Knowing How
Ryan Singer on learning “apprentice-style”:
It’s really darn hard to take all the physical and mental processes going on when you do something like design an interface and boil them down to declarative statements like “do this or that.”
Both of us here at Miranj are self-taught. Sure we’re qualified software engineers, but user experience, product design, system architecture, progressive enhancement — the meat of what we do — are all things we learned by doing and not in the classroom. This is not to undermine classroom education, but there really is no substitute for getting your hands dirty. And what better than a mentor with years’ worth of dirty hands?
The Sweet Spot
I remember attending a guest lecture during my first year at Monash University. The speaker, who was an engineer (and an alumni), touched on a lot of things pertaining to ‘Engineering Profession’. One thing that stood out in particular was that most engineers she knew were working in fields different from what they had studied as an undergrad. Now I had already come across a lot of people with a disconnect between their profession and their educational training, so this wasn’t exactly a revelation. But while the lecturer’s motive might have been to highlight that engineering was more about problem-solving and real-world solutions than a specialisation in pure science, I realised something else. I could not help but remark the major overlap between people who’s work I admired and people who had switched career paths since college.
It is a long journey discovering what one is passionate about, good at and what earns them money. And it is the combination of these things — the sweet spot, if you will — that we’re hoping to achieve with Miranj.
Copyright Bud Caddel
We’ve started Miranj because we are passionate about design, building things, writing code and above all, experience — enjoying what we do. Backed by our solid understanding of the web, we’re good at simplifying user experience, designing clean interfaces, developing robust applications and of course, keeping our promises. Besides, people are willing to pay to bring their ideas to life.
As time goes on, we hope to continue growing our sweet spot. We wish to create more value for this world with people who have good taste, enjoy their work and are raring to take on the next challenge.
The journey of finding ourselves has been long, but we’re just getting started.