Chocolatier to Engineer
If you want to skip to the “Transferrable Skills” sections to see what I’ve learned from each step in my journey, I promise I won’t be offended.
I’ve gone from English Major to Chocolatier, and from being told my wrist injuries allowed me to “answer phones and maybe type” to working as a Front End Engineer at Meta. This is my “Origin Story.” It wasn’t easy and it took a few twists and turns, but I want to share my experience so that other people who are afraid they could never succeed can read about someone who felt the same way.
The Origin Story
Growing up I thought that becoming an engineer was the pinnacle of achievement. It meant mastery over multiple disciplines, and the ability to bring together disparate facts to make a cohesive whole. My dad was an engineer and loved puzzles and logic problems just like me, but he was so much better and so much smarter that I thought I could never catch up. High school Physics class cemented my belief that I would never be good enough, and when I applied to colleges for engineering I was surprised to be accepted.
Engineering to Literature
3 days into my college career I knew Civil Engineering (my original major) wasn’t for me, and was intimidated by other Engineering paths. My old fear surfaced, and I retreated to my favorite subject: English.
Why English? I love the English language! It breaks all of its own rules, and poetry can so beautifully capture a feeling in just a few words. I love the Romantic era and learning about the history and gender dynamics of the time. Besides, I loved reading and any major where I got to not only read but then talk/argue with other people about it sounded like it was custom built for me.
Transferable Skills:
- How to recognize when a situation is “not my cup of tea” and take steps to rectify it
- How to view one scenario from multiple viewpoints
Helpful in debugging since you want to view the bug from the user perspective and from the computer’s perspective.
Helpful when writing user stories, to imagine the ways a feature might be used by different people
- How to “have strong beliefs and hold them lightly”
English majors are taught to write as though they are experts, no matter what the topic is. Once the paper is written, though, the opinion stays on the page. Listen to other people’s opinions and don’t be afraid to say you’ve changed your mind.
- How to support a “leader” and how to be a leader
We’ve all been in the group project where a leader is assigned but nothing gets done. I hated the feeling of having my fate in someone else’s hands while nothing was happening, so I started stepping up. I would make sure the group members had contact information for one another (thanks to this little website called Facebook) and times when we would meet. If sections weren’t getting done I’d do them myself (not the best practice, but this was college.) If no one wanted to present (no one ever wanted to present) I would speak in front of the class.
Literature to Culinary School
As college graduation approached, I had the usual English major prospects of training to become a teacher or going to Grad School. I decided to make a third option: Culinary school. If you’re going to do Culinary School you might as well do the best, so I went to the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) for Baking and Pastry.
Anyone who talks to me about culinary school will hear my amazement at how such an enormous school was operated smoothly and with as little waste as possible. The CIA requires you to subscribe to the meal plan, which (after Vanderbilt) seemed especially odd. Once school started, however, it made much more sense. The structure was like this:
- Culinary classes were held twice a day, and involved the students preparing a meal and then having a “service” just like a restaurant kitchen. This would coincide with either lunch or dinner, and other students were the “restaurant-goers”. Later in the curriculum, classes became front of house or back of house in the campus restaurants.
- Baking and Pastry classes prepared bread and desserts for the dining hall, and later progressed to baking all of the bread served in the school’s restaurants. We also operated the front and back of house of the on-campus bakery Apple Pie.
The curriculum was split into 2 halves, and in the middle we did an “externship” where we basically got a job in the industry for 6 months. During the externship we had extra papers and exercises to do, which would result in a grade once we returned. I did my externship at the Walt Disney Company, as a cast member in the bakery for the Yacht and Beach Club Resorts in Walt Disney World. I loved my externship, even the 2am — 10am (or later) bread shift! I was less of a fan of the 2pm — 10pm shift, but I learned a lot about deadlines and leadership from the amazing chef. I even got the chance to help build a life-size carousel made out of gingerbread and chocolate! I spent my last day in a holiday baker costume interacting with guests.
Transferable Skills:
- How it’s okay if something isn’t absolutely 100% — done is better than perfect.
Every baker has stuck their thumb into a wedding cake. A great baker knows all that means is that they’ve chosen a side to be the back of the cake. Wedding cakes might LOOK perfect, but the most perfect thing about them is that they are finished and delivered on time.
- How to build a sustainable system, and maintain it
Everything at the CIA was well thought-out and structured. As an example, each classroom/bakeshop had 3 bins: trash, recycling, and compost. Before we ever got to the kitchen we were given a test on exactly which plastics or cardboards were recyclable, and if a chef noticed something in the wrong bin it was emptied onto the floor (which we also washed at the end of every class) and we had to sort through it to correct the mistake.
