#279 Sophie Obomighie chooses to do hard things the hard way

I think it helps a lot so that I don't like get attached to my plans .

It helps not get attached to plans because if , for example , I need to change jobs because of , maybe , family or something like that , so I think the first thing is like being adapting your own plans to like your life situations and like not making your work your own personal identity , but at the same time , trying to do the work well , like trying to be a

good developer or a good tester . Yeah , it's just been open really .

Sophie is a young software tester who has worked as a dotnet developer on APIs and Office 365 applications before transitioning into IT support and now software testing . But her academic background is in human anatomy and she doesn't so secretly plans to come back to biomedical engineering at some point in the future , or so I heard Sophie .

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So , sophie , as you know , the show exists to help the listeners understand what your story looked like and imagine how to shape their own future . So , as is usual on the show , let's go back to your beginnings . Where will you place the start of your dev journey ? Hmm ?

I could also say from when I was in uni , but well , as a child , because the reason why I'm referencing my child to this because , excuse me , is because I recently read an article I don't remember , but this guy interviewed someone the guy who who created the cookies the cookie , louis Martinelli , I think and I was going to do other articles and then I saw

that the ladies there who had done different things , created social network , created this , and that they kept on talking about their own childhood and how it wasn't necessarily stereotypical , like what you'd expect from an engineer . So that's why I think I will talk about my childhood .

So for the , what happened in my childhood that contributed to my dev journey was , first off , I remember as a child I had done well in school and my dad had promised me to . Actually , before , before the end of the term , my dad had promised if I did well he would buy me something nice and eventually he got me a laptop , which I really appreciated .

But at that time I mean this was like maybe 10 , 15 years ago . So I mean it wasn't like the the most , it wasn't like modern laptops should find now . And also , I think when you buy laptops , when you buy laptops then you have to like do some kind of setup and all and all .

So before he could go to set it up , I just stole into his room and opened it and just wanted to play with it already , but the operating system was installed on it and all and all . So I just found it really fascinating that I could put it on and I think what I was seeing was the bios , I think .

So anyway , I played with it before he got the chance to . I didn't think he knew I had done that , so I played with it before he got the chance to like take it for , like setup and all . So yeah , that was my first encounter with computers and I just found it fascinating . I just generally because I'm curious . So I just found it very fascinating .

So , but fast forward , my , my mom also like cause she would have a lot of things to do . She was very I mean , she had good knowledge of using computers and all . So because of work and managing different things , she would ask me or my sister to help her like maybe impute some data in in Excel or create PowerPoint For example for interest .

We have , yeah , interest . We have this thing called Havest and she was in charge of the Havest committee and she has like imputed a lot of data , cause she's like a secretary by training and she's like very professional at those kinds of things . She would , she would ask us to sort that out for her while she had to manage other things .

So I think that also helped me . And I guess also I mean , one reason why she would , she would entrust such to us , to my sister and I , is cause I mean we're doing that in school and she expected us to practice while we're learning and then , yeah , and then also during the holidays , like my GS three I think .

I think that's called like grade nine in the U S , but my GS three . Like the final year of my junior school , junior school I had a long break and my mom signed my sister and I up for a computer training that we did .

I also found that really fascinating because I just learned like basic things like word and Excel and how to beat fast type and all those kinds of things . So yeah , so that so I mean she was really interested in helping us to be up to date because the whole thing of computers were like really just coming up .

So she really wanted us to be very up to date . So my parents were very influential in that . And then also I mean getting back to school , I would sign up for like just club and stuff like that . So even though we didn't do that computer related project , but anytime we had to do something in a computer lab , I always wanted to .

I want us to be in front and to like figure out how to fix these or how to do that and so yeah , so that I think that also contributed to like my interest in it and I also like continually used to help out with designing our yearbook or typing . I would type the yearbook thing , those kinds of things with the basic things .

So but after after second year school that I thought , okay , maybe I could actually make this a career . So my oh yeah . Another thing I forgot to mention was so this thing of video games . I actually realized I actually did play video games when I was younger . My mom got us this I don't remember what it was .

It was like Super Mario , but it's different from Super Mario . You have to like jump and jump . So anyway , I remember I used to play that with my sister until the Jockey , the pad went bad , like what you used to control . It went bad and my mom didn't think there was any need to fix it so we could concentrate on our books . So yeah , so anyway .

