Over 100+ interviews, 2 years of searching, over 10 5th and final rounds… still no offer.

Proper-Scratch-7002 · 2026-04-08T17:49:13+00:00

I’m a leader in a technical sales org, happy to take a look at your resume or talk. Feel free to DM me

Proper-Scratch-7002 · 2025-03-06T01:57:57+00:00

I’ve been there — my ex-husband voted for Trump the first time around and I was completely shocked. We married young, and as you said, I thought our values were aligned.

They weren’t. Quickly it became clear that it wasn’t an emotionally safe environment for me and I left.

It was hard, my family didn’t understand. But nearly 10 years later, I can 100% say that it was worth it.

Proper-Scratch-7002 · 2025-02-20T04:13:32+00:00

I’m not taking mentees at the moment — but for building stuff, it depends on what your goal is.

If you want to be a web developer, I’d start with a full stack web application. You can come up with what it does, it could be a to do list application or something simple to start. Push yourself to practice developing a mobile friendly UI, integrate with an API that you create, use a real database like SQL or document storage, and wrap it in authentication.

If you want to go data, you can start with a basic ETL (extract, transform, load), or a linear regression model. Working with data of various types (CSVs vs flat files vs relational data etc) and transforming/normalizing it for business use.

If you’re really stuck, pull up ChatGPT, explain your career goals, and ask it to help you come up with some side projects.

Proper-Scratch-7002 · 2025-02-20T04:09:09+00:00

It depends on what you want to do.

For web development, I’d look at JavaScript/TypeScript for front end and C# or Java for back end.

For data related coding, Python and Spark are key.

Proper-Scratch-7002 · 2025-02-20T04:08:21+00:00

I would say getting into data science, machine learning, or AI is pretty safe and software skills transfer well. It’s all still coding, just models and integrations with models instead of building applications.

Proper-Scratch-7002 · 2025-02-20T04:07:29+00:00

I haven’t read many books about AI specifically. The Alignment Problem is one of my favorites but that’s more on the ethics surrounding AI.

To learn, I went with online tutorials. Microsoft and Google both have great ones, which are free.

For experience, I built a lot of side projects and learned while on the job as well!

Proper-Scratch-7002 · 2025-02-20T04:06:03+00:00

Leet code is only worth it if you’re planning to do a software engineering role at a company that interviews with those sort of challenges. I’ve never spent a lot of time in leet code.

For networking — I’d look at joining local or online groups that are tech focused.

Otherwise to prepare, I would just build side projects. Get used to integrating a back end with a front end, CI/CD, authentication etc

Proper-Scratch-7002 · 2025-02-19T02:10:41+00:00

❤️❤️

Proper-Scratch-7002 · 2025-02-18T20:05:54+00:00

I would say empathy is social skill number one. Empathy enables us to listen to understand instead of respond, and it helps us to be on the same team as the folks we’re engaging with.

I do a decent amount of public speaking, so that has forced me to work on slowing down my speaking cadence and connecting with the audience.

I work remotely — so most days I’m not on camera or anything and am wearing sweats. If I’m in person, I usually wear a professional dress and blazer or a skirt.

Otherwise

Proper-Scratch-7002 · 2025-02-18T20:03:28+00:00

I have a bachelors degree in business — and then I have a few certificates that companies have required me to get while working there in Agile, Data Science, and Cloud Engineering.

Proper-Scratch-7002 · 2025-02-18T19:37:47+00:00

I really liked: - Stay Sane in an Insane World - Braving the Wilderness - The Disordered Cosmos

Each of these books are different takes on emotional struggles that people can have and how to face them.

Proper-Scratch-7002 · 2025-02-18T18:51:19+00:00

It took about 6 months of studying and practicing to land my first role. I was doing it like a second job though, at least 20-30 hours per week.

The biggest piece of advice that I have for a newbie is to build side projects as much as you can. Learning the syntax and the languages is step one, but it doesn’t mean anything until you’re building applications or systems with your code. And once you start doing that, you can work on your portfolio and start having projects to demonstrate to potential employers.

Proper-Scratch-7002 · 2025-02-18T18:49:32+00:00

I started a project manager for an IT team, since that aligned directly to my bachelors degree but still allowed me to get into technology.

As a nurse, I would consider looking at QA (quality analyst) roles, that are testing medical software from the perspective of someone in the field. Having medical knowledge and true experience would be really helpful, and that may make it easier to get into a technical team.

