Jenna RittenIn honor of my 5 Year Work Anniversary at IBM, this week I will share my personal story of my journey into tech, letting go of my life's work and plan since the age of 5 to become a facial-reconstructive surgeon and work for Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctor's Without Borders - Central & South America), and working through my imposter syndrome to join IBM through their Tech Re-Entry Apprenticeship (for women and people who have taken career breaks).
In January of 2017 I was at home in Detroit, Michigan preparing for my technical interview with Dev Bootcamp in San Francisco. Before watching the introduction and prep videos, I had NO IDEA what coding was; I still didn’t even after working through the videos 5 more times. I completely froze during my initial technical challenge, questioning everything I thought I new or considered saying as a response. This was my last chance to prove I was worthy of becoming a Boot. I knew I had to turn my game face on, speak all my thoughts and uncertainties out loud, right or wrong, and just do the thing. I felt the overwhelming pressure that this was my last chance at an opportunity that could possibly change my life forever.
And I aced it. No sweat. I knew what I knew, and I didn’t know what I didn’t know.
I had a dream the night of Valentine’s Day 2017, and I had a long conversation with my best friend and my grandfather in the dream. They gave me the inspiration and support I needed to be brave enough to take a chance. It was time. On Friday, February 17, 2017, I signed up for a gym membership and decided my life was going to change. I set into motion the plan we had discussed in my dream. I had decided that Dev Bootcamp was the right path for me, and I began searching for scholarships to help pay for my program. I called Dev Bootcamp, Facebook and Adobe, but without being a California resident I didn’t have many options. I called Dev Bootcamp on Friday, March 24, 2017 and told them I had decided to enroll and start the remote half of the program the following Monday, the day after my birthday. I had decided I wasn’t ever going to be afraid of anything ever again. I drained my savings account, paid the program costs in full, and went to the gym. That Monday my life changed forever.
I had to refactor to take my Phase 0 assessment, still struggling with, well, everything. What was I even doing there? I had weekly 1:1s with my advisor to go over and talk through the code, and that changed EVERYTHING. If it weren’t for Glenna, my advisor, I would have never made it to the onsite. That is a fact.
San Francisco or bust.
I made all my arrangements and left for San Francisco on Sunday, June 18, 2017. I arrived at 6pm. I started my first day at Dev Bootcamp on Monday, June 19, 2017 at 9am. I don’t know how they do it, but my assigned advisor was everything. I took full advantage of my 1:1s, going in with a tangled mess of code, comments everywhere, explaining what I was trying to do, and he would take a long look at my code and then calmly open up his text editor and say, “okay, so talk me through what you’re trying to do here.” And we would work through the problem, step-by-step, from start to finish, like a normal conversation and then translate it into code. This is what I needed. This is how I learn. This is how I already translate in my mind from Spanish to Portuguese to Russian.
I remember my first day of careers. I was so lost. My career advisor gave my resume back to me with his revisions, and he had drawn giant Xs across all the pages of my resume. Yes, I had PAGES of resume. I had no idea what I saw myself doing a year from then let alone if I would even make it through bootcamp. I was terrified to even have a vision with as inadequate as I felt. I also was starting to feel the pressure of being across the country, away from my home in Detroit, away from my partner, away from my dogs, with no friends or family, with a limited amount of time to make something happen before I run out of money, while still supporting my partner in their personal struggles to finally apply for grad school.
Make Beautiful and Meaningful Things.
If I needed to network and get a referral to get a job at that point then I was doomed to fail. I have panic attacks just being in a room with too many people. Careers kept a steady flow of resources available to us. Alumni would come speak to us weekly about their experience in the job search, where they’re at now, more than happy to refer anyone who was interested to interview with the company. The Dev Bootcamp community was truly amazing. I was able to practice and fail and work on my social skills until I was able to develop a system that worked for me. Now I can be the person I need to be in a social setting and focus on my immediate goals.
I have finally met Jenna, the Software Engineer and strong woman in tech, and she’s pretty great.