And then by the time I was about entering uni , I was speaking with my dad and everything . I was talking about what to do and I thought , okay , maybe I could do something related to computers . And I mean at the time nobody I think people around me were really sure of the prospects of building a career in computer .

So I mean my dad , just okay , well , if you can do computer by the side , it's something that you can always learn why don't you apply for like medicine ? Cause I mean just the whole thing of you know when you're it's just like a stereotypical thing , like if you're like top in class , the stereotypical thing is to study medicine or engineering or law .

So I mean at least in Nigeria . So I said , okay , maybe I would apply for medicine . So I applied for medicine and I didn't get the high enough score for medicine , but I was able to get in for human anatomy . So the initial plan was to get in and then we rise the entrance exams for medicine the next year , or I could just get in for the meantime .

So I tried to do that . Anyway , there's a lot of back and forth , so eventually I just decided to just stay in anatomy and after school figure out what next to do . So but while I was in school like I think my first year I met some friends who were also in , who were in medicine .

I know I had a friend who was in dentistry and this my this particular friend I figured out . I found out some time later that he was into development . I didn't really know what development was , but I see I just knew that computer was fascinating and something I would like to learn more about .

So we started talking and he told me oh so there's this training this summer for teenagers . Why don't you like apply for it ? Cause in uni I'm now still a teenager . So I applied for it and I got in . So it was like a Microsoft thing , microsoft partner with some , an NGO called Ola Foundation . So I got in and I didn't know what to expect .

So I just I think what I learned was like was HTML and CSS and WordPress and different kinds of things , php and stuff like that , and that's many people that I am still in touch with till now very useful to them .

So , yeah , so that was where I actually like started development per se development , like getting knowledge of how to write code and stuff and I was very fascinated and I can be very hyper , so I was always all about the place , trying to understand here and then trying to build .

I remember building a website cause I had a friend who was studying dentistry and that friend was studying dentistry and I mean I used to hear a lot of dentistry related things .

So I remember , okay , because at the end of the training we had to do like projects , so I thought I could build a website on Halitosis , which is like it's a dental issue with people with like bad breath and stuff like that .

So I don't remember why I chose that , but it just seemed like a very basic dental thing that I could talk about , cause I used to hang out with a lot of these my friends . So I set it up and then I used bootstrap . I didn't understand much of what I was doing , but I was just trying .

So I was able to build the website and just in the form of like a hospital advertisements kind of thing like a hospital homepage , but the only thing the hospital does is helps in tracing and helping people to know more about Halitosis . So I presented it and , yeah , that was like the first . That was really how I started .

And when I go back to school , I started doing a lot of community thing , like I used to go with my friends for hackathons and like Google developer group events and those kinds of things , but I was still like studying anatomy , I was still like trying to like study and figure out how to match both of them .

So that was how I also met a friend who was into biomedical engineering and then I thought , okay , maybe I could do biomedical engineering after school . But immediately after uni I decided to focus on tech , on like building my IT skill in a particular area , just so I'm not everywhere , I'm all over the place .

So when I was done with school , I decided to focus on development . So I actually started in EDX course . So I mean , even while I was in school I was doing different things . I tried to do the free code camp course and I tried different kinds of things and then I used to follow different people that I found really inspiring .

And then another thing I forgot to mention was I also remember participating in this NASA space apps challenge with my friends . Yeah , I think we came second . It was really exciting . I mean , the whole thing was very , very exciting .

Merge both of them . So actually the ones who pushed me to find a way to merge my medical background with my IT interests . So yeah , they didn't give me too much problems .

So I'm , technically , I still was growing Like I still was trying to like improve my skills and just building different things , but I wouldn't say I was like the best developer , even though I knew people who were really good and I aspired to be like them .

But I mean , my course was demanding , for me at least , and so , anyway , it wasn't very easy to like grow very technically . I guess also it also has to do with like time management and all . But I was trying to to finish my degree , Because another option , because some some other option would be to like just leave the degree and like focus .

But I didn't think that was a wise decision . I thought I just need to finish my degree and and then know what I need to do after .

I think thinking about now I don't really understand why , maybe it's a whole thing of women in tech and stuff like that , but anyway , many people . I got some people , maybe because I would write something or I would be at this event or that event and then , oh , interview for this , blah , blah , blah .

Anyway , so I'll just talk about doing what I have done so far , competition to have participated in , but I was at some point I stopped accepting because I didn't see the point I wanted to do technically .

