I grew up in Saint Petersburg Russia and moved to US when I was 16 years old. My parents were self-made business people so I thought that’s what I should do too. In college I decide to major in Business Administration. I graduated arguably at the worst time - 2008. Time when US economy lost 2.6 million jobs. And here I was, another college grad with a degree in General Business.
Without a clear idea for a career I “fell” into sales. Technology was always my passion and my first job working at Apple was something I really enjoyed. Over the years I tried myself at other sales jobs moving from retail to inside sales to outside sales and finally regional account manager. My sales career came down to constant competition with others and only being as good as my last big sale. That was not what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
I realized I wanted a change, but needed time and space to figure out what will be my next move. I left my job and traveled the country in a little camper for a year. The more I thought about what I wanted to do next the more I realized that I like solving problems and working with other people as a team.
I picked up an Arduino starter kit and worked on a few projects, I liked it. I wanted to know more the "parts under the hood". I started researching coding bootcamps. Not many of them were willing to let me talk to current or past students which I found strange. I found Turing to be very open about their operations, they put me in touch with several students and graduates. A Try Coding event sealed the deal for me.
I always liked taking things apart and learning how innards of things work. I feel like being a developer allows for creativity, problem solving, and offers flexibility in career opportunities.