The Backseat Wasn’t the Destination — It Was the Starting Line
Seattle. 2018.
Riyadh's car smelled like early mornings and too much coffee. He knew the shortcuts through downtown by heart. He didn’t need GPS to get to Amazon’s office tower or Microsoft’s satellite campus.
He wasn’t a tech worker. He just drove them to work.
But in those short rides, something started to shift.
“I’d pick up these engineers,” Riyadh recalls, “and they’d tell me about what they were building… and what was burning them out.”
They didn’t know it, but they were planting a seed.
“You Should Be in Tech Too”
It came up more than once.
You’re sharp. You should learn to code. You’d be good at this.
Riyadh smiled. Said thanks. But didn’t believe it.
“I didn’t grow up around computers. I didn’t know anyone in tech,” he says. “Honestly, I just didn’t think I was cut out for it.”
So he kept driving.
The Shift
It wasn’t one big moment.
It was more like a series of little ones. Conversations that stuck. A growing curiosity. A sense that maybe he’d outgrown the job he’d gotten too good at.
Eventually, he found Skillspire’s Data Analytics course.
Evening classes. Weekends. It fit around his schedule.
“It didn’t feel like a giant leap. It felt like a small door cracking open.”
The Work Nobody Sees
Learning something new after years away from classrooms wasn’t easy.
Balancing bootcamp with work was even harder.
But something about data clicked. The logic. The structure. The stories hidden in numbers.
“It was the first time I saw a future I wanted—and believed I could actually reach it.”
And Then… Offers
Riyadh doesn’t like bragging, but the truth is: he didn’t land a job. He landed multiple six-figure offers. Tech companies that once felt distant were now calling him back.
One of them was a short walk from where he used to park and wait for fares.
He Doesn’t Drive Much Anymore
Not because he has to stop — but because he’s somewhere else now.
Not just in his career, but in how he sees himself.
“I didn’t think someone like me would ever be here,” he says.
He’s still the same guy who once knew every Starbucks in downtown Seattle.
But now he knows SQL, Python, and Power BI, too.
And that quiet confidence?
He earned that — the long way.
Not a Lesson. Just a Life That Shifted.
There’s no moral to this story.
Just a reminder that the path into tech doesn’t always look like you think it will.
Sometimes it looks like a guy behind the wheel, listening.
Until one day, he realizes he’s ready to take the driver’s seat in his own life.
Watch Riyadh's interview
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