IT Brief profiled the pivot from photographer to developer
IT Brief ran a piece on my pivot from photography to full-stack development, timed for International Women’s Day — self-taught first, a bootcamp in 2022, joining Notitia in 2023. If you want the full timeline, it’s linked at the bottom. What I want to say here is the part that didn’t quite fit in someone else’s word count.
I told them confidence in tech isn’t about knowing everything — it’s about being willing to make mistakes, learn, and solve the problem anyway. I meant it. I also know exactly how hollow that sentence sounds on a morning when nothing’s working and I can’t tell if it’s my code or the client’s API.
Here’s where mine actually came from: the first time I was handed a project with no one else’s architecture to lean on, and no senior dev quietly absorbing the risk if I got it wrong. That wasn’t a confidence-building exercise someone designed on purpose — it’s just what happens when you’re finally the person nobody else is going to catch. My thinking changed almost immediately, from “how do I build this correctly” to “what does this system actually need to do, and what breaks if I’m wrong about it.” I still get things wrong. I just don’t treat getting something wrong as evidence I don’t belong here anymore — it’s the fastest way I’ve found to learn what I didn’t understand yet.
If you’re reading a “women in tech” feature — mine or anyone else’s — and wondering whether you’re the confident type: probably not, not yet. Most of us weren’t, until a project made us.