From dropping out twice to moving across the world alone

Hey PH :) I'm Vitalijus. Figured I'd introduce myself since I plan to stick around here.

I grew up in a small town in Eastern Europe. The kind of place where everyone follows the same path. Go to university, get a safe job, stay close to home.

I tried university. Twice. Left both times. Not because I couldn't do it. I just couldn't see where it was going. It felt like I was following a script someone else wrote.

So I taught myself to code. Built project after project on my own. Spent an entire summer sending out CVs. Eventually, somehow, IBM said yes.

Four years there. Two big projects. The first was managing infrastructure and migrating applications to Azure OpenShift for a Finnish city government. The second was building a procurement chatbot with a bunch of complex data integrations. Real systems, real users, real consequences if something breaks.

I learned a lot. How big systems actually work. How to build things that don't fall apart at 2am. How to read a codebase with a million lines of code that nobody wants to touch.

But I also learned what kills your energy. Our team had more managers than developers. The people writing the actual code were running on empty. Not because the work was too hard, but because the system around it made everything ten times harder than it needed to be.

I burned out. Simple as that.

But I had this rule I made for myself early on. Every year, do one thing that really scares you. Move somewhere new. Take on something you're not ready for. Say yes before you feel safe.

Each year I pushed that a little further.

This year I pushed it all the way. Quit IBM. Packed a bag. Moved to Vietnam alone. No job. No clients. No plan. Just some savings and the feeling that I'd rather figure it out on my own than sit in another meeting about a meeting :)

So here I am. Building on my own for the first time. Working with startups and founders directly instead of through five layers of corporate approval.

I love the stuff most people find boring. Web scraping, data pipelines, backend systems, cloud infrastructure, AI features. The messy, behind the scenes work that makes products actually run.

If you're building something and need a hand with any of that, I'm taking on a few small projects for free right now while I get started. Just looking for honest testimonials in return. DM me :)

Or just say hi. Happy to be here.