How I Ended Up Programming from Cambodia
In 2018, I lost my job, went travelling in Southeast Asia, met my future wife and ended up teaching English in Cambodia before finding my way back into programming.
In 2018, my job at Squint Opera came to an unexpected end. So I used what savings I had left to buy a plane ticket to Thailand and spend four weeks travelling around Southeast Asia. Because why not? On my first night, I met the woman who is now my wife. We spent most of those four weeks travelling together, and when I returned to England, I decided to move to Cambodia to be with her. I'd hoped to carry on programming remotely, but was struggling to get onto Upwork. I just wanted to make the move happen, so I ended up teaching English in Siem Reap instead.
When COVID hit in 2020, I had more time to get back into coding. I remade a visualiser from my first year at university and started experimenting with reusable code, tools and architectural ideas I'd picked up from developers earlier in my career. They'd inspired me to think more about writing code the "proper" way, building things I could reuse rather than starting from scratch every time. Eventually, some people I'd met through a local digital nomad group helped me get onto Upwork. After a few short contracts, I landed a longer one with Peaksel. My first proper remote programming job from Cambodia.