From studying business to becoming a Full Stack developer

For a long time I thought that studying International Business and Finance and working in software development were two completely different paths. As I moved forward with my degree, I was also discovering a passion I had carried with me long before: building things through code. At times I wondered whether at some point I would have to choose between one profession and the other, especially because I wasn’t studying anything directly related to technology. Today, while I’m close to finishing my degree, working in software development, building solutions for companies, exploring artificial intelligence, and constantly learning, I can say that I no longer see those two worlds as separate paths. In fact, one of the things I value most about my journey is precisely having learned to combine them.

Before the code

In 2021 I started studying International Business and Finance at Universidad Autónoma del Caribe. The choice made a lot of sense to me because I had long been drawn to financial markets, the stock market, investments, and, in general, everything about understanding how businesses work. I’ve always liked numbers, and during my degree I found a particular interest in topics like interest rates, simple and compound interest, amortization schedules, analyzing a company’s data, foreign trade, marketing, and management. I also discovered the areas I enjoyed less; the legal side was never a favorite of mine, while analyzing information, understanding how a company works, and thinking about how it can grow or improve always sparked far more of my curiosity.

My degree wasn’t a completely linear path. I started during the pandemic and had to study online for a semester. I later had to pause for another semester for family reasons, and eventually resumed my studies. Now, in 2026, I’m close to completing that cycle and graduating. Looking back, I find it interesting to think that while I was learning about business, finance, trade, and companies, I was also building, without knowing it, a second part of my professional profile that would end up making a great deal of sense years later.

My first contact with code

My story with programming began long before I entered university and, curiously, it didn’t start with a computer science class or a professional course. It started with Minecraft. When I was much younger I had the chance to manage and configure Minecraft Java servers. I started as a user on a well-known server, later took on moderation responsibilities, and eventually ended up managing another server where we reached around 50 active users. For about two years I kept coming in and out of that world, depending on my other interests and the stage I was in.

At the time I didn’t think I was learning programming. I just wanted to create things for people to enjoy on a server. I edited configuration files and worked with Spigot and Bukkit plugins, trying to modify behaviors, create new experiences, and get everything to work the way I wanted. What surprised me most was discovering that with text, configurations, and code I could completely reshape a digital environment. I could create something that didn’t exist before, test it, get it wrong, change it, and try again. And when I saw other people using something I had built, I felt a satisfaction I couldn’t yet explain. I think that was the first time I discovered that I truly enjoyed creating with technology.

Programming came back

After that stage I drifted away from programming for a while. I had other interests, football among them, and my focus kept shifting. Programming would appear, disappear, and later appear again. During high school I came into contact with it once more, and the curiosity that had been born years earlier woke up again. I even remember conversations with some friends who thought learning to program wasn’t especially useful for us, and that it would maybe be more important to be taught tools like Excel. I, on the other hand, had already experienced the feeling of being able to build something through code, and that made me see it differently.

In early 2023 something happened that ended up being a turning point. A friend told me he had bought a year of Platzi to study programming, and that motivated me to start seriously. At that moment I wasn’t thinking about dropping my degree or immediately becoming a developer. I just wanted to learn something I liked and that I felt could complement very well what I was already studying. I decided to start with web development because it seemed like a good entry point. I started from scratch with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, mainly using YouTube, and later bought my first course on Udemy, where I learned HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Angular, and Node.js. From there something quite common in the development world happened: one technology led to another, one project led to another, and one curiosity led to another. I kept buying courses, reading documentation, practicing, and building, until what was initially just a new skill began to become an important part of my professional life.

I never felt I was abandoning business

There’s something I think is important to clarify about my story: I never decided to leave business behind to become a programmer. My decision was much simpler. I wanted to learn something else I liked and that I thought could complement what I was already studying. That difference ended up being fundamental, because I never felt my degree was wasted time. On the contrary, the more I learned about development, the more connections I found between both worlds.

A developer can build a system, but understanding what problem a company has, how much time it consumes, how much it costs, what process can be optimized, what information it needs, and what impact solving that problem would have is also important. Little by little I began to understand that software doesn’t exist in isolation from the business. Behind an application there are users, processes, costs, needs, decisions, and goals. And that’s where I started to discover that my business background could become an important part of my profile as a developer.

The fear of not having the right degree

Despite all this, for quite a while I had a worry that I think many people can end up having when they enter tech from another path: I wondered whether companies would take me seriously as a developer without a professional degree in Systems Engineering or Software Engineering. I could program, build projects, learn technologies, and solve problems, but a question remained in my head: will it be enough?

