About Me

The Programming Journey

At 15, I attended regular high school from 7 AM to 1 PM, then programming courses from 2 PM to 5 PM. Honestly, programming didn't immediately capture my heart—it wasn't the exciting world of creation I'd imagined. But starting early proved crucial. When I entered college for Information Systems, I already had programming experience, even if I wasn't particularly skilled yet. Everything changed when I discovered Java at 20. While my classmates struggled with its structure, I found the object-oriented approach intuitive and elegant. The way objects modeled real-world concepts, the satisfaction of clean architecture, the power of well-designed systems—it all clicked. Programming transformed from obligation to passion, from homework to hobby.

Programming transformed from obligation to passion, from homework to hobby.

Professional Growth

My first real development role came in November 2023 at age 22, requiring an immediate transition from Java to C# .NET Entity Framework. The first month was intimidating—workplace programming felt completely different from academic projects. Real codebases had legacy decisions, business logic complexities, and the pressure of production environments. But I persevered and couldn't have asked for a better learning environment. The variety of projects, different architectural approaches, and constant pressure to adapt rapidly accelerated my growth. I worked with both legacy ASP.NET systems and modern .NET Core, gaining valuable experience across the entire spectrum of enterprise development not only in frontend and backend but in complex SQL Server Databases as well. Within two years, colleagues considered me a solid mid-level developer, and I knew I was ready for bigger challenges.

The Turning Point

July 21, 2025 brought a scheduled vacation—30 days that would change everything. Initially, I planned to simply travel and decompress, but I knew this was an opportunity to create something meaningful. The idea started small: build a responsive React portfolio landing page to showcase my abilities, maybe add a basic backend API. But as I began coding, I realized I was thinking too small. This was about creating something that didn't exist yet, something that reflected the quality and innovation I knew I could deliver. That simple portfolio page was about to become Astra Vitae—a project that would eventually lead to what you're seeing now: this portfolio website under the name Salustian Creative Labs (SCL).

Discovering Modern Stack

After creating a basic two-section React version, I stumbled upon a Reddit discussion about the best stack for static and dynamic pages, MPA vs. SPA architecture. That's where I discovered Astro, Tailwind, and MDX. The possibilities excited me—here was technology that aligned with my vision for what web development should be. I made a decisive choice: scrap everything and start over with tools that felt right. This wasn't just about being modern—it was about finding the joy in development again, that same excitement I felt when I first discovered Java years earlier.

The Seven-Day Revelation

With AI-assisted development through Claude Code boosting my productivity, Astra Vitae was ready to serve its original purpose as a portfolio piece within seven days. But when I stepped back and looked at what I'd accomplished in just one week, I had a revelation that changed everything: "This isn't going on GitHub for anyone to clone freely. This is going to be my foundation for future projects—reusable templates and components that will accelerate my work and maintain quality." I remember the exact moment—sitting at my desk at 11 PM, scrolling through what I'd built, feeling a mix of pride and disbelief. The project's scope transformed dramatically. Each day brought new obsessions: animation timing, gradient shades, the component that would make someone say "how did they do that?" The final project bore little resemblance to its humble beginnings.

"This isn't going on GitHub for anyone to clone freely."

Building the Project Collection

August 31, 2025, after over 300 hours of development since July, the Astra Vitae collection was complete: Premium, Lite, and the Component Collection. Each template and component underwent rigorous testing with developers, designers, and even my mother on her phone—discovering touch detection issues that I immediately fixed.

Building media components became a personal challenge. HTML and Tailwind make displaying images easy, but making them appealing is another story. I kept asking: "Why can't I close the lightbox by clicking outside?", "Why does it break in landscape mode?", "Why isn't there proper responsiveness for tablets?" These frustrations drove the creation of CommonImage, CommonVideo, and ImageCarousel—components where design and UX work together, not against each other.

Lightboxes with subtle glows, rounded modern styling, click-outside-to-close functionality, snappy animations, carousel area detection for intuitive navigation, thumbnail bars on desktop and large tablets, and proper responsiveness across desktop, mobile portrait/landscape, and tablet portrait/landscape. You don't have to sacrifice design for functionality—you can have both.

The TestimonialsCarousel is a fun little component I built inspired by many solutions that exist today. It's certainly nothing crazy, but it's elegant and fluid—a staple of landing pages these days. It couldn't be missing from Astra Vitae.

Creating SmartNavButtons

While the templates and components I built showcase technical capability, I'm particularly proud of SmartNavButtons—a smart intelligent navigation solution component born from real frustration. Every landing page has "back to top" buttons, but why stop there? SmartNavButtons provide intelligent, directional navigation that adapts to user behavior. The "next" button detects your scroll direction and position, seamlessly guiding you through sections. Laptop users without a mouse can easily navigate via keyboard arrows or button click, and desktop users can appreciate these features as well. Tablet users escape tiresome scrolling on large screens. The component was challenging to perfect—handling full-viewport sections was straightforward, but what about pages with multiple visible sections? The FAQ page on this website became my testing ground for refining the component, and when SmartNavButtons worked flawlessly there, I knew it was ready. A friend told me that after using my website, he instinctively looks for these navigation buttons everywhere else, only to be disappointed when they don't exist. That's when you know you've created something special.

"You solved a navigation problem that I didn't even know I had, this should be in every website." — Tester

Building This Portfolio

September 2, 2025 marked another pivotal decision. I needed a platform to showcase my work—so I built my own. This portfolio website needed to embody what I was capable of building. I decided to use Salustian Creative Labs (SCL) as the studio name—not as a commercial brand, but simply as the name for this portfolio space. This meant continuing to work nights after my day job, sometimes until 3 AM. I remember one night at 2:47 AM, exhausted but unable to stop because the navigation animation was *almost* perfect. I sacrificed weekends, social events, and hobbies for months. Another 300 hours added to the project with improvements to the Astra Vitae components and this portfolio. There were moments of doubt—was I crazy to spend this much time on something? But every time I opened the website and saw it coming together, the doubt vanished. The result, well... is what you're experiencing now.

"Around 600+ hours of work put into the entire project across 100 days."

Looking Forward

The roadmap ahead is exciting. Astra Vitae represents 600+ hours of learning and building—a complete project development flow from concept to deployment. What started as an attempt to create a commercial product became something more valuable: a personal project that demonstrates my ability to build production-ready applications and reusable components. This project helped me develop a Full-Stack mindset, combining my back-end experience with modern front-end expertise.

I'm always exploring new ideas and technologies. Whether it's building reusable components, experimenting with new frameworks, or tackling complex problems, I believe in learning by building. Every project teaches me something new, and I'm excited to see where this journey takes me next.

If you're hiring, interested in collaborating, have questions about my work, or just want to connect with someone who shares your passion for craftsmanship. Let's build something great together.

Personal Note

Thank you for taking the time to read my story. This journey from a vacation idea to a complete project represents not just months of code, but a transformation in how I see my craft. Every decision reflects not market research or trend following, but simply what felt right to me—what I wished existed when I was building projects.

I invite you to explore my projects, check out the components I've built, and see if you feel that same spark of "this is different" that kept me coding until dawn. I'd love to hear from you. Contact me through the contact page or my LinkedIn profile.