My career coach also pressed us almost daily to attend bootcamp alumni and meetup events. Where else do you have the opportunity to attend events at a different company HQ just about every night of the week? At the end of the day, my career coach would ask who was going to the event, ask that we make sure everyone knew about it and encourage others to come. EVERY time I went. I was broke in SF with the opportunity to network, possibly get a referral and a free meal all at the same time. I was living the dream.
I would work all day until 6pm, go to a meetup event to network and have dinner, then I would go back to DBC to work on code for a few more hours. I would take a Netflix break, pass out on the couch, and then wake up and start the whole thing all over again the next morning. I started going to hackathons and workshops over the weekends to learn new tech stacks and work on practice projects. I reached out to conferences to get discounted tickets for students so that I had the opportunity to attend their technical workshops and after parties and get lots and LOTS of swag. I scheduled coffee and lunch dates with DBC alumni to find amazing people to build meaningful relationships with. I signed up for MoviePass and went to the theater to eat hot dogs and watch new movies on the weekend.
I did all the things. Any opportunity, anywhere, I was there.
I graduated from Dev Bootcamp on Friday, October 6, 2018. The day after graduation I spent the weekend at a hackathon with 2 other Boots. That was one of the best hackathons and best times I’ve had in San Francisco, period. We pitched on Sunday, I slept or the rest of the day, and I was at DBC on Monday to continue working on my projects and help other students with their challenges and projects. I was honored to have the opportunity to work on a second final project and learn a completely new tech stack. I worked around the clock with very little sleep using the resources available to me in order to simulate what it would be like to work on a project at a real company. We had wireframes, we had a style guide, we had variations of mockups, we had a super sweet agile board, we had it all.
After our final presentation at our final graduation ceremony for Dev Bootcamp on December 8, 2017, I flew home to Detroit and worked on a virtual hackathon project with my favorite hackathon partner who had just flown back home to Japan. I spent Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, all the way through New Years Eve finishing up our project and presentation for submission.
During this time I had been contacted by a recruiter from IBM for their Tech Re-Entry Apprenticeship Program looking to bring women into technical roles within the company. So after we submitted our project, I had 10 days to learn PHP and prepare for my technical onsite in Austin. I worked through PHP tutorials over and over again. Then I went back to work through binary search, fibonacci and fizzbuzz, but this time in PHP. I flew to Austin for my technical onsite, I asked lots and lots of questions, and then I worked through my solution and passed all the tests. I was so nervous going in, but I had lots of time to ask the engineers questions afterward to find out what they love about working at IBM.
I left my heart in San Francisco.
I flew back to Detroit to continue working on projects and looking for opportunities. I was offered an interview for Microsoft LEAP, so I scheduled my interview right away. I received a verbal offer from IBM a week before my interview with Microsoft, and I awaited for my offer letter. Nothing is real unless you have it in writing. My interview with Microsoft was fantastic, and I’m honored to have even been selected to interview. Once I received my offer letter from IBM I began making arrangements to move to Austin. I went back to San Francisco for a few more conferences and workshops and moved out of my apartment.
I owe ALL of my success to the amazing team at Dev Bootcamp in San Francisco. They were willing to take a chance on me, and it paid off.
365 days from my first day at Dev Bootcamp in Phase 0, I began my apprenticeship with IBM.
365 days from my first day at Dev Bootcamp in San Francisco, I started my career as an IBM Cloud Software Engineer, as a member of the SoftLayer Compute team.
Don’t ever let ANYONE tell you that you can’t do it, that you’re not worthy, that you’re not amazing, that you don’t know what you’re doing. The people who love and care about you will celebrate your successes along with you.
You WILL figure it out because you can do ANYTHING you put your mind to. You just have to take things one day at a time until you get there.
So now that you're ready to GET OUT THERE, hack together something amazing! I'll be here to support you.
If you liked my story and/or can relate, go ahead and like my post! If you would like me to share updates and/or what I've done at IBM since then, go ahead and leave a comment. Please feel free to follow my story and career on LinkedIn. I'm always happy to share updates on my career journey and all the amazing people I meet along the way!
