Growing up I always knew I wanted to be an Engineer. I was always tinkering or taking apart things to see how they worked much to my parents dismay. I eventually decided on becoming an electrical engineer and attended the university of Trinidad and Tobago but soon after decided that I wanted to immigrate to Canada. Then I attend a special international school that would allow me to apply to universities in Canada.
I began my journey in engineering at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario. This was my first time being really on my own and be too honest, I struggled with making friends, with classes, with being visible minority (something I never had to deal with or think about prior to moving). After that first year I moved to Ajax Ontario and I changed my area of study to Robotics and automation. This program was more hands on, and I found it suited my learning style better.
The next 3 years blow by in a flash and I started working in the field. My first job out of school was as a Direct digital control (DDC) Technician and Admin support. In the beginning, this was interesting. I was able to see the things I learned in class being applied to automate the HVAC system in residential and commercial building across the city. But this quickly got boring and also found out this company was under paying me.
My next job, on paper was essentially my dream job. The things they said that I would have the opportunity o do and learn were exactly think things I had been looking for, and I was over the moon. It was a junior position, and they immediately send me on additional training to work with the specialized tools they used. The first year was perfect, after having completed the training offsite over a few weeks and returning to the office I was given my first big R&D project.
I'm not going to go into any specifics here, but I had to create the software and electrical for a new machine that was proposed. As I was not a PEng all my work was supervised by the senior and chief engineers. I also did not create any or the mechanical aspects of the project which was fine with me. I want to say it took about 6 months to get the prototype working and another 6 in testing and tweaking. While this was happening my role kept changing as the company moved away from R&D and more into sales and support. I was not too happy with the lack of new projects to work on, but I understood that they needed to do this to be able to create new products in the future. But creaks started showing as time passed, bad managements and leadership and lack of respect started to make me question my role within that company.
Three years in and I started looking for a new job, the job changed. I was no longer doing something I enjoyed and did not feel respected for the things I was doing. While my interview skills aren't the best, the first couple of interviews I had been really shockingly bad. Now I've always been aware that I worked in a mostly male dominated field, and I am also a AFAB non-binary person that presents more androgynous at times. Here is one sample of what I've endured, I've had to site in a room where I talked to the HR person and the director of engineering. After passing the competency test and doing well in the interview the HR person wanted me to meet the lead engineer that I would be working with.
I was excited, it was a company that was doing some cool things and I would be learning a lot. The door opens and in comes an old white man, takes one look me, and before I even have time to react he goes off. He starts talking to the other in the room loudly that he will not be working with some women and left. Now that's the very short editor version, it was much worse and everyone in the room was shocked. I left with a lot of emotions, the HR person said that she would talk to him and get back to me. They did get back to me but instead of the full-time position it was a contract position. I thought about it and decided it was not the situation I wanted to be in.
After and a couple other similar experiences, I was traumatized and stopped job hunting altogether. I think a couple of months later while hanging out with a friend, I learned about Web Development. Now I've always been good at computers and I know a little about coding even though when I write software for machines its different. I started looking into it more, and I found that there were a lot of opportunities in this field and that even though it was also another male dominated, it felt more progressive. I then spent about three months teaching myself the basics trying to decide if this was something I was capable of doing and then decided to attend a bootcamp and make that career change.
Now two years into this industry and I wish I made the change sooner. It so much more rewarding, and I find more joy and excitement in the work I'm doing.
I'm thinking of making another post about my bootcamp experience.
Stay tuned,
Artemis
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