I was finishing a B.Tech in Electrical and Electronics when I realised the degree was teaching me to analyse systems, not build things people would actually use. The circuits made sense. The motivation didn't.

What pulled me away was simpler than I expected. I liked making things that worked for someone. Not in theory, in practice. I started picking up design almost as a side door out, sketching flows for problems nobody had asked me to solve.

Turns out an engineering brain is useful for design in ways I didn't predict. I think in systems before I think in screens. Most of my early work ended up being e-commerce checkouts, fintech apps, admin panels, the unglamorous middle layers where one wrong assumption breaks the whole flow.

Eight years and a few enterprise ERPs later, I co-founded Occasia. Different stakes, same instinct - build the structure first, then make it disappear into something that feels obvious to use.