Software engineer
Rafael González
I write programs for a living. This site is a quiet record of that work — not a pitch.
About
When I was 12, I got fascinated by hacking. I wondered how computer malware worked and how it was created. That's how I introduced myself to the world of coding.
Fortunately, I lost interest in malware soon and focused on more constructive stuff. My first programs were Batch scripts, and then I began to study C++. I used to develop simple games using low-level libraries such as SDL and SFML. If I recall correctly, it took me a lot of time to fully understand advanced topics such as inheritance or polymorphism, as I learned by working on projects.
Later on, at around 14, I began to learn about web development. My stack back then was plain PHP, MySQL, HTML and CSS. No fancy frameworks. In fact, I don't even think that the popular frameworks we have today even existed, such as Angular, Vue or Laravel. I remember how much I struggled to abandon table-based layouts and use CSS to accommodate items on the page.
More than 15 years later, I'm a seasoned software engineer who has focused his career on building web-based products and has had the chance to work on many professional and hobby projects across the whole stack, from frontend to backend and infrastructure.