In 2020, I graduated with a degree in Civil Engineering. For the next two years, I worked in the field, wearing a hard hat, staring at blueprints, and feeling like my soul was slowly draining away. I was doing exactly what I was “supposed” to do because I had spent four years earning that degree. I felt the crushing burden that if I didn’t stick to Civil Engineering, I would be a failure.
Then, I made the best decision of my life: I quit and did career pivot.
I moved into software, landing a role at Infosys. But I soon found myself on the “bench”, a place where you sit, wait for a project, and watch your skills atrophy. By 26, I had a gap, a feeling of being behind, and a heavy dose of imposter syndrome. I was ashamed to look at my peers. I felt like I had wasted my prime years.
But looking back, I realize something: I wasn’t failing. I was liberating myself.
Career Pivot: You Are Not Your Degree
We are always taught that our life is a straight line: Degree → Job → Career. But that’s a lie. Your degree is just a piece of paper, not a life sentence.
When I was stuck on the bench in 2024, I was terrified. But I realized that I am the hero of my own movie. You forget it sometimes, but you are always in control. If the scene you’re in sucks, you can rewrite the script. You don’t owe your life to the path you chose at 18. You have the total power to pivot careers, to start over, and to reinvent your entire skill set at any moment.
From “Bench” to “Builder”
Instead of letting the “bench” define me, I decided to stop waiting for someone to give me a project. I started building my own. I took the technologies I was once scared of – AI agents, backend microservices, and Voice AI – and I started building in public.
You can explore my full portfolio, including live demo videos and the source code for every project mentioned below, on my GitHub at github.com/vishalsingh2972
My project portfolio became my new resume after the career pivot:
Healthcare AI: I built Telugu Thodu and Dear Comrade to solve accessibility gaps for my own family, mastering voice-to-text and empathy-driven design.
Civic Accountability: My latest project, Project Dhurandhar, is an enterprise-grade auditing platform. It leverages a 100% sovereign Indic stack (Sarvam AI) to allow citizens to audit municipal budget discrepancies via WhatsApp voice notes. The project recently went viral on X, hitting over 118K views in 24 hours.
Infrastructure Mastery: I’ve engineered complex pipelines like Saral-BE (Instagram hashtag ingestion) and Research Saathi (Multi-Agent systems), forcing myself to master asynchronous queues, Redis, and idempotent architectures.
Autonomous Commerce: With Late Night Bites, I pushed into autonomous agentic commerce, and with Kisan Samman, I tackled multilingual voice-first agritech.
Real-time Systems: I built SystemDesign-AI to allow developers to practice and visualize architecture in real-time, along with Namma MCP for localized multi-turn voice conversations.
The Power of “Building in Public”
I didn’t wait for permission. I didn’t ask if I was “qualified” to switch from Civil Engineering to AI Engineering. Rather, I just shipped the code.
The results speak for themselves: I grew a 22K+ community on X and LinkedIn from scratch. I’ve secured brand deals with tech giants like Tencent, and most recently, I was contacted by a software engineer at Google to collaborate on web development projects, a huge milestone that proves the “bench” is a long way behind me.
The “Burden of 4 Years” is a Myth: You don’t have to do what you studied. If you are 18 or 20 and hate your major, change it. If you are 25 and hate your job, quit it. The cost of staying in a career you hate is always higher than the cost of starting over.
Build Your Way Out: Don’t just “apply” for jobs. Build a demo. When you build a system like Dhurandhar, you stop being a “job seeker” and start being an “engineer.” Recruiters don’t care about your resume gap; they care about the GitHub repo you finished last night.
Own the Narrative: I grew my audience not by being an expert, but by being authentic. I shared my failures, my depression, and also my code. People don’t follow perfect robots; rather they follow people who are brave enough to change their own destiny.
The Wake-Up Call
If you are reading this and you feel trapped, maybe you’re in a major you hate, or a job that makes you miserable, know this: You are in control.
I am 26, I’ve had three different lives, and I’m just getting started. I’m not “late.” I’m right on time. Whatever you’re doing right now, if it doesn’t make you feel alive, stop. Reset. Build something new. You have a whole life ahead of you, and you also have the power to shape it.
