How I Got Engineer Position at 18

The Beginning

I still remember the day my dad walked through the door with a brand new Cross-CB96T. I was maybe five years old, still in kindergarten, and I had lost my mind watching TV commercials for months. There was this game something about attaching it to a game console and I needed it. Needed it the way only a stubborn kid can need something.

My parents probably thought it was just another passing phase. Maybe it was. But that little grey phone with its tiny screen became my entire world.

I played everything on that thing. Super Mario was the one that stuck with me the most sending that little plumber jumping across blocks, dying a hundred times on the same level, not caring at all. Something about making that character move, making something happen on that screen it just clicked.

The Question That Changed Everything

Wait, how does this even work?

Years passed. I grew up in Indonesia, where internet cafes we called them warnet were everywhere. They're a staple of Indonesian life affordable, accessible, the place where kids like me spent afternoons after school. I also discovered playstation rental shops. Before every Indonesian household had a PS, these rentals were huge. Families would rent consoles by the hour, kids crowding around a TV in a small shop, taking turns. It was social, it was cheap, and it was magic.

And through all those hours of gaming at the warnet, at the playstation rental, on that old phone I kept asking myself the same question:

How does this actually work? How does a phone connect to a console? How does pressing a button make something move on the screen?

The curiosity never went away. It just sat there, waiting.

The YouTube Video That Started It All

Then came the day I finally had my own laptop. I'd saved up or gotten it as a gift I don't even remember exactly. What I remember is opening YouTube and scrolling through the homepage. Most videos didn't catch my eye until one title popped up:

"How to make a game with Java"

I stared at it for a second. Java? That's where I live! I grew up on Java island, in Indonesia. Whatever this video was about, it had to be relevant to me, right?

I didn't know Java was a programming language. I didn't know anything about coding. I just thought, "Hey, this is about Java. I'm from Java. Maybe I can understand this."

I clicked it.

And just like that, everything started to make sense.

The Struggle That Actually Taught Me

The only problem was my laptop. It was old, slow, barely functioning. I couldn't actually finish the tutorial. The screen would freeze, the code wouldn't run properly, frustration built up every single time.

But here's the thing I didn't realize back then while I was struggling with that broken laptop, I was already learning. Every error message, every syntax I typed wrong, every line of code that didn't work it was all programming knowledge sinking into my brain without me knowing.

The Opportunity

Fast forward a bit. I went to vocational high school, the kind where you learn practical skills and can jump straight into the workforce after graduation. No extended university years, no delaying the real world. Just straight into finding a job.

And that's exactly what I did.

I applied to United Tractors. Big company, heavy equipment, the kind of place that sounds intimidating for an 18-year-old kid. But they saw something in me. Maybe it was the persistence, maybe it was the willingness to learn, maybe it was that weird background of a kid who clicked a YouTube video just because of where he lived.

They gave me a chance.

Six months of training. Six months of learning the real stuff, not just YouTube tutorials on a broken laptop. Six months of preparing to actually build something in the real world.

Then I dove in.

Where It Led Me

That curiosity about why a phone could connect to a console? It led me here. To writing code. To building things. To sitting in interviews at 18 years old, answering questions I once could only dream about understanding.

And to think it all started with a tantrum over a phone commercial and a YouTube video I clicked just because of where I live.

This is just the beginning of my story. More to come