How Celeste Carter Changed Her Career…and Her Family's Future

当塞莱斯特·卡特在2019年生下双胞胎时, the plan was that she would become a stay-at-home mom, 在家上学，照顾孩子. But a year later, that plan fell apart when her husband passed away.

有两个孩子要养, 没有工作，没有积蓄, and a pandemic that closed her affordable day care, Carter needed a new plan—one that would give her and her family the stability and financial support they needed.

“整个世界都停止了运转，”卡特回忆道. “I no longer had my husband to help navigate the world ahead of us, I had to make a way."

After considering her options, Carter decided that technology was the place she needed to be. Unfortunately, she didn't have the money she needed to pay for the courses and certifications. But she found—and earned—a scholarship to a full-time coding bootcamp, 她是在2021年1月参加的. 在家工作, coding away in JavaScript and Ruby up to ten hours a day, Carter realized that she wasn't just learning new skills. “I was also teaching my daughters how to be resilient and how to survive when things fall apart,她回忆道.

建设未来

Building a new career isn't just a matter of learning new skills, and when she was not coding or taking care of her children, Carter took advantage of every opportunity she could to learn something new, 建立她的关系网, 把自己和别人区分开来. “I'm not the norm; I'm not a traditional technologist " she explains. “I'm older, I'm a single mom, and I'm just finding a career and that's a huge step!"

2021年7月, Carter learned about a new Emerging Talent Software Engineer (ETSE) program at 澳博官方网站app. Designed for early-career software engineers who have gained their coding skills through non-traditional pathways, ETSE has a unique method for interviewing potential recruits: It hosts a virtual hackathon, in which candidates work with 澳博官方网站app's Hack for Good program. Designed to connect new programmers with communities in need of their expertise, the 12-hour hackathon gives participants a chance to showcase their abilities…while helping a worthy cause.

黑客马拉松的早晨, Carter grabbed her breakfast and made sure she was ready for the marathon ahead of her. “I checked that my laptops were charged and I lined up bottles of water and orange juice around my desk,她记得. “比赛时间到了!"

当卡特见到她的团队时, 她立即行动起来, 给她的每个同事分配角色, 基于他们的优势. 在接下来的12小时内, the team worked together to build an app to support working womens' overall well-being. In the process, Carter flourished as a developer and scrum master. “Being a scrum master was really unique for me," 她说. “I was coding but I was also overseeing our front end and back end teams"

新的工作，新的挑战

黑客马拉松结束后两天, Carter was sitting in her living room watching her bootcamp's final presentations on Zoom when her phone rang. It was a 澳博官方网站app recruiter, offering her a full-time job.

“I couldn't wait to become a full-time engineer," Carter says. “I was going to have the opportunity to wake up every day and create something out of thin air." Carter graduated from the coding bootcamp that week with a diploma in one hand and a job offer in the other.

但在卡特开始她的新工作之前, nature threw her one more curveball: New Orleans, 她的家乡, 在飓风艾达的路径上吗. Suddenly, she had just one goal in her mind—securing the safety of her family. 在她动荡的一年之后, Carter knew that she could face the new challenge single-handedly, 而是作为澳博官方网站app的新员工, she didn't have to: The company provided support for her and her family to evacuate to Plano, 德州.

Carter has been at 澳博官方网站app for a year and a half, and is thriving as an Emerging Talent Software Engineer. Two years after surviving the most devastating challenge of her life, she's living her dream job and supporting her children. 所有这些, 她说, has taught her a vital lesson: “You need to have the courage to do whatever it takes and get in front of it."