Seth Kuhn is the kind of person who shows up — every single day — even when no one is watching. Nestled in the mountains of Northern Central California, east of the Bay Area where the woods get deep and snow comes in winter, Seth lives a life defined by grit, range, and an unshakeable commitment to chasing something more. He is, at once, a certified pest control technician with one of California's most respected service companies, a former roast master who oversaw the production of more than 100,000 pounds of artisan coffee, a father of two young children, and a self-taught frontend developer who squeezes his coding sessions into the hours between 10 p.m. and midnight — after the kids are asleep and the day's obligations are fulfilled.
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Seth Kuhn is the kind of person who shows up — every single day — even when no one is watching. Nestled in the mountains of Northern Central California, east of the Bay Area where the woods get deep and snow comes in winter, Seth lives a life defined by grit, range, and an unshakeable commitment to chasing something more. He is, at once, a certified pest control technician with one of California's most respected service companies, a former roast master who oversaw the production of more than 100,000 pounds of artisan coffee, a father of two young children, and a self-taught frontend developer who squeezes his coding sessions into the hours between 10 p.m. and midnight — after the kids are asleep and the day's obligations are fulfilled.
There is a particular kind of ambition that operates without an audience, and Seth Kuhn embodies it. He spent three years as Production Manager and Roastmaster at Clayton Coffee & Tea in Modesto, California, where he developed an expertise in the craft of roasting — the precision of profiling, the inventory management, the coordination of production and shipping — that mirrors the systematic thinking he now applies to code. That career chapter ended. He transitioned into pest control, where he has worked for Clark Pest Control since 2012, maintaining a 98% customer retention rate and consistently placing in the top 25% of producers. The work is demanding, client-focused, and deeply human — it requires reading situations, communicating clearly, and solving problems under pressure. Seth is exceptionally good at it.
But Seth's story, the reason he earned his spot on the Center Stage of Mornings in the Lab, is really about the dream he has carried quietly alongside his day job. From his home in the Sonora hills, on a clear day, he can see the San Francisco skyline in the distance — a city that has long represented, to him, the kind of tech-driven life he has aspired to build. That image became a symbol. In 2022, he enrolled in Scrimba's Frontend Developer Career Path, committing himself to learning JavaScript, React, and the full vocabulary of modern web development. He became a Torc Ambassador. He began posting on LinkedIn — consistently, transparently, with the kind of earnest daily presence that eventually caught the attention of the Mornings in the Lab team.
What Seth represents on Center Stage is something the show has always believed in: that transformation doesn't require a dramatic leap. It can look like a 10 p.m. laptop session while toddlers sleep in the next room. It can look like a LinkedIn post on a Tuesday morning before a full day in the field. It can look like someone in the mountains, looking toward a city on the horizon, deciding that the distance between where they are and where they want to be is a problem worth solving — one line of code at a time.
Seth appeared on Center Stage with Sophia Grant on Mornings in the Lab, sharing his journey from roast master to pest control professional to aspiring developer — and why the dream of working from San Francisco has never felt more within reach.
