I graduated from college with a B.S. in Accounting and after a year of being a staff accountant at a small firm, I realized it wasn't what I wanted to do for the next 30-40 years. As luck would have it, I was the one in the office who could "get things to work" on our computers. In short order, I became the systems administrator for the firm and discovered that my passion for technology translated into a career I could really enjoy. Time has proven that to be a wise decision.

During my time in tech, I have filled several different roles: systems administrator, systems engineer, lead, database administrator, developer, and developer in test. I’ve always enjoyed learning, which is what drove me to move into each new role. As a systems engineer, I spent a lot of my time scripting manual and repetitive tasks, which piqued my interest in writing software. After a few years as a software engineer, I discovered that I enjoyed finding and fixing bugs, which led me to software testing.

During my eight years in software testing, I was the happiest when helping my peers succeed, which I often did by documenting my areas of expertise. Around this time I discovered technical writing as a discipline and asked an experienced technical writer friend of mine, “what do you do everyday?” Their answer made it clear that technical writing included all the things I enjoyed about my previous roles: collaborating across groups and disciplines, learning products in-depth, and writing to help others.

Now that I’ve been a technical writer for several years, the role feels like a great fit and a natural progression of my career.