Lydia on going from being a classics lover to a software engineer

This week on What Do People Do All Day, I speak with my long time friend Lydia about her path to becoming a software engineer. An avid reader who wanted to be a tabloid reporter when she grew up, Lydia attended a coding bootcamp when she was 25. Since then she’s worked at start ups and more established tech companies. She’ll walk us through a day in the life of a database software engineer and she’ll share some career insights that she’s learned along the way.

This episode is best for: learning about perseverance; how to pivot your career; reflecting on what you want out of your job

Contents:

01:00 - Meet Lydia 

03:49 - Lydia's educational background

08:53 - Lydia's first job out of college (data analyst at FTI Consulting), how she got that job, why she took it, and what she liked/didn't like

21:42 - Pivoting to software engineering and going to boot camp

26:26 - Finding her first job out of boot camp (software engineer at CrowdTap)

25:06 - Lydia's second job out of boot camp (software engineer at Code Academy)

38:29 - Lydia's current job (MongoDB) and her day-to-day

52:23 - Lessons learned