies that exited for $200M+ . I joined Coalescent Mobile Robotics, founded by a driven CEO that got fired from her old job for her (I assume) fiery, straight to the point, no bs attitude (I love her). Investments came in from a MIR founder and some other guys. They started with 2 people in a garage, I joined when they were 4. I’ll never be grateful enough for the trust she put in me. This was supposed to be an internship but showing you can do stuff gets you to be trusted with things. While @centralenantes thought that I was interning for 6 months, I got a raise and a full time employment contract before the official termination of the internship lmao. Denmark was great. I got to meet wonderful people at work and outside. Found great balance in grinding and enjoying, had great freedom of creative choices (well, with some fights sometimes), made lifelong friends and connections. Heart definitely belongs there and not in France (sorry France, they made me feel like I belonged there and you never did). Worked on that damn Serena robot for a year and a half to finally put her in a supermarket where it was moving goods from the warehouse section to the alleys, all of that around real people (as someone responsible for navigation, what a terrifying feeling). As of now the robots are still working in the Bilka store in Odense, Denmark.
End of 2022, as the project reached some sort of stability on many sides and we were just tweaking things here and there and doing customer support and field engineering, I decided to end things there. I got 3 raises at CMR and support from everyone, I bawled my eyes out at some very motivating/encouraging/sweet words from the CEO (did I mention I really love her?) as I signed the offer letter to continue my journey at @tiiuae. Denmark was already paying me an unholy amount of money compared to what I could ever expect from France, but holy shit was I not ready for Abu Dhabi lmao (spoiler: it’s still not better than USA dev money). Sacrificed and left behind a lot, yes the job is not as easy as “sit down and code”, but I’ve so far gotten a lot back from it. Travelled to Tokyo, regular visits at @caltech, no capital gain/income taxes… It’s now the end of 2024, and for the last two years I’ve clicked like a maniac on my ledger to farm airdrops as a 5-11 job, and didn’t do much coding on the side. I did receive mid 6 figures of airdrops in the meantime though. I did build trackdrop.xyz and etherspawn.xyz, I am building @drpxbt. But it’s not enough. It’s time to start being an Indie Dev and deploy things that are useful and make money. It’s time to read The Indie Maker Blueprint, it’s time to start the @udacity blockchain dev course, and it’s time to ship products. — FYI I don’t care if you think this is cheesy I enjoyed writing it lol.
