How did you feel when you won your DevelopHER Award?
When I won, I was honestly overwhelmed with emotion. I couldn’t believe I had actually won and I wasn’t expecting to. Growing up, my home life wasn’t very stable. In addition to parental mental health issues and my own mental health issues, I experienced child abuse, starvation, bullying, homelessness, gun violence, and witnessed drug abuse as well as suicide. Where I come from, not very many people I know make it out of these situations, or are even encouraged to. So, to be here, where I am today with everything I have accomplished in the past few years from my Bachelor’s Degree to my job at StrategiQ and my role at Stress Buddy Limited as well as this award… I couldn’t feel more blessed.
If you could say something to yourself before you started a career in tech what would it be?
Don’t let another person’s doubts become your own. There are a lot of people out there who will try and tell you not to take a risk on something that could be life changing for fear that you might outgrow them. Stay creative. Stay innovative.
Lockdown bonus questions:
How has lockdown affected your life and your job? Are you working from home? Furloughed?
Are you enjoying the downtime or can you not wait for things to go back to normal(ish)?
Lockdown has impacted my life a lot and gave me time I didn’t have before to reflect on my values, life and career goals. After this reflection and speaking to my mentors, I decided to leave agency life at StrategiQ and pursue an in house role at Coderus. I loved my team there, but it was a decision I had to make and I’m excited to see where things take me. Besides the job change, the flexible working opportunities I have had recently have given me time to pursue more industry training and I also started learning British Sign Language, because I noticed this was a gap area at all of the conferences that I attend in our industry. I wouldn’t say I’m ready to be tested on it yet – but it is something I feel passionately about right now. I’ve also been looking into Neuro-Linguistic Programming and how we as individuals can use it to better communicate and understand the needs of others and have started mentoring a few people in the industry. Personally, I’m enjoying the downtime but I would like for everything to get back to normal. However, overall, I think lockdown, despite how unstable the world has been, has been an opportunity to decide who I want to be and how I want to give back to others.
My painting.
