2 kids 5 dogs and Work-Life Balance

Anna Johnson spent a lot of her time traveling for her demanding career in retail senior leadership. She wanted to pivot into a career with more work-life balance. Anna decided to enroll in Turing to be home more than just a few days a month and spend quality time with her husband, two kids, and five dogs.

A Family Agreement

Anna gave up the company credit card and hung up her frequent flier miles to go back to school in 2021. Despite being in the 2107 Front End cohort, she is currently a backend developer at Heroku. Before Turing, she was involved in senior leadership and operations, handling new store expansion strategy plans for a startup. However, the amount of travel the job required became taxing.

"I was looking for a career that would offer me a great work-life balance so that I could enjoy what I do and fulfill kind of the professional parts of my goals, but also be able to step away and enjoy my life and be a mom, be a partner, and enjoy life instead of being on a plane 24/7."

After climbing the corporate ladder having the biggest role, she decided to drop everything and start over. She gives big kudos to her husband and kids for supporting her decision and going through the difficult journey alongside her.

“We had a family agreement that mom was gonna be unavailable for a lot of six months and we’re all gonna work really hard to help”

Code School Shopping

After expressing interest in software development to some coworkers, Anna knew what school she wanted to attend, no questions asked.

“I am not a savvy shopper or consumer. Like if I see something, I'm like, instant, doing it.”

In her previous work, she was all too familiar with developers and the engineering team that was responsible for building e-commerce websites. A few of them, being Turing alumni themselves, encouraged her to look into Turing now that it’s been fully remote since 2020. After doing a Try Coding event, she was hooked and decided to enroll.

Continuous Learning

Anna hit the ground running landing a full-stack role at a high growth startup once she finished at Turing. Despite “drinking from a firehose,” she felt more than prepared, learning server side development, APIs, databases, Postgres, SQL, and data queries.

“It was a lot, but it was really fun.”

After 7 months of learning at Turing she found herself learning all over again for another six months, during which she developed a strong understanding of full-stack application work and how backend and frontend infrastructure work together. She credits this fast-paced full-stack role for making her role at Heroku all the easier to get.

Is This Field For Me?

Before landing a job at Heroku, one of the first cloud platforms, and navigating a vigorous high-growth startup, Anna’s experience was similar to many women and underrepresented folks in the tech industry. She found herself experiencing imposter syndrome. Is this field for me? Should I be doing this? Am I smart enough?

“I just had to keep reminding myself that I deserve to be there as much as anybody else. ”

At the end of the day she knew that a career in software is for all. With persistence and their own little personal “zoo at home” anyone can learn software development. As someone who identifies as neurodivergent she emphasized the need for diverse perspectives in tech and reassured others that with the right support and grit, anyone can succeed in the field. Anna reached the top of the corporate ladder and realized she hated it. So, despite having little knowledge in engineering and no previous experience in tech, she knew she deserved to be there as much as anyone else.

Job Search Strategy

“Build, build, build” isn’t only the name of the game at Turing but was also a key strategy for Anna during her job search. She emphasized the importance of networking over simply cold-applying. She reached out to people and built genuine connections to expand her tech connections and community. By sharing her journey with her network and employees of companies she admired, she ultimately was offered an interview because of a LinkedIn post (and because her skillset, of course 😏).

There Isn't Anything To It But To Do It

Despite the tough job market and already having a successful career, Anna just “did it” for a lifestyle change and discovered her love for software architecture. At Heroku, she is discovering her love for helping others can translate in ways other than leadership. Her journey illustrates how a career shift not only leads to more time with your family or Rotten Rottie Rescue but also personal growth.

Calls to Action

Ready to start your journey in software development? Sign up for a Try Coding workshop—or join the Turing cohort that starts in August.

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