The games that barely ran

It was in 2008, the first computer I used was my father's laptop with Pentium III CPU, 256 RAM.

No Internet, no Manual, dad bought it from a pc shop that sold Japanese old laptops to people in Mandalay. Then, my dad taught me how to use it and play games on it. Red Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge is the first time I've ever played.

I always thanked my dad especially in my current adulthood because I didn't know even an old laptop such is so expensive during those times. Dad let me do what ever I wanted anyway.

Laptops during those times are so potato that even such a game like Red Alert 2 is too heavy for my dad's old laptop. Then, I played Age of Empires: II because my dad bought a CD in CityMart Supermarket 76th St Mandalay, Yangon, Burma, Southeast Asia.

It was a mystery for a 8 years old kid to understand what is written on a UI button, let alone understand the computer.

I kept asking my dad about how might it means again and again, then he bought me a pocket dictionary to learn myself and read about what I wanted to know. This is the time first I got introduced to learning another language other than native Burmese.

It was quite fascinating to play those games even though their graphics are poor and sluggish. I can feel their efforts to craft those artisanships. Playing those games marked my DNA with deeper interests in how computer programs work.

In 2013, I determined to join a computer university in Myanmar. I took care of all my studies because I cared so much to attend a computer university. Later, I joined University of Computer Studies, Mandalay. It was 2016, This is the first time I see computer professionals in person. It was so cool to see such amazing teachers from UCSM. To my experience, they are enjoying what they're doing for and taught the students with passion. I think my grit of doing what I love is inherited from them.

I first started learning Python Programming by myself. It was hard for me, I ain't lying. I had to spent 2 months to understand variables and conditionals well, just no one knew.

I met with many professionals, teachers, friends, senior students and other alumni at the university. My academic life at that time is not that interesting actually. I'm like an average student, mediocre scores and enjoying my student life peacefully with my friends.

Luckily, I got good marks in English in my sophomore year thanks to the games I played. My rector sent me to Singapore for ASEAN conference as Myanmar Representative. The below photo is taken at Singapore Polytechnic.

I remembered, it is the first time I saw how a digital payment works. One Singaporean friend treated me a drink but he paid with his mobile phone. I was amazed how it could be done in a breeze. It was the first time I saw Airplanes, Airports, and travelling people at the international Airports.

I couldn't do much in the conference because all I know is how to play video games just for fun. But, that trip has turned me to consider myself what should I do for the career. I began reading books and blogs after returning from Singapore since then till today. Now I have consolidated enough to discuss any topics anyone might ask, crazy huh.

Everything is normal when I back in the school. I was just getting along with my friends at the university. Later, covid comes in and our rector halted the exams because of the outbreaks in China and some students in our university are in panic mode because of the pandemic.

But I haven't seen most people in person again since 2020 covid period but we still talk online sometimes.

During 2020-2022, I was working freelance graphic designer after taking some courses in YouTube by investing all the course fees into WiFi Subscription. For me, WiFi is the game changer because it was quick to search and only the time is limit to get knowledge of what I wanted to know. I learned graphic design from scratch to marketable designs with WiFi. Yes, it was even hard and expensive for most people to get a good WiFi in Myanmar and it is 2020.

I earned in MMK around 40,000 Myanmar Kyat per design which was around $40 at that time, it would be 200,000 MMK in 2026 value. Life was really good. I buy courses, learn from the experts and the apply back in my designs. My UI/UX and animations now are based on that experience.

After wandering around with graphic design for like 3 years, I decided to switched back to programming because we can automate the things and it was boring to do the repetitive works. I started again with Html/Css and one of my friend taught me about ReactJS. It's like brainfuck for me to learn ReactJS. I did well spent at least 2.5 weeks just to understand react's hooks and custom hooks.

All I had is good enough internet to read the blogs and watch the YouTube tutorials. fascinating, huh. Later I did some freelance work for web, Ko Khun Lar Bway from Taungthutada is one of my first client. I've maintained that website since 2023. It took me and my friend to do together for that website 2 months, just for barely working website with students written codes and designs. Personally, special thanks to Ko Khun Lar Bway for the opportunity that helped me growth since then.

Then, in 2024, I got my first job as junior fullstack developer at a local startup. The founder, U Aung Myo, who is at that time trying to create a media platform, mentored me for the business thinking and supported all with he could. My first job was not just simple CRUD on dashboard. I had to learn real-time communications through web sockets and media streaming via MediaSoup. I had to grind just to understand the documentation in for about a month and those contributed me in later reading of documentations.

Later in 2025, I got a new job offer in Yangon, and migrated to Yangon for my career at SolaraTek, a software startup company. One of the founder, U Aant Kyaw, contributed me a lot in my career growth. My career progress since then is too massive for me. I got introduced to MacOS and AI in this startup. Below is me, at a coffee shop with my peers in Yangon, now a software engineering lead at a local startup in Myanmar, looks like a kid, haha.