The Second Act

So there I was, head over heels in love with software engineering. The Aerospace degree was just paperwork at that point. I had my portfolio, my GitHub, my first full-time job at Bolt.Earth. The proposal had been accepted. I was marrying my love.

But here's the thing about love that they don't tell you: it doesn't always go the way you planned.

The Honeymoon Phase (Sep 2021 - Apr 2022)

When I joined Bolt.Earth in September 2021 as a junior engineer, I thought I had it all figured out. I was going to build world-class EV charging infrastructure. I was going to learn at scale. I was going to become the best engineer I could be.

My first month, I got a raise. Not because of some grand negotiation, but because I shipped features faster than expected. I was hungry. I was still in that phase where every problem felt like a puzzle to solve. Every line of code felt like I was building something that mattered.

By April 2022, I got another significant jump with my first taste of variable compensation. I was leading projects, becoming the go-to person for critical systems. The money was good. The work was interesting.

This is the part of every love story where everything feels perfect. You're learning, you're growing, you're in sync with your partner. I was convinced this was it. This was the endgame.

The Reality Check (Apr 2023 - Apr 2024)

By April 2023, I'd reached senior engineer status. The variable bonus from my previous package had vested—real money, exactly as promised. Everything was working.

But something shifted.

I started noticing things. The org was growing. More processes. More meetings. More layers between me and the founders. The architectural decisions I used to make alone were now being discussed in committees. The features I wanted to build were being prioritized by product managers.

It wasn't bad, exactly. It was just... different. I wasn't falling in love with new problems anymore. I was optimizing existing ones. I was a senior engineer in a growing company, which meant I was valuable, which meant I was also—quietly—replaceable.

This is the part they don't prepare you for in those love stories. When the initial spark fades and you realize you're in a relationship, not a romance. When you have to actually choose to stay, not just drift.

I started asking myself the dangerous question: What if I could feel that first-date spark again?

What if I could go back to that feeling I had in college—sitting for 2 days calculating coefficients, then writing a 15-minute program that did it all? What if I could work on something from absolute zero? Write the first lines of code? Make every architectural decision?

At Bolt, I was a craftsman in someone else's factory. What if I could build my own factory?

The Breakup (Feb-May 2024)

Then Bolt announced financial troubles. The ship was taking on water.

I got laid off.

A few weeks after leaving Bolt, my manager called me. She's a friend of a founder working on financial document processing using AI. He wanted to talk.

When I spoke with the founder, we talked about the idea. He was excited about it. The clients were excited about it too. And as he described the problem, something clicked. It wasn't just the idea—it was that I was curious about it. Curious about the approach. Curious about the system. Curious about how AI could actually solve this.

The offer was a significant step down. A major pay cut.

My parents weren't thrilled. My wife—we'd gotten married just a couple of months earlier in February—wasn't thrilled either. Real, justified concerns about starting our new life together and me taking a massive pay cut to join a startup that might not exist in a year. But despite all that she had always encouraged me and stood by my side.

Here's the thing: I was curious. And curiosity, I learned, is a better reason to say yes than safety ever is.

So I said yes. Again.

The Reality of Starting Over (May - Sep 2024)

From May to September 2024, we were building the product and delivering to clients. It wasn't abstract work—we had real customers using what we built. We were also building a few POCs for clients who were interested in what we could do.

Behind the scenes, the founder was in talks with clients, showing them demo POCs. Some were converting. Some were just exploring. But the important thing was: this wasn't a barebones idea anymore. It was becoming real.

I was writing code that mattered. The decisions I made weren't getting debated in committees. They were being made and shipped. If something needed fixing, we fixed it. If a client needed something, we built it.

This is what I came for.

When Love Pays You Back (Oct 2024)

Five months in, my salary received a significant boost.

A major raise. While the company was still early. While we were still figuring out which clients would stick and which would move on.

The founder looked at what I'd built and said: "I need you to stay. I need to lock you in before things get hectic."

