Hello, my friend. Let me share my story with you. It’s a bit atypical, but I think it’s worth sharing.

It all started in the late summer of 2014, when a friend of mine invited me to his Computer Science Bachelor Thesis presentation. After he successfully presented his thesis, he mentioned to me that his university offered evening courses in Computer Science for a Bachelor of Science in IT Engineering. I had been thinking about going back to school since I finished my previous Bachelor’s degree in Hospitality Management at GIHE. It has been some time that I have been considering if I was really happy at work. Did I make an impact, I didn’t believe so, and wanted a challenge, something new.

I had considered doing an MBA or some kind of management-oriented training, but my passion has always been with computers. Since I was younger than 10 years old, I have been using computers, and when I was 14, I installed my first Linux distros. I started with Gentoo, then tried Slackware, and eventually settled on Ubuntu. Since then, I’ve always been tinkering and enjoying every moment with computers.

But, to be honest, I had been feeling bored lately. I would spend my nights and days installing back-to-back Linux distros, tweaking files, and trying to automate and improve my daily workflow. It was all a bit unproductive, and I was starting to feel like I needed a change.

One day, after my holiday plans failed, I was particularly bored, and frustrated. You know the feeling, when you’re at home and don’t know what to do? The internet is too wide, the apartment is too messy, and your friends are not around to chill. I had nothing to stimulate or energize me that day, and it was then that my friend’s words came back to me: “You can actually get to study your all-time passion.” That thought made me think, wonder, and dream.

And so, I made an impulsive decision. I decided to enroll in the evening courses in Computer Science. I stormed out of my apartment and rushed to the university’s admissions desk, determined to take action and do something that would keep me busy for a little while. I had literally no idea how much that decision would change my life.

In the beginning, I had no idea how to code. I had no idea how the “cloud” worked, and I had never even heard of PCB prototyping hardware. But most importantly, I didn’t know how much I would love all of this. It was a bit overwhelming at first, but I quickly realized that I was in the right place.

The courses were challenging, but I loved-hated every moment of them. I was learning something that I had always been interested in and had a better understanding of it. I had a great class, that became my friends. I was fascinated by the things I was learning, and I wanted to know more. I started to code for fun, especially in Python, and I’m currently learning Rust, which is something really new, but I can only say subjectively, it’s an awesome language. I even started to prototype and sketch PCB and code on microcontroller for some of my home projects. Words I’ve never thought or heard of, like Terraform, Terragrunt, Helm, ArgoCD, Python, Cloud, Infrastructure as Code, Rust… And the list goes on, and all have become a part of my daily vocabulary.

Since then, I’ve done some work as a Software Developer. Indeed I enjoyed it, but then I got the amazing opportunity to move to the “Cloud”, as DevOps or with the fancy accronym SRE (Site Reliability Engineer). Doing something that I did not know existed and that I love it even more, than programming. It’s been a journey, and I’m still learning every day, and still have a lot to learn. Learning everyday something new, and still after all these years, I wouldn’t change a thing.

Looking back, I can’t believe how much my life has changed since that day when I was feeling particularly bored. Enrolling in the evening courses in Computer Science was the best decision I have ever made in my whole personal and professional life.

Today, I am living a dream. A dream that I did not even know I had.

TLDR

in 2014 this is me

• I did not know how to code, in any language, as Microsoft Excel VBA isn’t considered as one…
• I had no idea how a “cloud” worked, or was, or even existed…
• I couldn’t imagine PCB prototyping hardware was accessible, even less for me…
• I never heard about ‘ricing your system’, WOW, this is my daily bread…

and now

• I code for fun or to automate my flow firstly most in python but today I am into rust…
• I prototype/sketch PCB and code microcontroller for a few home projects.
• I enjoy reading code on GitHub, SourceHut…
• I am looking for an open source project to contribute to, and become part of the community…

Nice to e-meet you, my fellow internet traveler, thanks for stumbling on my page, and reading about me.

This is me, Francesco (you’ll find me around with my alias chess7th)