Career Path Memory Lane
Not too many people know this, but I spent 3/4 of my college career as a Journalism major. This was in the mid 90's when the web was just starting to take off and people were learning what it was and lots of people wanted websites and very few people knew how to create websites. I was one of those people and somewhere between my online chatting addition and my Journalism classes, I decided that was what I wanted to do with my life.
Enter: Problem. There was no such thing as a web design or development major back then. The closest thing was a Computer Science major and that definitely wasn't me. In turn, I switched my major to a basic Telecommunications degree, got some experience in web design and was able to get jobs after college in this field. Nearly all of my web design experience was self taught, but, like I said, the market was not flooded with people who could do this work, so I was lucky in that respect. I've never been a *great* web designer, but during those first several years, I was decent and I was lucky to have landed a few good jobs where I could continue to learn more and get better.
I spent my first three years in DC working for a non-profit where I was the web designer, network support, help desk and all around IT person. It was a really great experience and I learned quite a bit. However, the main issue was that there was no way for me to move up the ladder and despite being a great experience, I wasn't getting paid anything near industry standard. I then fell into a job at the SEC, just because it was more money and it was basically handed to me after a five minute phone interview.
I'm still not sure if this was a positive or negative for me, but since it got me to where I am today, I mostly count it as a positive. It was basically a step back, career-wise. I had gone from a job where I was in charge of every thing web related and took care of the IT needs for a 15 person organization to a basic HTML coder. Towards the end of my time there, I was doing a bit of design stuff, but I knew that wasn't my specialty and I was sort of lost to what I wanted to do next.
Fortunately, my next step was decided for me, when I was promptly fired from that job. It wasn't anything I'd actually done, but I was the scapegoat for a Federal employee that couldn't be fired. In the grand scheme of things, it was the best thing that could have happened to me at the time. My contractor, at the time, felt really bad about how things played out with that situation. They basically gave me 6 weeks worth of severance and the time and resources I needed to look for another job.
Also, fortunately for me, OPM was hiring at that time. I had several interviews around this time period, but I had an official offer from OPM less than a month after I was fired and I started here before my severance money ran out. Initially, I wasn't overly excited about the job, but I needed a job and they hired me and even paid me $5k more than I was making at the SEC.
I instantly like my coworkers at OPM, but I my job was pretty boring for the first year. I was doing basic HTML updates and lots of 508 compliance stuff. I was mostly just doing time, waiting for a year to pass and then I was going to try to look for a writing or research job. In the meantime, I started a TV blog to get myself writing every day. However, shortly after my first year here, I started getting more responsibilities. I was assigned a content management project and I was doing a bit of technical writing, as well. I was actually really enjoying my job for the first time in three years.
It only grew from there. I continued to have great relationships with my coworkers and I kept getting more exciting projects to work on. Eventually, I was promoted to a web project manager. While I was still doing quite a bit of coding, I was also leading and managing projects, which was pretty exciting for me. A little over two years ago, I asked for a big raise (10%) and I got it! Shortly thereafter, I was also given the content management job for a major product launch. This eventually turned into me mostly managing the project, while also coding and managing the content. The past 18+ months of my work life have been consumed by this project. I got to work with some high level clientele and I did a great job and was recognized for it by both my peers and my management. At the end of 2012, I earned my PMP certification, which should yield me another raise, soon.
This brings us to present time. We launched that major website (www.opm.gov) two weeks ago and everything went really well. In the meantime, our team has grown and we've done a bit of a re-org here. I'm now transitioning to a Project Manager ONLY. I'm going to be JUST doing the fun stuff without getting bogged down by the day to day work and coding. I'll be assigning other resources to do that, in addition to my other PM work. I'm really, really excited about this. I love project management and I find myself excited to come to work every day. It's frantic some times, trying to balance the dozen or so different types of tasks I have to do on a daily basis, all while solving various problems, communicating with clients and facilitating peer communication. Still, I'm more excited about my career than I have been since those few months years after college. It's helping my motivation in other areas of my life, as well. Some times, it's hard to believe how lucky I've been in the past few years, but I also remember how hard I worked to make that luck. It's invigorating, to say the least.