For our practical exams (or “Practicals”, for short) we were each given a bucket to use for our own waste/trash. The weight of the bucket was taken into consideration as part of your score — how cleanly could you work and how little could you waste?
The Yacht and Beach Club resorts at Walt Disney World are extensive, and the rules state that Cast Members can’t wear their name tags or costumes outside of the park. Disney adjusted for this by creating a “costuming department” fully stocked with every item culinary staff, housekeeping, banquet staff, etc would need. They didn’t assign items or have any system around it — it was better to accept that an item or two might go missing than have a Cast Member worry about trading in a dirty chef coat for a clean one midday.
- How a little magic can make any job more fun
I will never forget coming in to work at 2am and seeing a note from Tinkerbell wishing us a good day, or seeing Beauty and the Beast leaving a banquet I had helped cater. It brought joy into what could otherwise have been a grueling job. Even going to “costuming” each morning for a fresh chef coat and seeing pieces of other costumes was a touch of magic.
- How succeeding for yourself is just as important as other people’s perceptions of you
I decided in my first culinary math class, after getting a 100% on a test of how to convert between gallons to teaspoons, or how many cases of carrots you had to buy from the farm to make 100 carrot cakes requiring peeled and shaved carrots, that it would be fun to see if I could keep the trend going. While students living on campus partied and enjoyed their college experience, I brought home bags of apples to improve my peeling time, studied different cooking methods and their tradeoffs, and planned out duties for myself and my partner so that we could complete our dishes on time.
- How to hide imposter syndrome
I constantly felt like a failure, and an imposter. I was working alongside students who had already been in the industry, and who tossed around words like “choux” without thinking. The only industry jobs I had before culinary school was at a place called The Dinner A’Fare where I cleaned meats (chicken breasts, steaks, etc.), and a small cake shop in Texas where I had only worked for a few months. I didn’t know what anyone was talking about, and had to work twice as hard in any bakeshop.
- How to overcome the X-Factor
My Gateaux instructor called me out to the hallway one day to tell me that he was really sorry, but he couldn’t give me an “A.” He believed that “A”s were for people who had an X-factor, that extra polish that made everyone stand up and take notice. I worked hard, and could put out a product that met every requirement, but that could only take me to an “A-”. I knew I was an imposter in the kitchen, and hung onto the fact that with hard work and dedication I had learned to disguise my end product, even if I couldn’t impress the chef who watched me during the process. I told my instructor that his next class would include a wonderful student who had that X-factor, so he could look forward to it.
Pastry to Bakery
My favorite class (yes, this was a class) was Chocolates and Confections, so I decided on Chocolatier as a career path. I asked my chef instructor where I could go to help me grow my skills as a chocolatier, and he mentioned that there was a small company in New Hampshire called L.A. Burdick, but that they probably weren’t hiring. Challenge accepted!
After applying and touring the facility I was offered a position at L.A. Burdick, where I hand-piped thousands of mice per day (among other things.) This is where I acquired Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, but trained myself to just switch hands when one went numb. This was STUPID and I knew it, but it seemed important at the time.
After Burdicks I did a 6 month stint in a restaurant kitchen where I discovered that I never wanted to work in a kitchen again. After leaving I applied to temp agencies for office positions (any office position), trying to avoid kitchens altogether. The only job I was offered was as a shoe inspector on an assembly line — I said “No, thank you.”
I found a local bakery looking for an Assistant Manager: The Gingerbread Construction Company. As Assistant Manager (and then as Manager) I worked the front counter every day, decorated gingerbread cookies, iced their famous gingerbread, carrot cake, etc muffins, and basically did any job that needed doing other than baking the muffins themselves.
One Christmas Eve I asked the bakers to help me count how many gingerbread muffins I meticulously sliced and filled with a perfect “bullseye” of cream cheese frosting. By noon the count had become over 70 DOZEN. This was on top of dealing with screaming customers, icing other muffins, and making coffee nonstop for hours.
Transferable Skills:
- How to present myself
Working in the bakery taught me how to present myself so that others reflect positivity back. If you act like a perfect Disney Cast Member, a customer is more likely to be the perfect customer.
Projecting confidence meant people were more likely to trust my opinion.
- How to delegate
Being a manager taught me that I can’t do everything — I need to know my team’s strengths and weaknesses, and when it’s a good time to let a new person practice vs getting your fastest person on the issue. I also need to know their preferences, because the person who likes mopping (yes, they exist!) will have a better time doing what is traditionally a “bad” job than someone who is rotating in just because it’s a “bad” job.
Bakery to “Broken”
In June of 2016 I woke up to find that one of my fingers caused severe pain whenever I tried to straighten it. My doctor told me not to worry unless it happened again — and it did. He sent me to a specialist, who told me that I had Carpal Tunnel Syndrome in both wrists (which I had known since L. A. Burdicks, but had not been able to get taken seriously.)
