I am Jesse Jones. Most people call me Jesse or even just Jess, to my annoyance. My journey with programming began in March of 2018 with my first Python "Hello, World!" program. From there, I explored Python further throughout the rest of high school, learning the basics and writing some real awful code. Over the course of 2019 and 2020, I wrote many programs that performed basic tasks, some time related, some basic converters. I called it the Omniprogram, as it was literally one giant file full of programs. It was great practice though, despite the cursed nature of my early coding.
In 2020, I started my undergraduate studies at Washington State University. As it was the time of Covid, I had to do my first year of Fall 2020 to Spring 2021 online. While the commute time of 0 was nice, it meant keeping up a will to continue. I however managed that quite well, knowing the work I needed to get done and doing it where most simply would've taken a gap year or mentally clocked out. Through these studies, I learned much in the way of computer functionalities, data structures, algorithms, code structures, ethics, and all the standard trimmings of a Computer Science Bachelor's program.
For my capstone project, I interned with Seasalt.ai to contribute to their Discord bot. I led a team of 4, using the AGILE workflow to develop and ship contributions to their production. I personally made the moderation feature that flags text transcribed as well as speech sent to its TTS. Much of this was accomplished by sending requests to OpenAI endpoints circa 2024 to detect NSFW speech and generate a reason as to why. Using these endpoints was fascinating, especially considering the technology was still novel back then. I also contributed a transcription page on the Streamlit page that is used to access audio transcriptions and audio stored in AWS S3 buckets. Twice, I led the group in presenting professional-grade presentations to the staff of Seasalt.ai as well as my colleagues. The project was a fun use of discord.js and Python to add to a real product in existence and showed my capabilities in the industry.
To cap it all off, I graduated Summa Cum Laude with a 3.98 cumulative GPA (literally 3 A-'s over the whole program) in May of 2024. The celebrations were excellent and made up for not having a standard ceremony when I graduated high school in 2020. Truly, a fantastic end to my undergraduate years. Then came the Interregnum.
When I graduated with my Bachelor's in hand, I entered the market with uncertainty but a belief that I could find employment somewhere with enough attempts and perseverance. Unfortunately for me, it was the worst possible time to get into job hunting since the Great Recession.
Between the mass-layoffs of the time and the rising AI hype machine, I was stuck in a market completely uninterested in hiring me. I tried over and over again, sending out sometimes over 10 applications a day, meeting silence or canned rejection emails. It was an intensely grueling period that taxed my mental fortitude to its limits.
But I didn't stop. I kept applying day after day, week after week, month after month. Facing down an ever worsening market and an endless tide of rejections. I just kept pushing, hoping for a breakthrough. By Fall of 2024, I had a moment of peace. It seemed I was finally succeeding. I got to the interview stage at Google and went through 4 interviews. It was tough but it seemed like it was going well. Then, of course, I was rejected. I didn't stop, even after such a huge failure.
All while I was doing this, I worked on my second programming language implemented in Rust. It was extensive and featured an interesting design. That project, writing stray bits of lore, and gaming were all that kept me afloat against the endless failures of my job hunt. But I still didn't stop.
By the start of 2025, I was in a deep pit of depression and hopelessness. I felt out of options and worse than any other point in my whole life. I had no job, no school, no future. I had been dead in the water for months with no hope. It was a time of despair unending.
In spite of the grueling anxiety and depression, I decided to pivot. Getting a software job was clearly out of the question in the market of that time, so I just needed to get any sort of job to at least create a baseline, both for experience and my own sanity. Thus, in early March, I began searching for jobs outside my field as well, only to face yet more rejection. There is a unique pain that comes with being rejected from even basic jobs at places like Taco Bell or McDonalds. Like, wow. That was a rough time. I even experimented with being a DoorDash driver for a couple weeks in February but stopped when it wasn't that profitable for my area.
Later March and April were tough. It was coming up on a year since I graduated school and I still had no success, not even with basic jobs. It was a deep darkness. Only the belief that it would eventually end kept me going at that point. Then, finally, a breakthrough.
In late April of 2025, I interviewed at Fred Meyer. I expected the usual rejection message following it but for once, I finally got an offer. The job had absolutely nothing to do with my field beyond the fact that I used computers to process people's orders before loading their cars with groceries but it was a job, and that was enough to bring back hope. I started the job in early May of 2025.
Finally, after literally 1300 failed applications over a year, I got a job. The worst of what I faced was finally over. I at last had legs to stand on. The job brought much needed stability and purpose to my life that I hadn't had since undergrad. I was still feeling a bit hopeless but I at least had coworkers to interact with and tasks to complete.
While getting a good workout lifting stuff and being on my feet for hours at work, I was able to rekindle my passion for computers. I returned to coding projects and tinkering in my spare time, such as writing 6502 assembly for the Commodore 64, or optimizing projects that I already made, as well as adding more to projects I had started earlier. I rediscovered why I went into the field in the first place: computers are simply cool.
With stability achieved, I decided to return to school to enhance my skills further while the market was still on fire. After being accepted to the WSU Master's program for CS, I geared up for the return.
By August of 2025, I began my graduate studies which were to run in parallel with my job. The Interregnum was officially over.
Though the first day had its doubts, I quickly got into the old groove of school again with a renewed sense of hope and drive that I hadn't felt in a very long time. I was successfully dual-wielding school and a job, a feat I had never accomplished before. What I faced was tough, really tough.
In just that one semester alone, during the later months, I was taking Compilers, Cryptography, and Advanced Databases. All three of those classes were challenging to most but I managed to excel in all three of them at once. That's not even the impressive part. I did this all while working tiring 34 hour work weeks to accommodate the chaotic and laborious holidays at my job and I only needed a single cup of green tea a few times throughout the semester. As it turned out, the Interregnum gave me the ability to endure a lot because at least this work was for a purpose and didn't just feel like aimless wandering.
Then came the Spring Semester of 2026. While it was easier at work because of the holidays being over, I still had 3 difficult classes to contend with: networks, embedded systems, and advanced machine learning. This stew of esoteric math, gruelingly difficult labs, and extensive projects made for a difficult but enjoyable semester of many new concepts to assimilate. I now know how machine learning works, how microcontrollers function in embedded systems down to their boot sequence, and how the Internet itself fits together, all incredibly useful information.
Now, it's 2026 and I'm halfway through my Master's with a 4.0 cumulative GPA. Despite the raging fires consuming the market, I am optimistic about eventually being able to use my abilities in a job where my skills are valued. I will likely go into embedded systems, network engineering, compilers, or cyber security, as those are all fields I find really fascinating. These fields would also be quite practical and would distinguish me from a generic web developer in the hopefully less hostile market to come in 2027.
Ignoring my history with computers and my career I'm slowly developing, I also write sci-fi lore, play chill video games, and do much pondering on the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. Did I mention I can calculate a day of the week from any input date you give me? Yeah. That's a fun party trick.