For a while I thought the degree was maybe the missing piece I needed to truly consider myself a developer. Not because I believed my business degree had no value, but because I saw that many people in tech had followed an academic path completely different from mine. I was building my programming knowledge in a self-taught way, without a perfectly defined learning path and without an institution telling me exactly what I should study next. Fortunately, I never felt completely lost; I was very curious, I studied constantly, and every problem I ran into became an opportunity to learn something new.

A conversation that changed my perspective

In a conversation with Miguel Ángel Durán García, known as Midudev, someone I admire and consider an idol, I had the chance to talk about exactly that concern. I told him I was feeling a bit frustrated: I was a few months away from finishing my degree, I loved programming, and I felt that no company would look at me or take me seriously without a professional degree related to software.

The first thing he advised was that I finish what I was studying. And he told me something I wasn’t expecting: that I didn’t need to be a Software Engineering professional to be a good programmer, because in the end the degree is just a piece of paper; that if this was what I genuinely enjoyed and I did it well, that was what mattered most.

But what stuck with me the most was what came next. He explained something he had thought about quite a bit: that with the advance of artificial intelligence, companies are no longer going to look for people who only know how to program and nothing else, but for people who can also bring something different. And that this was exactly my case, since I came from business and finance. He gave me the example that I could aim for a solid IT profile inside a bank, among many other possibilities that open up when you understand the business and also know how to build the software.

That’s when I understood that what I saw as a disadvantage could be exactly that something extra. Beyond the advice itself, there was something that changed the way I was seeing my situation: he helped me understand that my degree could also be an advantage. Instead of trying to compete by looking like someone who had studied only systems, I could build a different profile. I could understand business and, at the same time, develop software. I could use one skill to complement the other.

The conversation made me see something I had been interpreting the wrong way until then. I was looking at my degree as the thing pulling me away from programming, when it could really become the thing that set me apart within it.

When did I become a developer?

For a long time I also didn’t know exactly when I could call myself a developer. I didn’t know whether to measure it by years of experience, by number of projects, by technologies learned, or by having a professional degree related to software engineering. It was a question I asked myself constantly because I felt I was still missing something before I could use that word with confidence.

I think that perception started to change when I began working on real problems. When someone brought me a concrete need and my first reaction was no longer to think I needed someone else to explain how to build it, but to think: “I know how to do this”. Maybe I didn’t know all the details right away, maybe I had to research an API, read documentation, or learn a new tool, but I knew I could find the path to build the solution. That’s when I understood that being a developer doesn’t mean knowing everything, but having the ability to understand a problem, learn what’s necessary, and turn an idea into something functional.

My first professional project

My first professional experience related to development was a freelance project for Fresquilla, a wholesale strawberry business in Barranquilla. The goal was to create a website for the business, and for me it represented a chance to put into practice everything I had learned up to that point. I was excited because I could finally build something for a real need and not just for a course exercise.

However, it was also one of my first big lessons. I knew how to program, but I still didn’t know how to fully connect with a client to understand their needs. I was too focused on putting my knowledge into practice and building something that would show what I had learned. Over time I understood that developing software isn’t only about writing code. It’s also about listening, asking, understanding, analyzing, and turning a business need into a technological solution. That experience helped me start shifting my mindset from “I want to build this” to “what does this person actually need and how can I help them?”.

From programming to solving problems

My evolution as a developer was mainly self-taught. I moved forward through courses, documentation, personal projects, practice, and communities. I also had the chance to get closer to large development communities and learn from people who constantly shared their knowledge. Along the way I worked with different technologies and built increasingly complete solutions.

I currently use technologies like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React, Next.js, Astro, Tailwind CSS, PostgreSQL, SQL, Supabase, Node.js, Express, and n8n on a daily basis, along with different tools related to artificial intelligence. I’ve also had experience with PHP, Laravel, Python, MongoDB, and NestJS. Over time, though, the list of technologies stopped being the most important thing for me. Frameworks change, libraries come and go, and tools evolve constantly. What really remains is the ability to solve problems, learn quickly, and understand which tool makes sense for each situation.

When business and technology started to connect

One of the things I’ve been able to confirm most during this process is how much having studied business helps me. I can now think about a solution from the technical perspective, but I can also understand what’s behind it from the business point of view. I can think about how to sell a solution, how to handle a negotiation, how to communicate with a client, how to analyze a process, how to identify opportunities, and how to talk about productivity, costs, results, and automation.

I feel like I understand two languages: the language of business and the language of systems. And when I can connect both, I have a different perspective for analyzing a need. I can understand the person with a business problem because I can also put myself in the shoes of someone who needs to improve their productivity, organize their processes, gain more visibility, or reduce repetitive tasks. In a way, having studied business let me be my own client before trying to solve other people’s problems.

