Published 2026-05-29
Tags: #education, #life-reflection
I recently wrapped up my time as a software engineer at a startup, and got into a new adventure … teaching! I’ll be teaching CS 442: Algorithm Design and Analysis course at Edmonds College this fall, and am stoked about it.
Here are some reflections that led me to this decision.
I love teaching. I TA’ed 4 times during my time at UW. When I was working, I gave friends of friends mock interviews and piano lessons. I love the process of figuring out how to help the person in front of me understand a concept. I find the memories – where I helped somebody get a job, or watched someone glow with excitement when they understood a new way to play their favorite songs – to be deeply meaningful.
On the other hand, I also love hard solo thinking on open frontier problems. I like learning and doing research on state-of-the-art problems. The intersection between CS education and AI is rife with many of these open problems! The end goal of serving the students effectively in this volatile space naturally requires one to stay abreast of recent research findings, and to be thoughtful about how to apply them. What a privilege to be able to do both!
Here are a couple of novel job attributes that this teaching path will tick:
Peopleful. I want my day-to-day to be filled with human interactions that feel … for lack of a better word, more human. When I was a software engineer, while there was space for a lot of positive human interactions, my main mode of communication prioritizes efficiency – I want to give and get information with the fewest messages exchanged as possible. I suspect that having a job where the objective is to directly help the human in front of me not only to understand, but to want to understand, will give more room to the more empathetic side of me.
Soul-building, value-alignment. On a more woo-woo note, I value thinking, loving, and playing, and would like to leave the world with more people who do these. Teaching seems to tackle all of these at once. I get to think hard about the materials and how to make them digestible and entertaining to the students. I will also likely get to face more interpersonal challenges as I try to care for humans who are balancing the struggles of not only the curriculum, but also life. There’s a lot of personal growth to be had in this new journey, and I look forward to it.
Nope. I still love building software, and will likely do it for a long, long time. I will just be more selective with the problem I’m working on, and right now it’s CS education in the age of AI.
This is all written before I start the teaching position, so I’m also looking forward to seeing how I feel after my first quarter of teaching. That’s for end-of-the-year Stephen to reflect on!