January 2020. I moved from California to start a new job as an Operations Manager at a Residence Inn in Redmond, Washington.

March 2020. The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. I was placed on furlough shortly after.

April 2020. I took a part-time maintenance position at my apartment complex to pay the bills. My sole task was to sanitize door handles.

May 2020. Anticipating things wouldn't improve anytime soon, I quit to pursue programming.

The night I quit, I pushed my first GitHub commit.

I moved back to California to live with my parents. For the next year, I learned how to program following a $12 Udemy course on web development led by Dr. Angela Yu.

April 2021. I started a job as a Web Developer for Epimorphy, a biotech company designing biological age test kits.

Fast forward five years.

June 2026. I'm a Software Engineer at Stackline, a retail intelligence company helping brands expand their market reach, with a total compensation of $500,000.

That one course was the single best investment I've made.