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Find out more about Osaf Ali

• Tell us more about your subject. How did you develop an interest in this field?

  I teach programming. Recently I’ve also started teaching modern tools and frameworks like JavaScript, Next.js and Claude Code.
  
  My interest started in 6th grade. My brother installed a small program called Turtle on our computer. You type commands and it draws shapes on the screen, and I couldn’t stop playing with it. Around the same time I watched Iron Man, and between the two I had made up my mind that I was going to be an engineer. That road led me to software development. I’m really glad to be a software engineer in this era.

• What or who is the motivation behind you choosing to teach & why?

  I started teaching early, with friends and classmates at school. I’d heard that teaching helps you understand a concept better, and that turned out to be true. It also taught me how to break a topic down so someone understands it from beginning to end, instead of only picking up pieces of it.
  
  There are a lot of engineers out there, but not many who can explain complex things in a way that clicks. I wanted to be one of the engineers who can help people reach that level.

• How does your work help society?

  Most of what I do as a software engineer is invisible. We call it backend engineering 😂. But it’s the backbone of any business that wants to be online. Software has also given rise to whole industries around it, like digital marketing, and it lets a business reach people it could never have reached before. When I teach, more people learn how to build those things themselves.

• If you had to think of a role model for your work, who do you think of & why?

  My 12th grade physics tutor. He broke concepts down until we actually understood them, and most of my learning and teaching style comes from him. Putting together an explanation a student truly understands is a rare skill. I think it only comes after years of teaching and polishing your approach. He had it, and that’s what I’m working toward.

• Tell us about your hobbies outside teaching.

  Outside teaching, I build my own software products, and I love doing it. These days I build with AI tools like Claude Code and Cursor. I usually work with JavaScript, Python, Next.js and Django. With AI around, a new language isn’t really a barrier anymore.

• Do you have an anecdote to tell us about your student or professional life?

  I'm an undergraduate from IIIT Pune which is one of the most prestigious colleges on india.