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t was a month into my first job, a temporary year-long assignment in Texas, and I had come to an unexpected and startling self-realization. Pilot training was less than a year away, and I didn’t want to go. It wasn’t that I was afraid, or that I wasn’t a good pilot. My civilian training had gone swimmingly and I enjoyed the act of flying. But flying didn’t feel like a calling, whereas the time I had spent learning how to write working software had been more thrilling than I would have imagined. The act of powering through a problem, finding the bug in my code, and seeing the new and improved code actually run correctly on my screen – it was magical.
Even though I worried that I might disappoint some people who expected me to take the “cool” job (“Who doesn’t want to fly jets?”), I took the leap and switched career paths. Over the past 14 years, I’ve had two more difficult choices – once when I chose to separate from the Air Force and begin my civilian career, and more recently when I decided to jump from a secure job at a large company to a position at a start up. Both times my choice was driven by that passion for creating software and the desire to stay hands on. I left the Air Force because even though I loved the service, I wanted to stay in the realm of software development. I left my last company because despite my move into the management track, I still wanted to stay involved with the technical work – I wanted the chance to feel the magic of creating software, even if it was only a small part of my daily work.
When I was first asked to write this blog post, they suggested that I give advice to students who were looking to acquire experience for a position like mine. Obviously your own journey may be very different from mine. But one piece of advice I can give is to have the courage to chase your passion. If you find your career moving you away from that, don’t be afraid to change course, even if it means moving into a new domain that you don’t know as well. Some of the best developers I’ve worked with discovered their passion for software development later in life. For example, my Operations lead actually got his bachelor’s degree in religious studies.
In my role as Director of Engineering, I evaluate many resumes from people of all skill levels. The candidates that stand apart are those who exhibit the same passion for their discipline. My advice to any young engineer is to make sure that your own resume shows that passion. This is not to say that you need years of internships on your resume, or that you need to have written code since you were in middle school. But your resume should be more than just a list of classes you’ve taken (the equivalent of saying “Well, I went to college. I was present most of the time.”) Look for opportunities to go the extra mile – coding clubs, personal projects on the side, participating in open source development – and make sure you have those experiences on your resume. If your experience has been largely academic, then make sure you highlight projects you were excited about.
One more final piece of advice: part of the reason that STEM struggles to attract and retain women is due to “imposter syndrome” – some studies suggest that women will fail to even apply for a job unless they feel they meet 100% of the requirements listed. Part of loving what you do is knowing that there will always be something new and exciting to master in your field, and often you’ll have to learn on the job as you go. Don’t be part of that statistic above – if you know what kind of job you want or a particular posting intrigues you, then go for it.
My time at Wellesley supplied me with the confidence to tackle my career challenges and have faith in my own abilities to excel. This liberal arts education provided me with a versatile skillset, pushing me to take advantage of interesting opportunities that may have scared off someone with a more “pure” or major-focused background. If you’re a current Wellesley student, pay attention: you may find your passion in unexpected places as you fulfill your liberal arts requirements. If you’re a Wellesley graduate and unhappy with your career, it’s never too late to find your calling elsewhere.
Jessie Link is the Director of Engineering at Lookingglass Cyber Solutions. She has over 14 years experience as a software engineer. She honed her leadership skills as an officer in the U.S. Air Force for 6 years before joining the private sector. Jessie graduated with a bachelor’s in Computer Science from Wellesley College in 2000, and a master’s in Information Systems from Hawaii Pacific University in 2006. She is a certified CSM and PMP. She enjoys mentoring young developers and is an active coach and participant with RailsGirls. Though she mostly spends her day herding cats, on occasion her devs let her into the code repo to do some damage. She’s happy to report that she just submitted two pull requests the other day. Jessie welcomes emails from Wellesley students and alumnae who have questions about careers in engineering (jelink@alum.wellesley.edu).