I’m Mustafa Alkaysi. A passionate technologist who loves traveling, motorcycles, and basketball.

I love learning new things, challenging myself, and building projects. That’s probably the reason I took up Mechanical Engineering during college. Solving engineering problems felt like a game to me.

Growing up, I had a strong interest in computers, especially as the internet evolved. After college, I joined Deloitte Consulting and had the opportunity start getting involved on the software end. Initially, I mainly managed product implementations and tech strategy projects, using what I knew about computers and software to pick up things quickly. But I always felt like I was missing that engineering challenge. A few years ago I was leading a product implementation while learning full-stack on the side. I had the opportunity finally be hands-on during a challenging time on the project and immediately fell in love.

Since then, I dedicated myself to learn more about software engineering and full-stack development, progressing from vanilla Javascript, to Node.js, React, and now Next.js. I joined REI Copilot in my free time, a startup founded by a friend, where I gained invaluable experience in developing web applications and working with various components and libraries, including automated testing and UI frameworks like Tailwind. Working in that environment gave me autonomy to come up with an idea and implement it quickly.

Today, I’m building my own application to help people plan out their retirement journey. One of the biggest reasons I’ve wanted to learn programming is to have the ability to think of an idea and empower myself to build it.

The ever-evolving nature of software is exciting. Each day, I learn about new technologies and opportunities to apply them. I believe in Arthur C. Clarke’s quote: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," and software engineering exemplifies this concept perfectly.