I didn't want to focus on , like , maybe , helping with sales , because I think one thing that was making me very in front of people was because I was the brand manager for an organization called Girl Lead .

So Girl Lead were like training girls in my uni , giving them like IT or liter skills , like digital marketing and software development and other entrepreneurship kinds of things . So I needed to be at events and I needed to be like very outside , very in front of people .

But I think it didn't match my temperaments because I used to burn out with all the activity and I needed to focus on growing technically at the same time . Anyway , I put a hold on all of that to finish my degree and when I finished I decided to focus on , I decided to focus on development . So that's when I started the EDX course .

So , but while doing the EDX course , I found it's really difficult . There's the C part , the part that's the week one , because it's from week zero , week one . So week one was on C . So I found it difficult understanding the material .

So I thought maybe I could find like an online community that has people learning C or something like that , because I think I just I lacked some foundational knowledge or maybe it just because I hadn't taken the time to learn something . So I went about looking for such and then I found something called hotelsng .

It's like a very popular internship , stroke training in Nigeria . So it actually starts with something called statsng , where you like learn , like basic skills , I like . Okay , let me just start from the very basic . So I went through all the courses and there was no C but there was C-sharp . So I thought C-sharp was close to C .

So I thought learning C-sharp would help me with my EDX course so I could probably sign up for this . So at this time I was working at a transcripts processing company transcript like university transcripts . So I got the job there and so it was an on course company so it was able to like allow me to do some kind of internship there .

So I mean it wasn't very technical per se , but it was a lot of administrative duties Like I had to call universities . I mean there's a lot of things happening and it was exciting . But that wasn't what I planned to do for long . So that's why I decided to focus on both my EDX and my C-sharp course .

So I signed the C-sharp course and decided from the very beginning I tried to follow along . I asked a lot of questions . I think that's another thing that brings me out to lots , because I , when I do understand , like I think I need to ask questions .

So I just kept asking a lot of questions and before long day I was made the class rep because I was always in front of the teacher , like I was always asking him a lot of questions , trying to understand the material , blah , blah , blah , blah . So I eventually finished with the start of NG and then realized it was very different from EDX .

So I just thought , okay , maybe because I also need to work . The CS15 is good , but I don't know if I'll get enough skills to get a job now . So I just needed to get a job in programming . So I decided to continue with the hotels or NG internship , which is more intense and requires you and would help you to grow in particular fields .

So you build stuff . So I would build a lot of things under a lot of pressure . I remember building APIs and MVC applications and then I meet a lot of friends . So I was just building and building and I did that for almost a year .

Well , no , not up to a year , actually maybe three months Then after that , because you have to go in a competition format , so stage one to stage 10 . So I got to stage six , I think , and I couldn't continue because there was an assignment , what I was supposed to do , and I couldn't complete the project . I tried and tried and it didn't work out .

But anyway , I left with a lot of experience and I was able to start working with the company of one of the mentors from the program . So I did some API development there and I just had left my other job because I needed to focus on this . So I did some API development and I still continue with my community thing .

I was involved in the community because I had to start lettingnet I usually just get into community things so I started helping out with events , organizing events and stuff like that and eventually I I left the company . But I got the internship arts like the C-Sharp internship and started applying to other companies and I got another job .

Like at this time I just needed to get a job . That was even though I was staying with my parents and so housing wasn't necessarily a problem , but I just needed to have a job . And I wanted to have a job in a field , in like a tech field . So I just kept applying and applying and trying different things . So I got this Office 365 job .

I didn't understand what it was . So my career has been a lot of figuring out on the board . Yeah , like I'll just get in . In fact , I think that's how I've been learning . Like I just push myself and I just do hard things the hard way , like I don't even put the simple rounds , I just like put myself on the spot and say you know what , just do it .

And if I fail , I just feel embarrassed and I just keep trying again . So I got this other job in the Microsoft Partner Company and I knew it was C-Sharp . So I just thought , okay , I could just go in so I can internship actually . So I decided to just go in and start learning again . So I started this one and then I realized it was Office 365 .

So , like what happens ? You see , you know how Microsoft Teams ? Microsoft Teams is where you have like small applets inside of it . So what we had to do was to develop the apps that you would install on Microsoft Teams .