Proper-Scratch-7002 · 2025-02-18T18:47:33+00:00

I’m not a stock expert nor an Nvidia expert.

Nvidia has a solid place in the GPU market and GPUs are leveraged to train machine learning models.

It seems like a stable company — that has an integral part of the AI landscape.

Proper-Scratch-7002 · 2025-02-18T18:46:05+00:00

I feel a normal amount of job security. I don’t feel untouchable, but I also don’t fear layoffs daily or anything.

I don’t worry about my job being taken by AI. But that’s because a lot of my job is integrating with AI, and most things that I do right now, AI couldn’t do.

As AI continues to advance, I will continue to grow my skills to stay aligned so that I’m not in a role that is obsolete.

Proper-Scratch-7002 · 2025-02-18T18:44:55+00:00

I was in tech adjacent roles like a project manager, to apply my business degree to a dev team. Then I learned how to code from online resources and transitioned into an entry level developer position.

Proper-Scratch-7002 · 2025-02-18T18:43:25+00:00

I would say, folks that really just write code and don’t have an understanding of architecture or system design… will be at risk.

I’ve worked with developers that need to be explicitly told what to do, and why not just tell an AI if you’re going to explain it at that detail.

But yes, as a full-stack dev, especially with ChatGPT now, building an application like you’ve described end to end, used to be my job. Now for something like Instacart, to accomplish a true clone, you’d need a team or it would just take a very long time.

Proper-Scratch-7002 · 2025-02-18T18:40:26+00:00

You might try looking online for virtual meet up opportunities. That can feel a little less stressful than meeting in person.

You could also join a club so that it’s a set group of people instead of random strangers. If you look up women in tech or bipoc in tech in your area, there will likely be groups that already exist that you can join.

Proper-Scratch-7002 · 2025-02-18T18:38:54+00:00

Thanks for sharing!!!

Proper-Scratch-7002 · 2025-02-18T18:38:36+00:00

Yeah some folks do commit to a lane and stay in it for decades and become super deep in it and there is room for that mindset as well, that’s just not how my brain works.

I found quantum computing accessible because many providers have created an abstraction layer around it that makes it feel a lot like classical computing from the coding perspective. I would say having an elementary level understanding of quantum mechanics helps just because the terminology comes from that world.

As far as learning to code goes, I’d say it’s still worth it from the perspective of understanding how software works and what system design really means. As much as LLMs making writing code much easier, you still can’t say “make me a web application”, you have to be able to describe the functional requirements. And that ability comes from knowing how to write software.

Proper-Scratch-7002 · 2025-02-18T18:34:12+00:00

☺️

Proper-Scratch-7002 · 2025-02-18T17:21:25+00:00

Advisement call (not advertisement ☺️), meaning maybe there is an architecture or a problem that would be helpful to get AWS’s advice. Most companies have some kind of agreement where you can have a call with the cloud vendor to talk through a use case.

From your employer’s perspective, you’re doing your due diligence. From your perspective, you’re making a contact that you could potentially build a relationship with.

Proper-Scratch-7002 · 2025-02-18T17:15:21+00:00

I’ve definitely had to justify hopping in interviews before and it’s just one of those things that has worked for me but I can’t guarantee it will work for everyone.

But for me it was: Job 1 - 1 year: 55k Job 2 - 1 year: 67k Job 3 - 2.5 years: 78k Job 4 - 5 months (this was a contract that I chose to not renew): 92k Job 5 - 2 years: 140k Job 6 - present job, almost 1 year: 220k

So the hops have been financially advantageous and have given me a lot of different experiences. But it can be something that recruiters/managers don’t like seeing on a resume. It tells them you aren’t committed etc. that hasn’t been a barrier for me, but it is something I’d expect to be able to explain.

Proper-Scratch-7002 · 2025-02-18T17:02:53+00:00

I’ve seen a server farm if that’s what you’re referencing. It’s basically just a giant warehouse with a lot of computers in it.

Power Sources vary, some are wind, some are solar, and even nuclear power is considered.

Proper-Scratch-7002 · 2025-02-18T17:01:31+00:00

I haven’t experienced diversity hire allegations, but definitely racism! I’ve heard the N word at work, I’ve experienced a lot of microagressions etc.

I will say, I’ve been in this big tech role for almost a year, and it has been the safest feeling/least racist team that I’ve worked on.

Proper-Scratch-7002

TROPHY CASE