Wellesley In Tech: Relaunching My Tech Career by Edie Beer '94 (@ediebeer)
Edie Beer, Class of 1994
I came to Wellesley wanting to do everything. I grew up in a very rural area and counted myself lucky that we had a computer lab and enthusiastic teachers that got me hooked on programming in junior high. I initially was not sure if I wanted to major in Computer Science, English, Religion or something else entirely. I found my major, Cognitive Science, almost by accident and found myself loving that it gave me a way to look at the same problem from very different perspectives. I kept Computer Science as my concentration, but I loved approaching the puzzle of language from the perspectives of Psychology, Linguistics, Computer Science and Philosophy.
After graduation, I worked at a systems integration and business consultancy. We would interview various clients and build solutions that solved process problems and bridged gaps in their current systems. I loved the challenge, but it was a brutal adjustment going from Wellesley to a very work-hard play-hard mostly male environment – it was a brogrammer environment before that was a thing.
After the consultancy, I moved on to in-house development at an insurance company, then on to a boutique multimedia training software company and then full circle back to a consultancy. My return to consultancy was focused entirely on web development and business strategy consulting during the height of the dot-com bubble. It was fast-paced, exciting, and I learned so much. Our tagline was “we build digital businesses”, so we were entirely dependent on the current boom. Around the time I was pregnant with my first child, the dot-com bubble began to burst. Stock prices dropped sharply and we saw the stream of clients dwindle as our competitors went bankrupt. The instability lead my husband and I to decide it made more sense for me to be the parent to step off the career track for a block of child-rearing time.
I was a stay-at-home mom for ten years.
Coming back to full time was a process – a longer one than I expected. First, I had to convince myself I could do it - then convince the world. I started with MIT Open Courseware and took Computers and Engineering Problem Solving and Introduction to Algorithms. The former was a class I had taken at MIT while at Wellesley, and I used it to get back to re-building the basics. Then I saw the Goldman Sachs Returnship program come across my Facebook feed from the iRelaunch group I followed. (iRelaunch is a group that is focused on networking and career re-entry support.) I applied and worked for 10 weeks as a developer in electronic trading technology. It was an incredible jump start to rebuilding my confidence and getting my career back on the rails.
I followed the Returnship with freelance work and more training classes. Then I found Hacker School, which was the most phenomenal learning opportunity I have ever had since Wellesley – no exaggeration. Hacker School describes itself as a 3-month "writer's retreat for programmers" which is a very accurate portrayal. It was such a gift to have the time to focus on the areas I wanted while surrounded by people who are enthusiastic about programming and eager to help one another.
That brought me to finally rejoining the workforce full-time. My first job post-Hacker School was at a financial services startup and provided me more opportunities to build my skills and grow. I’ve since moved on to a remote position for Dell's Cloud Management group and am continuing to grow and learn and navigate the work-life-balance tightrope with my husband and three wonderful daughters.
What I wish I knew before about the coming-back-to-work process is this:
Your old connections will still think of you as you were pre-break. This was very useful. I reached out to a lot of my pre-break connections for guidance and advice and to put it simply - they were awesome. I got lots of resume feedback and great freelancing leads through meeting folks for drinks, coffee, etc.
It’s so easy to internalize rejection and doubt yourself. It was a constant struggle. Having a dedicated block of time to development/study/networking before I was in the thick of jub hunt mania helped. My youngest child did need to enter part-time daycare before I had an income - tough, but worth it.
Tech is an awesome field to relaunch yourself with for the same reason it’s hard - things change at a fast rate. I did leave the workforce as a backend Java developer and come back as the same, but yes, there was some catch up to do. Since the field is so dynamic, there are awesome resources for self study and networking to get the traction you need.
Focus is hard when you try to go it alone. That was the hardest thing about my relaunch efforts - keeping focused during my self study. Hacker School was awesome for that since it provided an environment for me to pursue what I wanted and the support and accountability I needed.