No, we’re not pregnant.
No, we’re not moving.
I have a shiny new job.
But first, some history.
I used to dance. And to pay for rehearsal space and costumes and performance venues, I taught myself HTML / CSS / javascript. Eventually I retired from dance and took web development seriously – interned in New York, worked with a few internet marketing companies in North Carolina.
Had a blast.
Then Red Hat changed their new hire scope – you had to have two of three requirements – customer service, technical skills, or linux. I had the first two. I was hired. I had a blast.
But when you work at Red Hat, every day is drinking from the firehose and I had to stop coding entirely.
Fast forward to a few months ago – you may have heard, I had a sweet little boy. I took advantage of the Netherlands parental leave policy and switched to part time to save money on daycare and spend more time with the new operating system.
The position I have now doesn’t allow part time work, so my main job was to find a new job. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, specifically, but I knew I couldn’t be a Technical Account Manager anymore. I started shot gun blasting anything that sounded interesting.
Fast forward to a few months ago when I took a DjangoGirls workshop and remembered how much I loved to code.
BAM!
That narrowed down my search to anything with development work.
But then it got tricky.
I’m starting over, effectively. I just started learning Python / Django / Ruby on Rails / MongoDB. But I can’t move to Brno where most of our junior developers start.
It took a few months to find the right opportunity within Red Hat.
So when I say “I have a shiny new job,” what I actually mean is “OMGOMGOMG I JUST LANDED MY DREAM JOB!”
I am a Red Hat OpenStack Software Engineer.