So , yeah , it was really interesting and it was easy to get started with it because there are so many like open source materials I could use and then just add extra features , like extend them . So I did that for like five months and I was just learning . I would try different things at different points .

But then after some time I decided to leave that job because we have this thing in Nigeria called the youth service , call NYSE , so I need us to go for that . So you have like three months like paramilitary training , so like three weeks paramilitary training , and then you come up for like a year to do like a service in an institution or something .

So I decided I didn't want to do this in this company , I'm gonna go somewhere else . So I got to apply for a university in the IT supports department . So I actually wanted to .

At first my intention was to continue with development and like get proper grounding in backend , because at this time I mean I was just doing CS50 , but now my attention was on doing backend and growing in dotnet .

But situations changed and the only job that I could find for development I mean it wasn't in a very good , in a conducive I don't know how to put it . But anyway , it wasn't the best for me at the time . So I decided to go instead with the IT support role , and also because I felt it's also good to have that .

I don't know if this is a correct thinking , but I thought it's good to have a holistic understanding of computers , to be a good developer . That was just my thinking , like , okay , I need to be a good computer person before I can be a good or at the same time be a good developer .

So I took the IT job , the IT support job , and it was very exciting as well . I had to carry things . They had told me before joining are you ready to carry heavy things and monitors ? But actually I didn't have to necessarily because they were all guys and they were willing to do all the heavy lifting for me , but I didn't want that .

I remember one time we had to move the wires I think some Ethernet cable or so from one part of the roof to the other so that it could go into one of the classes , and of course the guys were doing it , blah , blah , blah , and then my boss had stepped out to do something . So I was able to convince the other guys to let me do it .

So I climbed the ladder , I went in and I was doing it and my boss came in and I was like what are you doing ? Please , please , don't do the heavy lifting . I don't want you doing that .

So I mean , they were just very they're very elegant , it was a very nice place to work and they were very respectful of me as a woman , so they didn't want me to do anything to inconvenience him so much . I always pushed to just pick up things .

I remember the time it took me to learn how to crimp the wires , like the Ethernet cable , like to connect the head I think it's called EG45 , I don't remember but the head of the cable like you connect to your PC , I'm connecting to the wire . So it took me almost six months to successfully do that and I was always wasting it .

But they let me play around with things . I was the only lady , but I didn't feel any form of discrimination or anything . In fact they encouraged me to do things , but they didn't want . You know , it's just like this chevalry , like you know how , like , like guys just want to like make sure that the woman is not inconvenienced .

So that's just what was happening and it was lovely to be in that space , but I was always pushing because I felt if I don't push I probably wouldn't learn . So I was always pushing back . So it was a very lovely place to work and I learned so much professionally , like , and technically and humanly in different ways . So I did that for , yeah , sorry .

So I think the reason why I still stick by it is because I think it's helping me to not be afraid of like challenges , like because the whole thing , if you open up your computer , my share was always I wouldn't be able to close it back or I would spoil something , something would go bad .

So I would say it's good generally , but I don't think it's a necessity . It's not a necessity to me to have like hardware skills at all , but I guess it was just good for me because I like those kinds of things .

You never know if you're going to put it back together afterwards and you're going to shut off your machine from the network and you won't really know what happened . And so going deeper sometimes is really jumping over your own shadow and trying to take up the challenge .

And then also , I think it helps me to have like many like discussions that I would otherwise would not have been able to talk about things that I probably won't have been able to if I didn't like practically do them .

That was like because my habit of always like pushing myself and doing the inconvenience things and hard things , so I applied for Outreachy even though I didn't know so much about open source Like I , even though I had , like I had a GitHub account and I used to like try to contribute to stuff , but I didn't really know how to contribute open source project .

But I thought it was an exciting thing to try out also . So I did apply to Outreachy and I'm even trying to rewrite an article about my experience . Maybe I would share it with you . I'm trying to like yeah , put it together and I just realized it was in my draft for like , but past two years or so .

So anyway , I did and I got into the contribution stage and , my gosh , I loved it . I learned things I didn't know existed , like I remember I contributed to two projects Genome and Ceph .

I didn't even know what Ceph was , but my colleagues who have been like IT administrators for a long like were so excited hearing me talk about Ceph because I think they had used it . So I think Ceph is it's like a product that helps with you know how you would have , how distributed yes , you know how you have like distributed storage .

