Background

I'm Cody Snider, a 41-year-old self-taught software engineer born and raised in Southern Colorado. I started programming at age 8 and began my professional career at 22 without a college degree. I currently live in Brooklyn, NYC, where I work as a full-stack engineer.

The Property

In November 2024, I purchased 5 acres of raw land in the San Luis Valley at roughly 8,000 feet elevation. The property is flat, undeveloped high-altitude desert terrain with yucca, sage, and brush, about 30 minutes from Alamosa. I'm breaking ground in spring 2026.

Why Off-Grid?

I enjoy building things. I like to do things myself, be inventive, creative, and learn through failure until I succeed.

The Build

Everything I can do myself, I will do myself. I have very little construction experience outside of light woodworking, but I'm teaching myself through research, videos, and hands-on learning. I'll have help from family and friends, and will only hire contractors when absolutely necessary.

The property will feature solar electricity, well water, a septic system with leach field, vacuum tube solar water heaters, and aquaponics buildings for food production. I also plan to keep bees and make mead on a small scale.

Partial Retirement

I'm targeting partial retirement by age 45. I'll continue remote tech work, teach software courses online, write a tech blog, and potentially release hardware designs or manufacture small devices. I'm also considering eco-tourism cabins as a destination in the valley.

One major project I'm planning is an atmospheric water harvesting system using infrared wavelength cooling - a completely passive, no-moving-parts solution to water condensation.