I left my job as a software engineer to be a baker. I joke that I threw my master's down the drain, but my choice has paid off.

Sabrina Lim says her biggest challenge has been figuring out new ways to market her products.Sabrina LimSabrina Lim quit her software development job to become a baker with no experience.Lim used AI to learn how to bake salt bread and documented her baking journey on social media.

She reached her goal of selling in under 100 days but says juggling her business is a struggle.This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Sabrina Lim, a 28-year-old former engineer based in Singapore. It's been edited for length and clarity.

I tried salt bread for the first time while visiting a bakery in Korea, and it was life-changing.It was my first experience with a dish where the hour-and-a-half-long queue was worth it. I had never been to a bakery that had left such a strong impression on me, and I wanted to recreate it.

The problem was that I had zero baking experience.I received a master of engineering from Imperial College London before entering the workforce as a software engineer. Later, I started working full-time in software development at a large bank.

After working for a few years hustling for someone else's dream, I was bored, and I wanted to make something of my own. About a year after my trip to Korea, in 2025, I quit my job and decided to start baking bread. AI has been my secret weapon along the way.

I had concerns about leaving my jobIt was scary to leave a stable job to dive into something new, especially without a solid plan, but I'm in a privileged position. I don't have any financial burden, and my partner can provide for our household while I figure things out.I worried about how people would look at me.

I have a good degree from a good university, and coming from an Asian family, I feel like people have expectations for how my career path should look. I'm not living my life for them, though. If I wanted to work on something that was completely mine, doing it before having a mortgage, loans, or kids, was the time to do it.

I spent months making failed breadH