I got married! My husband was great with computers, the son of an IT manager and an avid gamer with a brilliant mind, he wandered into a tech lead position at a small company while finishing up his online CS degree. Once I graduated, we were both longing to be somewhere else, anywhere else, for christ’s sake get us out of northern Idaho! And it was time he made market rate for the work he was doing. So after lots of white boarding and systems design interviews at Amazon, Google etc. he landed a gig as a bootcamp instructor in San Francisco, California. I, dangling from my Nutrition degree, followed, uncertainties running freely, but if I was going to make something of myself yet, a city was the place to be.

Once again things started to fall into place. Married to a bootcamp instructor? Living in the tech hub of the world? Looking for a career change that pays well and gives you the freedom to work at any kind of company you want? I had set my eyes on the prize, time to see what I was made of.

I will take a minute here to reflect on just how difficult an undertaking this is for someone with no technical skills or background. Every step felt like I was decades behind my peers. The next few years to come would be some of the most exciting and the most emotionally difficult in my life.