Debugging the Future: Why I Chose the Classroom

The Shift

I'm a Financial Data Architect at Quantus. I build systems that process complex regulatory data, design pipelines, and create dashboards that inform critical decisions. By most measures, it's fulfilling work. But somewhere along the way, I realized something was absent: direct human impact.

Optimizing a query or architecting a data model solves problems—but the feedback loop is abstract. A user clicks a button. A report loads faster. The satisfaction is real, but distant.

When an opportunity arose to teach English in a middle school (collège), I took it. Not as an escape from tech, but as an experiment in what "impact" could feel like up close.

The Discovery

Teaching turned out to be unexpectedly familiar.

In code, I debug syntax errors. A missing semicolon. A misnamed variable. The machine tells you exactly what's wrong, and you fix it. No judgment—just iteration.

In the classroom, I do something similar. Students make errors—"I goed to the park" or "She don't like pizza"—and I help them correct course. But the real debugging isn't grammatical. It's psychological: helping them rewrite the error message in their heads from "I'm bad at this" to "I'm learning this."

That's where the parallel crystallizes. I operate at the intersection of Logic (code, finance, architecture) and Language (English, communication, confidence). The rigor is identical. The tools are different. The precision required? The same.

What surprised me most was the immediacy of bienveillance—benevolence. When a student gains confidence, you see it instantly. That feedback loop? It's addictive in a way SQL optimization never was.

The Future

I'm not leaving Quantus. I'm not abandoning engineering. But I am professionalizing this new dimension of my work.

I'm preparing for the CAPES and Professeur des écoles competitive exams. Not because I need validation, but because I believe in doing things correctly. If I'm going to teach, I want the pedagogical rigor to match my technical standards.

This isn't a pivot. It's an expansion. I'm bringing the discipline of a Data Architect into education—and discovering that both worlds benefit from the same mindset: build systems that empower people, one debug at a time.

Currently balancing financial pipelines and English lessons. Still debugging. Just in two languages now.