2026 - my goals (big if true)
Introduction
At the start of the new year, I posted my goals and wishlist for 2026. At that time, I wrote it quickly with little explanation or deep thinking, capturing only what I felt I need and want. After three days of reflection and consideration, Im going to elaborate on it here (which will also help me clarify my thoughts while writing). This will primarily serve as a reminder for me, especially whenever I stray too far from my goals.
Technical / Job-Related Goals
Get a remote job
TLDR: Indonesia's economy is fucked, and to afford a home, a chinese wedding, kids, and other life goals, I need to earn significantly more than my current income.
To provide some context, Jakarta's (our capital city) minimum monthly wage is only Rp5.72 million, which is approx $322 USD. Meanwhile a decent house in my hometown of Bandung (BANDUNG MENTIONED LETS GOOOOO) costs at least $65,000 USD.
Thankfully, by God’s grace, I earn well waaay above the minimum wage and work remotely from Bandung to Jakarta, avoiding the dumb cost of living in Jakarta. However, if I continue building my career only in Indonesia, it will still take a looooooong time to achieve my goals. Based on what I’ve heard and the experiences of my seniors, most senior tech positions pay between Rp20-30 million (approx $1,100–$1,700 USD). While this is super beeg money for the average Indonesian, it remains insufficient to afford my dream of owning a decent house in not to long of a time.
This is why many of my friends are “escaping” to other countries to earn and save for their future. I have several church friends who got working holiday visas (WHV) for Australia, where the pay is incredibly high by Indonesian standards. Some earn in a month what a Bandung-ers might earn in a year. We treat obtaining the visa like winning the lottery, and some even maker their entire internet personality as “WHV recipient” to boost their social media presence.
My dream goal for 2026 is to secure a job overseas, preferably remote, to increase my earnings. This aint just for personal stuff but also to support my family financially. I really want to fully cover my lil brother’s university expenses.
Most of my other goals are aligned with this wish. I aim to stand out and really gitgud, ensuring I dont compete for menial or entry-level jobs from local citizens but instead offer valuable skills worth importing.
update 03/13/2026: welp, just did it. I got a job @ Malaysia. Thank you Jesus.
Get good at system performance
AI is making compute resources expensive → companies are bleeding due to poorly written "slop code" → they need to optimize → I help them identify which slopmancer to fire parts of their applications can be optimized → the application improves, and the company saves money to stock up on White Monsters → profit!
Ok for real tho, I believe this skill will become more valuable over time as the volume of bad slop apps grows. Im not saying LLMs are useless or cant write good code, but with the surge in new apps enabled by LLM augmentation, we are more likely to see many "proof-of-concept throwaway projects that goes into production because project managers already promised features to their precious padel friend customer for next week thinking that engineers can turn POC to production app in a week with the help of AI".
I have always enjoyed maintaining & fixing & improving systems more than creating or building new ones since the start of my journey. Optimizing performance brings me a unique sense of joy, it truly "sparks joy" for me.
I plan to rely most of my learning from Brendan Gregg's resources to learn system performance, since his work focuses primarily on debugging and observability rather than code writing.
Get good at Elixir (not webdev)
Why Elixir? Its one of the few languages that brings me joy while coding, and I feel the need to at least get really good at a single language. Since university, I’ve focused mostly on ops-related tasks, often skipping on devs side of thing.
However, I don’t want to become yet-another-webdev. Instead I plan to use Elixir for data-related tasks and potentially AI kekw if the need arises. I’ll start by studying from Concurrent Data Processing in Elixir.
Im also considering discussing with my company’s leads about moving to a role focused on data work, as we currently lack a dedicated data position. I will be working with pub/sub and Kafka, and I think it can be a great place to learn by doing.
Lastly, I might need to learn statistics and how to present it, as this knowledge will be useful at my data work and system performance goals (its a nice to have, idk if I have the juice to do this).
Host local events
Idk if this is an international issue or not, but lately, tech conferences seem more focused on sales and product pitches than on sharing knowledge and cool stuff. See one of my friend post about it (its in Bahasa Indonesia tho).
Even at tech meetup a lot attendees at these events are there for "LinkedIn-style networking" rather than building genuine relationship.
I’ve heard from uncs more experienced people in the field that genuine tech meetups were once common, but they’ve become rare since COVID-19.
Instead of just complaining, Id like to host a simple, small tech meetup where people can connect, chat, and present topics they are passionate about. I’ve checked out some venues that are relatively affordable and easy to book, and honestly, I just need a little encouragement and some friend to kick it off.
Are You Sure You Can Do It?
To be honest, I can’t predict what will happen in the future, there could be new opportunities or unexpected obstacles. However, by setting goals and reflecting deeply on them, I believe I can improve my chances of actually commiting to it.
Most importantly, Im committed to approaching everything as if it’s for Christ and for His glory only as I explained in my about me page. I may not yet know the exact path, but I trust that with my heart aligned, God will guide my actions.
Nice
Thank you for reading and may God bless you and your family :)