I build and lead remote engineering teams for US-based digital product companies - and I've been doing it without a degree, a local office, or a VC cheque since before remote work had a name.

I never followed the standard path.

College, corporate job, steady salary - I looked at that timeline early on and felt something large was missing from it (despite that path being the key way of succeeding in life, as outlined by my community).

What pulled me instead was "The Web", back when work related to it was still called "web design" and tools like Front Page and Dreamweaver were considered cutting edge... and even so, "working with computers" actually resonated to work related to operating systems.

I saw it as the future of how people would work, and I made a quiet decision that it would be my future too, long before working remotely was something anyone took seriously - at least where I grew up - as "web design" was something so extremely abstract that wasn't even considered an interest, let alone a earning skill.

Part of that pull was creative.

The early web had no ceiling on what you could build visually, which was for me very exciting...˜ Studios like 2Advanced were doing things nobody had seen before. That rebellious, creative energy felt like where I belonged - not inside a system, but building something outside of it.

Part of it was also a necessity... family hardship meant I needed my work to matter financially, and quickly (that's a long story).

What has stayed constant across twenty years is a specific instinct: when I see a process that could be automated or dramatically improved, I can't leave it alone. I start planning a solution almost involuntarily.