The decades I spent in sales and operations roles have taught me that everything comes down to problem solving. Whether I was trying to solve a fit problem helping a customer at Gap or finding the right tool to integrate to help the sales team with prospecting it was always about solving a problem. Now I'm looking to solve bigger problems in better ways.

The problems I faced in operations roles usually required some level of technical integration, usually working with the CRM system. One situation in particular was integrating an API that supplied the web traffic estimations of prospective clients. There was no native integration for the API from the CRM and the owner of the API didn't have an SDK for this particular CRM. I had already started learning Javascript at this point, but I was self-taught and needed a lot of internet searches and help from the dev team to get it across the line. Once it was deployed and I saw the results of the work I saw a world of possibilities that could be made available if I put more time and energy into learning.

I found the time and I put the energy in to a full-stack web developer course which I completed in July of 2022. The course covered HTML, CSS and JavaScript with React for frontend web development, Node.js with Express, and both SQL and NoSQL databasing for backend web development. The curriculum required constant use of Git and paired coding. It also covered UX/UI, MarTech, version controls, and refactoring.

The events that followed the course completion didn't allow for me to make an immediate career change. I relocated back to the US after 10 years living abroad. Now that I have settled, I am ready to take the next steps in my career.