The career benefits of learning programming have become increasingly obvious over time, but few people talk about another great super-power you get from learning to program: the ability to make things that solve your own problems.
In this talk, I'll go through a few case studies from my own life wherein knowing how to program not only allowed me to solve problems for myself, but also allowed me to recognize that the problem I was having had a solution at all.
Additionally, I'll talk about ways the approach to engineering changes (and doesn't change!) when programming bespoke applications for a small audience.
This is a talk given at PyCon US 2025 in Pittsburgh, PA.
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