Christina Joseph completed a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Anthropology. She started a PhD to become a tenured professor, but realised she wanted to take her career in a different direction.
In 2022, she joined mthree through our women in tech programme, Aspire. She is now working as an Applications Development Engineer at a leading Fortune 500 healthcare company. We first spoke to Christina at the beginning of her journey, and caught up with her 18 months later. Have a read of her story below.
> Job searching and Interviewing
“I found out about the programme on LinkedIn and applied on a Sunday night. On Monday morning I got an email asking me to do an interview.
The interview process was excellent. I was a bartender at a hotel at this time, so I went into work 30 minutes early to set up the bar, then I ran outside to my car to do the phone interview.
I was then sent an assessment to complete. I was nervous as I was self-taught and was worried I wouldn’t be able to do it. But, the questions were mainly maths questions and I clearly did well on them because I made it to the next stage.
After that was my second interview, which was also great. The process was so quick, I found out that I had been accepted into the programme and was super happy.”
> Joining the Aspire cohort
“My cohort was great, very diverse. All the women had a different background and I loved the instructor. She was very helpful, explained things really well and took the time to make sure that we understood everything. The way she explained everything just made it make sense to me. The hand-holding was the best part. She did the coding alongside us which helped us a lot.
Everyone has been great, I tell everyone about mthree.”
> Working on-site with the client
“I really like the team that I’m on. The company’s data was housed with a different company and we’re trying to migrate all that data into a central location. We learned Java during the training, but the company wanted us to learn Golang and Angular so I’m also doing that additional learning with mthree whilst working.”
I still love Anthropology, I got into it because I wanted to be able to help people. With software development and the company I’m working for they’re working in health insurance, helping people who can’t really afford it. So I’m still helping people, which is what I really want to do.”
> 18 months on
“I’m now an Applications Development Engineer, so I do mostly back-end stuff. I usually log on a couple of hours earlier than everyone else as I’m remote, and we’re in different time zones.
The first couple of hours I usually do some coding and researching, or whatever I need to do. We then have a daily stand-up at everyone else’s 9AM. After that, I go over everything that I’ve done and ask any questions I need the answer to.
Throughout the day, I’ll hop on some meetings, especially if the Product Manager has any questions about what I’m doing.”
> Continuing to learn
“I did some extra cyber security training with mthree and continued on to do AWS training. We were also given access to LinkedIn learning if there was anything further that we wanted to learn. I used it for practice with Golang, Angular and SQL. I’m happy I got the chance to do that.
I’m now taking computer science classes at a school near me, because I like to know how to do everything, I like to know why I should do things one way rather than another.”
> A rewarding career
“Seeing my code working is so rewarding. I find writing the actual code a bit stressful, but it’s so rewarding. I test it a thousand different ways and it works every time, that’s the best part.
I keep in touch with my cohort, as there were around 10 of us that went to the same employer. In the beginning, we’d have group meetings and check on one another. We’d motivate each other and whenever we got stuck on something, we’d all throw different ideas out there to support each other.
There are 4 people on my team as far as developers. Senior leaders are moving up and I want to move up too now that I’ve converted and become a permanent member of the team. I'm happy in this company.”
> Advice for prospective Alumni
“Be ready to learn. And the main thing is don’t doubt yourself, everyone gets imposter syndrome. But the thing is, if you didn’t belong where you are you wouldn’t be. You know more than you think you do.”
If you want to follow in Christina’s footsteps and begin a rewarding career, discover our current openings today.
