Software Engineer's Journey to Freedom

Building on my three questions in the article (https://blog.aakibshah.com.np/the-three-questions-every-software-engineer-should-ask), here’s an additional bonus question

Bonus: How Can I Be Sure?

Nothing in life is certain—not in code, not in startups, not in career. But you can still give yourself the best chance of getting it right.

Double-checking your instincts is a good start. Treat ideas like prototypes: let them sit for a few days, iterate in your mind, and see what happens. Sometimes the idea fades like an abandoned GitHub repo. Other times, you can’t stop thinking about it—the mental equivalent of an unsolved bug you keep revisiting until it’s fixed.

That’s how you know.

One practical way to test this is to suspend reality for a moment. Forget your current salary, your financial situation, your job title. Imagine you already have £5 million in the bank. Then ask: would I still want to pursue this dream?

When you allow your brain to breathe without constraints, it starts working toward certainty. And that certainty—that quiet conviction—can change your life.

Why Don’t We Do It?

Caitlin once said she didn’t start her business because “it’s too hard to get to a place where you have enough money to just do it.”

That’s the biggest barrier for most engineers too. We tell ourselves the blocker is lack of funding, lack of contacts, lack of experience. But often, the real blocker is belief—the subtle idea that our dream is unrealistic.

In reality, sponsorship, partnerships, and brand alignment exist. In the tech world, it’s accelerators, open-source communities, and investors who are willing to back engineers with strong intent. But none of that happens if you don’t free yourself first.

To pursue your dream, you must free three things: your finances, your mind, and your idea.

1. Free Your Finances

For most people, the first argument against chasing a dream is money.

In tech, it sounds like:

“I need this salary to survive.”
“It costs too much to start something new.”
“I’ll lose years of income if I leave my job.”

But your job isn’t as safe as you think. To most employers, you’re valuable only as long as you help them generate profit. That’s not stability—it’s dependency.

The trap is selling time. Most engineers trade hours for salary: working harder, taking more responsibility, maybe even juggling side jobs. But time is finite—you hit a ceiling.

The alternative is buying time. Instead of selling hours, you sell outcomes: a working product, a system that scales, an automated pipeline, or even a business that earns while you sleep. Entrepreneurs design processes so growth doesn’t stretch them thinner—it makes them freer.

The first step is ownership. Own a piece of the value you’re building—whether it’s stock options, an open-source project with traction, or your own company. Ownership is freedom.

The second step is cutting costs. All those possessions—new gadgets, fancy cars, big houses—can trap you. If your dream really matters, be willing to strip down. Live with less, and you’ll gain the space to build more.

2. Free Your Mind

Here’s the thing: business and engineering are often simpler than people think. But people who haven’t done it love making it complicated.

Take a clothing brand, for example. Most would say, “I need a factory in China.” Someone else says, “I’ll buy a sewing machine and make a few designs myself.” Both are valid—but one has already started, while the other is still overthinking.

In software, this is the same as waiting until you’ve mastered every framework before shipping. The truth: MVPs matter more than perfect architectures.

Mindset is everything. Without it, every bug feels bigger, every deadline more impossible. With the right mindset, obstacles become puzzles to solve.

Think of it like food. Don’t say, “I’ll quit chocolate for a year.” Start with one day. Then another. Build momentum, iteration by iteration, commit by commit.

The right mindset blends optimism with realism. Be kind to yourself, accept that learning takes time, but bias yourself toward action.

Engineers who say, “I’m building a fashion brand,” “I’m promoting on Twitch,” “I’m launching a SaaS,”—they’re already moving. Action is proof of intent.

3. Free Your Idea

Once you’ve freed your finances and your mindset, only one thing remains: freeing the idea itself.

Dreams stuck in your head are just backlog items. To make them real, you need to ship.

The fastest way? Talk about your idea. Share it. Ask for help. In software, this is open-source thinking—your idea improves as others contribute. The benefits of sharing your dream almost always outweigh the risks.

It’s not about who you know. It’s about who you’re willing to ask for help.

That means:

Stating your intent clearly.
Talking about your dream openly.
Mentioning the challenges you expect.
Letting people with the right experience give feedback.

Don’t wait until the end of the build to seek help. In software, you need code reviews, pull requests, and feedback early—not after months of coding alone. The same is true for your dream.

Most who fail try to do too much alone. Most who succeed ask small questions, get small help, and build momentum.

You’ll regret it later in life if you had the dream but didn’t ask for assistance.

Conclusion: Free Yourself

Without freeing your finances, your mind, and your idea, you’ll struggle. Achieving a dream—whether building a company, launching a product, or pivoting into a new role—is never easy.

But once you stop selling time, adopt the right mindset, and let your idea breathe, everything changes.

The next step? Deciding when and how to quit your job, start your venture, and turn the dream in your head into reality. That choice—the leap from talking to doing—is the one that will change your life for good.