Making the invisible visible

That way of thinking is precisely one of the foundations of what I’m building with Verlun. Originally I created a project called Quasar Design, which was much more focused on building websites. At that time there was also a certain insecurity behind the idea: I thought that if I introduced myself as someone studying International Business and Finance, companies might not see me as someone capable of creating software. That’s why I wanted to build a company around development and present myself as someone who could offer technological solutions.

Over time I understood that I could do much more than websites. This year I decided to turn that project into Verlun, with a broader focus on software solutions, automation, and technology for companies. The problem I want to help solve is making the invisible visible: processes that are disorganized, information that is scattered, tasks that consume too much time, communication problems, and productivity opportunities that often go undetected until someone stops to analyze them.

Automation is especially interesting to me because it can completely change how a person uses their time. A task that used to take 30 minutes can become a 5-minute process. The remaining 25 minutes aren’t simply time saved; they’re time that person can invest in something that truly adds value. That’s one of the reasons technology interests me so much: it’s not only about building systems because we can, but about using those systems so that people and companies can do their work better.

Artificial intelligence changed another part of the path

My relationship with artificial intelligence has also evolved quite a bit. I started getting interested in it around the end of 2023, when it wasn’t yet a topic absolutely everyone was talking about. At first I was fairly reluctant to use it for programming because I didn’t want a tool to end up thinking for me. I preferred using it to study, understand errors, research concepts, find logic ideas, or make sense of something I hadn’t managed to solve on my own.

But the technology started evolving quickly. More capable models, agents, and new ways of working with artificial intelligence appeared. Little by little I changed my position because I understood that I could use these tools to increase my productivity without giving up my own judgment. I currently use AI to write code faster, research, explore solutions, and speed up certain tasks, but I try to keep a very clear rule: I don’t want it to think for me. I want it to help me execute faster what I understand I need to build.

For me there’s a huge difference between using artificial intelligence as a tool and depending on it to know what to do.

I’m still learning

Today I’m close to finishing my degree in International Business and Finance and, at the same time, I keep studying web development, artificial intelligence, automation, and business. I also keep building projects. I’m working on solutions for companies and developing a WhatsApp-oriented CRM that aims to make it easier to manage client conversations using artificial intelligence as a first layer of support, capable of answering simple questions and escalating a conversation to an advisor when necessary.

I also created angel-library, a personal knowledge library that was born from a fairly simple need: I constantly accumulate information. Many times I know something works, I remember having seen or used it, but after a while I don’t remember exactly how to do it. So I decided to build a space where I could store technologies, concepts, resources, applications, and discoveries I find during my learning. But I also wanted to turn it into something that could be useful for other people, organizing it as a kind of learning path where each module can lead to the next.

In a way, this blog is born from that same need. I want to have a place where I can document what I learn, share experiences, record projects, and look back to understand how far I’ve come.

This blog is part of the path

I don’t want this space to be only a place where I publish tutorials or explain how a technology works. I want it to also be a record of my journey. I want to talk about web development, artificial intelligence, automation, business, products, projects, lessons learned, and also about the things that don’t go well.

Because when you’re constantly learning, it’s very easy to forget how far you’ve come. Something that seems simple today was once difficult. A technology I use daily today was once completely unknown to me. A problem I can solve in minutes today could once have taken me hours.

That’s why this blog represents more than publishing content. It represents having a space where I can see the progress of this whole journey. It’s a way to document what I know, what I’m learning, and what I still have left to learn.

It represents the path.

If you’re thinking about learning something new

If you made it this far and you’re studying something completely different from programming, but you want to get into tech, I want to tell you something from my own experience: don’t give up what interests you out of fear of not fitting the traditional profile. Dive into the field you chose, dive into technology as well, and look at how many great things you can create when you put the two together. Learn, build, get it wrong, and try again. I understand it can be frustrating to feel that maybe you arrived late or that your previous background has nothing to do with what you now want to do, but over time you may discover that this very combination is what makes you different.

It’s exactly the same advice Midudev gave me when I was in that position, and it’s what helped me see the union of two worlds as something useful when I was reading it the other way around.

Technology, to me, is like the color white in clothing: it goes with practically everything. You can pair it with business, finance, marketing, design, education, medicine, music, or practically any field. And when you combine two things you genuinely enjoy, you can end up creating something truly powerful that you probably wouldn’t have imagined separately.

And above all, don’t give up. There are a lot of people who never try out of fear of failing, but if you try and fail, you become someone brave with experience.

For a long time I thought that studying business and wanting to be a developer could be a disadvantage. Today I see it completely differently. I don’t want to be only someone who knows how to program. I want to be someone capable of understanding a problem, grasping the business behind it, designing a solution, and using technology to build it.

Maybe that’s the most important outcome of this whole journey.

I didn’t end up choosing between business and technology.

I learned to build a bridge between the two.