What’s Your Job About?
Theta is an IT consultancy company in New Zealand; however, I work in the Product team, building software applications for Theta to sell to their customers. I mostly work on a number of .NET Core (C#) web applications, both building new features and improving existing ones as well. I am at any point responsible for maintaining and improving on any part of the code—backend and frontend!—or configuring our deployment pipelines. I am also responsible for reviewing my teammate’s code. The first project I worked on at Theta is an application meant for children, currently used by a school in the Wellington region. We rewrote the entire web application, translating it from one frontend framework to another. Not only did I have to write new code, but I needed to read and understand the old code, too! I also was able to meet with the students using the application and get their direct feedback. Not always something software developers or kids get to do!
What’s Your Background?
I grew up in the midwestern United States of America and moved to New Zealand after finishing a Bachelor of Arts degree. I spent most of the next several years working in finance—an area unrelated to my qualifications. After a few years in an accounts receivable team, I realised I was more interested in working with technology and applied for a role in an entirely different team as a Process Improvement Analyst. I enjoyed this role very much but found I wanted to “do the fixing” myself rather than just explaining to developers what needed to be done. I eventually went to a weekend event where women taught other women the basics of programming, and I was hooked. Programming seemed to come naturally to me. I self-taught for a while, but eventually joined the Masters of Software Development program at Victoria University of Wellington’s ICT Graduate school. During this program, I completed my internship at Theta, where I’ve stayed since graduating in 2021.
Could someone with a different background do your job?
Yes and no. I came to programming and software development without a technical background, and many more people are doing so every day. However, I needed quite a bit of technical practice before landing an internship, and quite a bit of experience to be hired into this role. If you’re looking to change careers and become a software developer, it’s definitely attainable, but you will need to upskill before being hired on into a role like this.
What's the coolest thing about your job?
I am constantly being introduced to new concepts and technologies in this role and given the opportunity to be responsible for them. For example, I am primarily a web developer in .NET Core, but I’m also picking up some mobile and Unity development as well.
What are the limitations of your job?
We are a small development team which means you might not always be able to focus on one thing or project at a time. This may not be an issue for everyone, but when it is an issue, you must learn how to jump onto something else for a while and pick up where you left off when you return to a task. When things are hectic, documenting your progress and task management are essential.
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