Having started my post-university life as a secondary school maths teacher, I’ve since dabbled in a bit of everything: academic research, curriculum and assessment design, data management, and product research and development. Along the way, my eclectic CV has helped me develop a genuine love for the way data, design, and problem-solving intersect. In my mid-30s, I decided to shake things up with a coding bootcamp, a move that felt scary, but also like connecting the dots between all these experiences.

Although career-changing has come with a new set of challenges, I’m now happily working as a backend software developer at People’s Postcode Lottery in Edinburgh.

What makes you angry?

I don’t know if it makes me angry, sad, or a bit of both, but I find the challenges of being taken seriously as a woman for my technical ability exhausting. The biases people hold – often unconscious, but totally ingrained, mean that women in software development can end up constantly having to prove themselves. Carrying that weight every day, on top of the actual work, is even more draining than I imagined.

What would you tell your teenage self?

I’d tell my teenage self that nothing is a ‘wrong’ decision, just a different way of moving through life. There’s no alternate universe in which taking different A-levels or studying Psychology (against my parents’ advice) would have led to a different outcome. What I have learnt is that every choice I’ve made – moving cities, taking on part-time work, leaving a role – has added to my skillset and perspective, and shapes how I contribute at work every day.