Warda, 28

I build software for a living — now I'm looking for someone to build a life with. (Must love chai. Non-negotiable.)

Birmingham Software Engineer 5'7" BSc Computer Science

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Sofia, 29 London → Alina, 29 Manchester → Nimra, 26 Kuala Lumpur → Rabia, 27 Lahore →

Every morning in Birmingham begins the same way for me: rain tapping the window like it is trying to get in on the standup meeting, the smell of my ammi’s elaichi chai cutting through the grey, and my laptop already open on the kitchen table, because production waits for no one. I am Warda, I am twenty-eight, and I am a software engineer — which means I spend my days telling computers what to do and my evenings explaining to my khala what exactly that means. Beta, computer theek karna? Mera printer… No, khala. Not that kind of engineer.

I grew up in Sparkhill, above my abbu’s old corner shop, in a house that always smelled of spices and sounded like three conversations happening at once. Birmingham’s desi community raised me as much as my parents did: Ladypool Road aunties who knew my exam results before I did, the mosque on Friday evenings, Eid mornings when our street turned into a runway of new clothes and perfume. My parents came from Lahore in the nineties with two suitcases and a mountain of dua. Everything I am is built on their sacrifice — my degree, my job, my flat with the ridiculous number of plants. I never forget it.

I fell in love with code at fourteen, on a secondhand laptop, writing my first HTML page: a glittery, comic-sans tribute to my cat. It was objectively terrible and I was absurdly proud. Computer science at university nearly finished me — data structures at 2 a.m., group projects where I did everything, the special loneliness of being one of three girls in a lecture hall of eighty. But the day my final-year project compiled without errors, I ran out of the lab and called my abbu, and he told the whole shop. Mr. Henderson from next door still congratulates me every time he sees me. That was six years ago.

Now I work for a fintech company in the city centre, building things people actually use, which still feels like magic. My team is lovely — standup at nine, code reviews where we roast each other’s variable names, and a Slack channel devoted entirely to lunch debates. The biryani place on Stratford Road is objectively the best and I will die on this hill. There is a particular joy in shipping a feature on Friday and watching real users click it on Monday. It is like planting seeds, except the seeds are semicolons and the harvest is… okay, the metaphor breaks down, but you get it.

Birmingham gets mocked for its weather, but I have made my peace with the rain. There is a special cosiness to this city: the canals — fun fact, Birmingham has more canals than Venice, and I will tell you this within ten minutes of meeting you — the Bullring on a Saturday, the German Christmas market in December where I drink hot chocolate and pretend I am not freezing. And the food! From the legendary Balti Triangle to the Pakistani bakeries on Ladypool Road where the naan is still warm at midnight. A girl could do worse than a city that feeds her this well.

Home is still home, even though I have my own flat now. Sunday dinners at ammi and abbu’s are sacred: the whole family, my younger sister home from uni, the dastarkhwan on the floor the old way, and abbu asking me for the fourth time to check his phone, it is doing a strange thing. After dinner, ammi and I have chai and she gives me The Look — the one that means we are about to discuss my shaadi. Warda beta, you are twenty-eight… I know, ammi. I know. But I also know what I want, and I am not settling for less just because the aunties have a spreadsheet.

What do I want? Someone kind, first and always. Someone with ambition — his own code to ship, whatever his field. A man who respects his parents, because how he treats his ammi tells me everything. Someone who will walk the canals with me in the drizzle, sharing one umbrella and arguing about whether the rain is spitting or proper raining — a vital Birmingham distinction. Someone who gets my weird hours during release weeks and my need to disappear into a novel or a Bollywood playlist on Sundays. And — non-negotiable — someone who loves chai. I cannot stress this enough. This is a load-bearing requirement.

I should warn you about a few things, in the interest of clean documentation. I will narrate cricket matches like a commentator even when no one asked. I talk to my plants and I am convinced they grow faster for it. I have strong opinions about tabs versus spaces — tabs, obviously, do not start. I will make you watch my favourite old films and cry at the songs you have heard a hundred times. And when I am deep in a bug at midnight, I go very quiet — but if you put a cup of chai beside me without a word, I will remember it forever. That is the whole secret, really. The grand romantic gestures are nice, but it is the quiet cup of chai that wins.

So — hello! If you have made it this far through my README, consider this the start of our documentation. Tell me about you: your city, your work, the thing you are building — a career, a dream, a particularly ambitious biryani order. I will tell you about the feature I shipped last week and the plant I am currently failing to keep alive. And if we get on, I will show you my Birmingham: the canals at golden hour — yes, the sun does come out, occasionally, like a celebrity sighting — the best balti in the Triangle, and my ammi’s Sunday dinner, where you will be fed until you beg for mercy. Fair warning: the aunties will love you. They love everyone. But I am pickier — and I have a feeling about you already.