Louie Caringal is a full-stack software engineer based in the City of Manila, Philippines.

Becoming a developer wasn't actually my first dream. Growing up, I wanted to be a pilot. I used to think my purpose was up in the sky, connecting people from every corner of the world. But life had other plans. My family didn't have the means to send me to pilot training, so I went with something more practical, a low-cost, high-demand college program instead. I took up Information Technology.

With whatever resources I had, I made the most of it, and somewhere along the way I actually started loving what I was building. Maybe the way I was meant to serve people wasn't from a cockpit, but through the digital solutions I could build for them instead.

I always try to be the best I can be at what I do, because that's how you actually deliver good solutions. Getting the environment, architecture, and quality right is always priority number one for me. And with AI being such a big part of how we build things now, I make it a point to actually use it well, whether that's for my own work or as a tool baked into whatever I'm building for a client. There's really no better time to lean into this than right now.