This is when I realized something about the relationship: it wasn't one-sided anymore. I wasn't just pursuing love. Love was choosing me back.

The structure included both base compensation and variable components. The variable would vest eventually but when was still a question at that point in time.

For the next nine months, nothing changed on paper. But everything was changing behind the scenes. The founder was closing deals. More clients were signing on. The product was becoming something that people actually depended on.

I was shipping. Building. Delivering.

This is the unglamorous part of the love story. The part after the proposal where you're just... doing the work. Showing up. Proving it's not just infatuation.

The Validation (Jul 2025)

The company closed a seed funding round in July 2025.

Suddenly, everything shifted. My compensation jumped substantially. The market had validated the business. We had customers. We had revenue. We had institutional investors saying "yes, this matters."

And the founders were saying: "We're keeping you. Whatever it takes."

This wasn't just a job anymore. This was real.

The Variable Pay Moment (Oct 2025)

In October 2025, one year from when it was promised, a significant portion of my variable compensation vested.

Here's what mattered: they didn't just pay the base amount I was promised. They paid a meaningful premium on top—a multiplier that reflected my performance and the company's success.

I got paid this in October—months after I'd already received the post-funding salary adjustment. So technically, I was getting paid for work I'd already been "rewarded" for with the earlier raise.

That premium wasn't a negotiation. It was the founders saying: "You delivered so much value in these months that we're paying you extra, just because."

This is what happens when you actually build something real. When you don't just talk about impact—you ship it.

The Bangalore Move (Nov 2025)

Then came the final piece. In November 2025, I relocated to Bangalore to Neurofin's operations center.

My compensation jumped significantly, with a new structure that reflected both base and variable components.

From that initial offer to this point was substantial growth.

Sure, Bangalore commands higher compensation than remote work. But that's not why I moved. I moved because the operation was real now. We had customers. We had revenue. We needed to scale. And I wanted to be in the room where the scaling happened.

That phone call offer had turned into something I never could have negotiated. It just... happened. Because I built something real.

The Arc

When I look back at the journey from Aerospace → Software, and now from Bolt → Neurofin, I notice the same pattern:

I didn't choose software engineering because it made sense on paper. I chose it because I fell in love with the feeling of a 15-minute solution to a 2-day problem.

I didn't choose Neurofin because the money made sense. I chose it because I was curious. Curious about the idea. Curious about the system. Curious about what we could build.

And in both cases, the money came after I'd already committed. Not as the reason, but as the consequence.

At Bolt, I was competent. At Neurofin, I became essential.

The difference is subtle, but it matters. Competence gets you paid. Essential gets you loved.

What I Tell Myself Now

If I could talk to myself in February 2024—right after I'd gotten married, right before I got laid off—I'd say:

You're going to be scared. You're going to doubt this. Your wife will doubt it. Your parents will doubt it.

But here's what I know now: curiosity is a compass. It points toward the things that matter to you, even when they don't make sense on paper. When a founder calls you excited about an idea, and you feel that spark of curiosity light up inside you—that's worth listening to.

You're going to feel that spark again at Neurofin. Over and over.

And the money? The money will follow. Not because you're a good negotiator. Not because you asked for it. But because you built something real, and real things have value.

Don't optimize for the pay cut. Optimize for the curiosity.

Choose the work that makes you want to understand how it works. Choose the problem that makes you think about it when you're not supposed to. Choose the company where you're essential, not just competent.

The rest will figure itself out.

The Love Story Continues

I'm at my current level now. My role has evolved from writing all the code to enabling others to write code. I'm making architectural decisions that will echo through years of future systems.

But I'm still the one in the room when things break. I'm still the person who understands the entire system. I'm still essential.

And that—more than any salary number—is what makes it love.

The story isn't over. In fact, I think it's just getting started.

Because I learned something by taking a substantial pay cut: sometimes the best things in life are the ones that don't make sense on paper. They make sense in your gut. They make sense in your curiosity. And that's enough.