The specialist also said I had a wide spread of tendinitis across both hands, and a possible injury to my “TFCC” — Triangular fibrocartilate complex. We went through the usual treatment options of living in wrist braces, icing repeatedly, and taking absurd amounts of ibuprofen — but nothing was helping.
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I was still working 40+ hours as a manager at the bakery, in pain the whole time. When my doctor recommended surgery as my only option to lessen the pain, I agreed. When he recommended I get surgery immediately, I decided to put it off until January of 2017 so that I wouldn’t leave all of my coworkers facing a tough busy season without me. For anyone who finds themself in a similar situation: this was a STUPID decision on my part.
I had surgery on one hand at the beginning of January 2017, and the other at the end of the month. After the surgeries, I discovered that I had (in addition to the tendinitis and Carpal Tunnel) worn a hole through part of the TFCC in both wrists. My doctor repaired it as well as he could, but the recovery for surgery like that is not the few weeks associated with Carpal Tunnel Surgery (which he did at the same time) — instead, the recovery is closer to 6–12 months. After a few months I went back to work (another STUPID decision, for those keeping track) but the pain returned and my doctors assured me that I was ruining my hands and wrists by staying at the job I was currently in.
I will never forget sitting across from my surgeon asking what I could do for a job without hurting my hands further. You could “answer phones or maybe type,” they said, and I should NEVER go back to baking and pastry! I had been taking Introduction to Programming classes through Khan Academy and Edx (one painful hour at a time) and hearing that typing was on the “acceptable jobs” list sounded like a sign — I was finally going to make the huge leap to becoming a programmer.
Transferable Skills:
- How to accept help
I never thought of myself as “proud” until after my surgeries, when I realized I would rather do something that hurt than ask someone to do it for me. I still struggle with this — it’s definitely still a work in progress.
- How to live without/with minimal pain
Living with pain isn’t normal, even if it’s the norm. When my hands first started to hurt I heard from so many other coworkers that their hands also hurt, but they just lived with it.
“Broken” to Programming
This wasn’t an easy transition. I could only spend a limited time on the computer each day (1 or eventually 2 hours, as long as someone helped me open my laptop) but I devoted it to learning.
There were some amazing organizations that helped me along my path, and I would recommend their services to anyone who finds themselves unable to work due to a disability. The hardest part of reaching out for help was admitting that I had become an individual with a disability, since I had gone so long hiding my pain and pretending like I was just as strong/stronger than others.
My doctor introduced me to the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission (MRC) which helps individuals with disabilities re-enter the workforce. They were an incredible cheerleader to have in my corner, and offered services like career counseling (they were a bit surprised that I had such an aggressive goal, but committed to helping however they could), resume review, and helped give me the final push to commit to my new path. They also put me in touch with Easterseals, who taught me about ergonomics and gave me an ergonomic setup for home to help me type with less pain (some of which I still use today!)
I looked into local Programming Bootcamps and decided on Launch Academy in Boston as the one I wanted to attend — and then, in October 2017, I made the leap.
Launch Academy has an 8-week online course before you ever arrive on campus, then 10-weeks of on-campus instruction. The off-campus portion was no trouble, but while on campus I was only able to spend 3–4 hours per day typing on a computer before my hands gave significant warning signs that I needed to stop. Even though I was completing the required challenges, a programming bootcamp is about more than passing tests — it’s about learning as much as you can in a short period of time, and there was such a wealth of information and practice that I was missing out on solely because my hands still needed a little more time to heal.
I made the difficult decision to delay until the next Launch Academy cohort, giving my hands time to heal and myself a chance to practice my new knowledge. The best way to learn programming is by programming, so that is what I did. I assigned myself small projects and challenged myself to learn as well as let my hands heal. I built the front-end for my wedding RSVP site, and a Dominion Card builder (Dominion is my favorite card game.) I also started a programming blog to track my progress and capture my thoughts on learning to program, so that anyone who found themselves in a similar situation wouldn’t feel as alone.
Once I graduated from Launch Academy I felt comfortable with React and Rails and had built multiple projects using them both.
Transferable Skills:
- Programming (obviously)
- How to size up a problem and its solution
Sometimes the answer to a problem involves radical change- I could have kept working at the bakery, or in food service, but why not shoot for the sky?
Sometimes the answer to a problem involves incremental change — back when I couldn’t lift a water glass without pain I never would have imagined that the small “pointless” exercises I was told to do would lead to where I am now.
- How to admit when I’m struggling
I try to be as open as possible about my terrible wrists: I ask if we can talk over VC because I need to stop typing for a while, or take a sick day because if I don’t I’m going to hurt for weeks. Issues like mine can be “invisible” — but pretending my pain didn’t exist is how I hurt myself in the first place.