Enter: Problem. There was no such thing as a web design or development major back then. The closest thing was a Computer Science major and that definitely wasn't me. In turn, I switched my major to a basic Telecommunications degree, got some experience in web design and was able to get jobs after college in this field. Nearly all of my web design experience was self taught, but, like I said, the market was not flooded with people who could do this work, so I was lucky in that respect. I've never been a *great* web designer, but during those first several years, I was decent and I was lucky to have landed a few good jobs where I could continue to learn more and get better.
I spent my first three years in DC working for a non-profit where I was the web designer, network support, help desk and all around IT person. It was a really great experience and I learned quite a bit. However, the main issue was that there was no way for me to move up the ladder and despite being a great experience, I wasn't getting paid anything near industry standard. I then fell into a job at the SEC, just because it was more money and it was basically handed to me after a five minute phone interview.
I'm still not sure if this was a positive or negative for me, but since it got me to where I am today, I mostly count it as a positive. It was basically a step back, career-wise. I had gone from a job where I was in charge of every thing web related and took care of the IT needs for a 15 person organization to a basic HTML coder. Towards the end of my time there, I was doing a bit of design stuff, but I knew that wasn't my specialty and I was sort of lost to what I wanted to do next.
Fortunately, my next step was decided for me, when I was promptly fired from that job. It wasn't anything I'd actually done, but I was the scapegoat for a Federal employee that couldn't be fired. In the grand scheme of things, it was the best thing that could have happened to me at the time. My contractor, at the time, felt really bad about how things played out with that situation. They basically gave me 6 weeks worth of severance and the time and resources I needed to look for another job.
Also, fortunately for me, OPM was hiring at that time. I had several interviews around this time period, but I had an official offer from OPM less than a month after I was fired and I started here before my severance money ran out. Initially, I wasn't overly excited about the job, but I needed a job and they hired me and even paid me $5k more than I was making at the SEC.
I instantly like my coworkers at OPM, but I my job was pretty boring for the first year. I was doing basic HTML updates and lots of 508 compliance stuff. I was mostly just doing time, waiting for a year to pass and then I was going to try to look for a writing or research job. In the meantime, I started a TV blog to get myself writing every day. However, shortly after my first year here, I started getting more responsibilities. I was assigned a content management project and I was doing a bit of technical writing, as well. I was actually really enjoying my job for the first time in three years.
It only grew from there. I continued to have great relationships with my coworkers and I kept getting more exciting projects to work on. Eventually, I was promoted to a web project manager. While I was still doing quite a bit of coding, I was also leading and managing projects, which was pretty exciting for me. A little over two years ago, I asked for a big raise (10%) and I got it! Shortly thereafter, I was also given the content management job for a major product launch. This eventually turned into me mostly managing the project, while also coding and managing the content. The past 18+ months of my work life have been consumed by this project. I got to work with some high level clientele and I did a great job and was recognized for it by both my peers and my management. At the end of 2012, I earned my PMP certification, which should yield me another raise, soon.
This brings us to present time. We launched that major website (www.opm.gov) two weeks ago and everything went really well. In the meantime, our team has grown and we've done a bit of a re-org here. I'm now transitioning to a Project Manager ONLY. I'm going to be JUST doing the fun stuff without getting bogged down by the day to day work and coding. I'll be assigning other resources to do that, in addition to my other PM work. I'm really, really excited about this. I love project management and I find myself excited to come to work every day. It's frantic some times, trying to balance the dozen or so different types of tasks I have to do on a daily basis, all while solving various problems, communicating with clients and facilitating peer communication. Still, I'm more excited about my career than I have been since those few months years after college. It's helping my motivation in other areas of my life, as well. Some times, it's hard to believe how lucky I've been in the past few years, but I also remember how hard I worked to make that luck. It's invigorating, to say the least.