So I think it's something around distributed storage . I don't remember the details anymore , but anyway they were very happy . So something about when you have , when one of the storage is down , you can always have access to your data and the other storage . I hope I'm not making it up , but anyway .

So I decided to contribute to Ceph precisely because I didn't know what it was and because , on when I was going through the different projects , ceph was one project that didn't have so many people are planning for it , because it was obviously difficult , like many of the other projects were like simple things to start up with , like writing I mean so like those

things are like don't have their technicalities . I think they have their technicalities , but I think it's easier to like get started with those kinds of things . But like to get started with something like a lot of heavy lifting , infrastructure and stuff is difficult .

So but I was able to to do a lot with Ceph with because I had Microsoft subscriptions that I could play around with because I had written the Microsoft 365 exam , so I had some subscription I could use to spin off virtual machines , because my laptop wasn't very strong so I had to use virtual machines to work on the project .

So I had to learn go lang and a lot of like systems and things and I had to use like AWS S3 buckets and stuff like that . So , but at the end of the project , I think the reason why I didn't get in was because at least the feedback I got from the Ceph mentor he was really helpful .

Like I was going through my discussion , my like Gmail thread , with him and I saw like I sent him like almost 100 emails and he was always responding , always like I would have this issue , I would email him , I would have this other issue .

He would email him and he would respond , and at the point he was even on his vacation and I thought so bad , like I mean , if I don't ask him , I don't know who to ask . But many of also the many of the past Auschwitz interns from Nigeria helped me as well , like I just reached out to so many of them .

So so , anyway , the main thing was I needed to like clean up my code , like I needed to like you know how you'd have this thing , comments and stuff like that , so I needed to like clean them up . So that was like the major feedback . So , yeah , I think I think that was that for for my internship .

So , after , after the service , I applied for jobs , like net jobs . I didn't get any because I was still junior , yeah . But eventually I got this company that said , oh , you can come in , but we don't take like junior people . But you could come in as a QA person , okay , I don't know what QA is , but no problem . One more challenge .

Yes , one more challenge . So I got in and I started learning . I found it really annoying at first because I felt like I was just clicking buttons and blah , blah , blah . But I read this book by Glenn's Myers , the art of software testing . Well , I don't understand so much , but I just kept on looking for materials and studying , and studying .

And I did this course , the RST rapid software testing course and I think that was really what opened up my eyes and because at first I was thinking you know what , after the six months probation , I'm going to move back to development , because it gave me that option of moving back to development , when I did that course I felt okay , I think I could actually

stay in QA , at least for now . So that's how I ended up where I am now .

So that's like my first step to this biomedical engineering . And I mean the key thing is since applicable or applicable to biomedical engineering . So anyway , I'm just going with the like as life goes on .

I just follow what happens , because sometimes it may be something else that will influence my decision on a tertiary professional , maybe like some situations or stuff like that . So I'm really just open and I'm going to get my degree soon . I have plans for that , but for now I'm just trying to grow , do my job .

By the time you decided , okay , let's go out of human anatomy , let's embrace the stack stuff , I had a feeling you really deliberately made one step after the other , saying , hey , I need to try this out and I need to understand this thing and I need to go this direction . And , okay , there was a lot of challenges . But how did you or maybe did you ?

Did you feel it this way ? Or do you feel it this way after the fact ? And if so , how would you encourage people to be deliberate in what they do ?

I always found it fascinating opening computers and all , but I never knew I would do that . So I just the situation I was at at the moment and then I thought , you know , I could just do this .

So I think what I would say is , first of all , be open to life , like not holding onto your own personal plans , because otherwise you would just be angry , angry with everybody , angry , and upset that life isn't going out as I plan , but I think , just like following , like just adapting your plans to your own situation and how things are for you .

So , yeah , that's what I would say . It's really just to be open . And another thing also was I try I'm trying not to I still am trying not to make like my profession , my identity , like having a life outside of , like programming . I think it helps a lot so that I don't like get attached to to my , my plans .

It helps not getting attached to plans , because if , for example , I need to change jobs cause of maybe family or something like that , yeah , so I think so , first thing is like being adapting your own plans to like your life situations and like not making your work your own personal identity , but like , at the same time , trying to do the work well , like trying

to be a good developer or a good tester yeah , but it's just being open really , yeah .

Thank you for that .

Absolutely , and we'll add both to the show notes and the thing is , I also have a blog that I'm trying to build up . Sure , yeah , I guess I'll send the link to .

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