I still worry that I will lose opportunities due to speaking up about my limitations. I try to keep in mind that if that’s why I wasn’t offered a job, then that isn’t a place I would have wanted to work anyway! (Yes, there is still a voice in the back of my head that wishes I could have proved them wrong.)
Programming to Escalations Engineering
After my bootcamp I got a job as an Engineering Intern with One Door, a company in Boston making merchandising software primarily in Rails. Over my 6 month internship I started in the support division, attended a week-long training in Ember, and built a new front end feature using Javascript and jQuery. When my internship was up, I turned down a full time position to move back to California, where I grew up.
My brother encouraged me to apply to every company whose app I used on my phone, which of course included Meta (Facebook, at the time.) The first Meta recruiter I spoke with said that I didn’t have enough experience, but to try again later. I tried as hard as I could to convince myself that this was the easiest requirement to meet — all I had to do was wait! Inside I was crushed, and continued to apply (and interview) elsewhere.
I wrote blog posts about interviewing to help psych myself up:
I received a call from a second Meta recruiter, saying that they were hiring for a new team called Escalations Engineering. It involved client work and debugging, but the manager said something in our interview that really stuck with me. She said “I don’t expect anyone to stay on this team forever,” which blew my mind. I was so used to the mentality that you couldn’t talk to your manager about future plans or you would risk being fired! I finished the interview loop, including an absolutely embarrassing coding interview where I was so terrified I could barely see straight.
My favorite interview during this loop (other than when I got to meet the manager) was a “debugging” interview. The recruiter had warned me that it was about critical thinking and could involve some SQL, so I went in nervous. The interview turned out to be talking through scenarios/bugs, and brainstorming ideas for how they could have happened/where to begin an investigation. It was fun! I’d never had an interview be fun before.
The recruiter made me an offer, and I said yes — I was going to work at Meta!
I moved from Boston back to California, found a wonderful apartment in a city near my new office, and settled in to get as much experience as I could. I worked with high profile advertising clients and the sales pods who supported them, debugging issues, advocating for support from other teams, and designing and helping to build the front ends for internal tools.
I had decided back in Launch Academy that my ultimate goal was Front End Engineer, but again worried that I wasn’t ever going to be good enough. As an Escalations Engineer I raised my hand for every Front-End opportunity, and did my best to level up my skills as well as the skills of those around me. I even took on a purely UX role for one project, and got significantly more experience designing a tool, then breaking down the UI into small parts that separate engineers could work on simultaneously. I also had the opportunity to mentor those engineers as they tackled React for the first time, and coach them through “sticky” situations.
Transferable Skills:
- How to take a risk
- How to break down complex technical problems in a way that non-technical people can understand
- How “more experience” is the easiest requirement to meet
Escalations Engineering to Front End Engineer
After 2 years at Meta I was convinced that I could do the job of a Front End Engineer, but that I wouldn’t pass the interview. I applied to a Front End Engineer position anyway! The day of the interview I was incredibly thankful that it was via VC, so that I could type in my home ergonomic setup and not worry about my hands in an interview. Right before the interview started I put on my favorite “get pumped” song and danced around the apartment to stay calm.
I woke up one morning to a message from my recruiter saying that I was going to be offered a Software Engineering position, started crying, ran into the bedroom and started yelling at my sleeping husband, who was confused and panicked until he realized what was going on.
As a Front End Engineer at Meta I’m working on both web and mobile, and learning new things every day. I am forever thankful to everyone who supported my “larger than life” dream of becoming an engineer, back when I couldn’t lift a water glass or open my laptop without pain. It’s time to set some new goals!
Transferable Skills:
- How to use the Scientific Method to structure projects.
- How to speak up about my ultimate goals, so others can help me get there
I got a touch of this while in my programming bootcamp, but Meta is what drove it home. Want to learn X? Talk to your manager about how to fit it into your workflow.
- How to fit the writing style to the need
Sometimes writing like an English major is a good thing, but sometimes you just need to put some bullet points with metrics
Front End Engineer to ???
It took me 4 years to get from “answer phones and maybe type” to Front End Engineer at Meta.
I speak openly about my hand problems, and encourage others to not make the same mistakes that I did. My hands aren’t fully healed, and I don’t think I will ever use them without worrying about the consequences, but I hope I can prevent anyone else from being in the same position.
I share my origin story here and on my blog, so the next person in my situation won’t feel as alone. I talk about my experience and encourage people to not give up on their dreams, no matter their background.
I don’t know what the next step in my journey will be, but I do know that I will continue to grow, learn, and support others in their own journeys.
To quote Fired Up, a wonderful yet underrated movie, “Learn from me!”
