Twelve-year-old Austen had aspirations of producing music. I even made it on Spotify! Yet, I ultimately decided to major in architecture. So, I attended Florida International University. That time was filled with design projects and rendering. In my final year, I did a semester of research. Having a growing interest in design automation, I studied tech. That research changed my perspective. Rather than becoming a traditional architect, I then aimed to revolutionize the field by designing its tools.

So, I laid the foundation for a startup. Needing to know software development, I started with C++. I found coding to be similar to the visual scripting I did in school with game engines. So, I picked up the basics quickly. Because I wanted to build quicker, my second language became Python. I had to learn more than that. I also learned about IDE's, Bash, I built pcs and even attended conferences.

Eventually, I took a year off to study computer science and engineering through MIT. This is where I learned about different types of memory, compilers, performance, algorithms, data structures, object oriented programming, Git, Github, SQL, Azure, HTML and CSS.

Post MIT, I was a changed man. I was like a padawan, wielding the force. Like a padawan, I wasn't a jedi. I still had training to do. The rest of my training involved more web dev and machine learning. So, I built a few websites and a neural net.

While I'm currently confident, I know I'll need to be a lifelong learner. The world is changing quickly and I can't wait to see what's invented!