Project Portfolio:
Project Name
Primary Focus
Project Dhurandhar
Sovereign Indian Civic Intelligence & Bureaucratic Auditing
SystemDesign-AI
Real-time AI Architecture Interviewer & Visualizer
Vishal Singh is an AI Builder, Backend Engineer, and technology creator dedicated to making complex systems accessible through open-source innovation. After a two-year stint in Civil Engineering, Vishal realized that the conventional "Degree → Job" path was not his destiny. He successfully pivoted into the software industry, overcoming the challenges of the "bench" and imposter syndrome by embracing the "Build in Public" philosophy.
Today, Vishal maintains a vibrant community of over 22,000 followers across X and LinkedIn, where he documents his journey of building low-latency AI agents, voice-first applications, and multi-agent systems from scratch. His work focuses on practical, real-world solutions—ranging from healthcare accessibility tools like Telugu Thodu to civic auditing platforms like Project Dhurandhar. Vishal’s approach to engineering is defined by rapid iteration, transparency, and a commitment to helping the next generation of engineers understand that they are not defined by their degrees, but by the problems they choose to solve.
He has collaborated with major global tech organizations and continues to push the boundaries of what a single developer can achieve with modern sovereign AI stacks. Vishal is passionate about mentoring students on bypassing traditional recruitment hurdles by building robust portfolios and sharing their process openly. You can explore his live demos, source code, and ongoing projects on GitHub at github.com/vishalsingh2972, or follow his daily builds and insights at x.com/vishalsingh2972.
Vishal Singh is an AI Builder, Backend Engineer, and technology creator dedicated to making complex systems accessible through open-source innovation. After a two-year stint in Civil Engineering, Vishal realized that the conventional “Degree → Job” path was not his destiny. He successfully pivoted into the software industry, overcoming the challenges of the “bench” and imposter syndrome by embracing the “Build in Public” philosophy.
Today, Vishal maintains a vibrant community of over 22,000 followers across X and LinkedIn, where he documents his journey of building low-latency AI agents, voice-first applications, and multi-agent systems from scratch. His work focuses on practical, real-world solutions—ranging from healthcare accessibility tools like Telugu Thodu to civic auditing platforms like Project Dhurandhar. Vishal’s approach to engineering is defined by rapid iteration, transparency, and a commitment to helping the next generation of engineers understand that they are not defined by their degrees, but by the problems they choose to solve.
He has collaborated with major global tech organizations and continues to push the boundaries of what a single developer can achieve with modern sovereign AI stacks. Vishal is passionate about mentoring students on bypassing traditional recruitment hurdles by building robust portfolios and sharing their process openly. You can explore his live demos, source code, and ongoing projects on GitHub at github.com/vishalsingh2972, or follow his daily builds and insights at x.com/vishalsingh2972.
Vishal Singh is an AI Builder, Backend Engineer, and technology creator dedicated to making complex systems accessible through open-source innovation. After a two-year stint in Civil Engineering, Vishal realized that the conventional “Degree → Job” path was not his destiny. He successfully pivoted into the software industry, overcoming the challenges of the “bench” and imposter syndrome by embracing the “Build in Public” philosophy.
Today, Vishal maintains a vibrant community of over 22,000 followers across X and LinkedIn, where he documents his journey of building low-latency AI agents, voice-first applications, and multi-agent systems from scratch. His work focuses on practical, real-world solutions—ranging from healthcare accessibility tools like Telugu Thodu to civic auditing platforms like Project Dhurandhar. Vishal’s approach to engineering is defined by rapid iteration, transparency, and a commitment to helping the next generation of engineers understand that they are not defined by their degrees, but by the problems they choose to solve.
He has collaborated with major global tech organizations and continues to push the boundaries of what a single developer can achieve with modern sovereign AI stacks. Vishal is passionate about mentoring students on bypassing traditional recruitment hurdles by building robust portfolios and sharing their process openly. You can explore his live demos, source code, and ongoing projects on GitHub at github.com/vishalsingh2972, or follow his daily builds and insights at x.com/vishalsingh2972.
