Some people are daunted by the mere thought of making a career change, even when they really want to. Successful people take that challenge as an opportunity. They summon their courage and push themselves to explore new horizons.
When Erika Angarita found herself at a professional crossroads, she made the leap from lawyer to software developer…and she’s never been happier.
Check out the hows & whys & results of Erika’s journey in this video, or dive deeper into Erika’s story here.
So I feel like the challenges that I’m facing every day helps me to think in a different way– even when I’m not working. When I see a problem, I try to solve it in a different way that I will do before.
My journey begins when I decided to switch careers. I’m a lawyer in Columbia. I was faced with a decision– either go back to law school or switch careers. And I wasn’t in love with law. I had a friend who– he is a UX designer and I started just talking to him and just doing market research about careers. He’s in the happiest person in relation with his job– like, he love his job. I was wondering if, like, I could have the same.
So I started researching about web development and I came across with galvanize. The challenge that I was facing into learning new things and accomplish little challenge– that made me feel rewarding. That made me feel good with myself. And it was just interesting to realize how little I could learn by myself. And I think that part of, like, challenge– of being challenged by the problems that you have to solve– that made me inspired. I really like thinking in a different way, if you will. And I think web development inspire you to think outside the box.
Galvanize– they focus and help us to work with the teams. A lot of people– they wouldn’t– you know, you think that you being a web developer is just sitting in your computer by yourself with your headphones. And yes, sometimes it is like that. But most of the time, it’s working with a team. And if you don’t know how to work with a team, you’re going to get in trouble– it’s going to be hard. They also taught me how to learn. And that’s something really important. Because once I came here to Atlassian, I had to learn how to work in [? Riyad– ?] so that was fun.
[LAUGHTER]
Like here, if I’m– if I’m working in something, is, like, it’s fun because it’s like detective work, right? So I had to find this and it’s like, oh Yeah. I definitely lose myself in the code. And it’s like all of a sudden it’s like, [? oh, dang, ?] it’s two hours later. What?
I just love downtown– I just love Austin. And I live really close. So, personally, it’s great. The campus is right there. And it’s an open space. It’s also really beautiful, really comfortable to go. And it’s like, oh nice. This is where I come to learn. It’s definitely really nice– going home on a Friday at 5 pm and just knowing that I don’t need to do anything for the rest of the weekend but just enjoy the weekend with my family, right? So that’s definitely a nice, nice work balance for me.
Definitely no regrets at all. I am really happy that I made that decision. I’m really happy that I got the chance of working at Atlassian. I am really happy that I got to know– to have this family here in Atlassian and there in galvanize.
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