Timeline

2023

Visited Mexico City on a family holiday. Great coffee, amazing food, incredible arts and culture. Wish the air quality were better.
Visited Lanzarote on a friend holiday. Finally got back under the sea post-pregnancy on some nice shore dives. Saw a cuttlefish!
Somehow against all possible odds agreed to give a conference talk for StaffPlus London. Honestly, who could say no to the LeadDev folks when they come calling? I could not, so I did it, and people seemed to like it.
Since I was putting together a conference talk anyway… went and gave it at Brighton Ruby. I keep going back there every year for good reason. Good eggs down in Brighton.
Took the Bernina mountain railway over the Alps, on a 10-day, 5-stop tour through Italy and Switzerland. Dipped my baby’s toes in Lake Como.
Got made redundant, as my employer decided that platform engineering teams, and staff engineers, were not necessary to their business.
Started at Intercom as a Senior Product Engineer

Staff Engineer on the Platform Engineering team at Farewill
Visited the Basque country. Adorable tiny horses, fabulous food, beautiful ocean views.
Bought a house. My god, that was a lot of paperwork.
Had a baby, took a few months off work.
Mostly divested myself of Twitter. RIP. It was good while it lasted. This leaves LinkedIn as my only remaining social media presence which is frankly shocking and nauseating but there you have it.

Started working at Farewill as a software engineer. The midst of a global pandemic seemed like a good time to pivot from the travel industry to the death industry.
Went back to the US to visit family for a couple of weeks in the summer.
Got way too into pottery, signing up for a membership at my local studio and taking some classes
Took driving lessons. Passed my driving test on the first go with flying colours. Officially a licensed driver, again.
Received British citizenship 🇬🇧 and subsequently, a UK passport
Mostly divested myself of Instagram. I still miss it, and haven’t really figured out how to keep in touch with my far-flung friends otherwise, but at least I’m not feeding my life directly into Meta’s malevolent servers.
Reached the staff engineer level for the first time, which is a nice career milestone for me.

Took the completely ridiculous Life in the UK exam; successfully obtained Indefinite Leave to Remain.
Learned/re-learned how to throw pottery at Skandihus. Despite covid-interruptus, it was wonderful to have that creative outlet periodically.
All the dev conferences went online. I attended Women of React and Brighton Ruby, both of which were great.
I did a Practical Cartooning for Technical Folks course and proceeded to spend a lot of happy time drawing. Thank you, Rachel!
Took two writing courses with Write Like A Girl (on Zoom). When we were under lockdown and I couldn’t go to the pottery studio, at least I always had writing to do!
Baked, and ate, a lot of sourdough bread
Tried to find the most pandemic-compatible holiday options in lieu of a family vacation (we took a sleeper train to Scotland, I spent a week on a boat in the Red Sea)
Left Rail Europe (along with the majority of their staff worldwide); took some time off work to recover from burnout

Visited Japan, twice, and had the best times in the best places
Promoted to Tech Lead Manager at Loco2
Traveled around Spain by boat and train
Loco2 becomes Rail Europe UK (This was an intense introduction to engineering management)
Family vacation in the Yucatan
Created an engineering progression for the 15-dev team because flat is bad

I moved to London.
Started calling myself a writer once I started getting paid for blogging: Jezebel
Worked for BrewDog at their bar in Shoreditch and bottle shop in King’s Cross. Handled social media, events, and revived their email newsletter.
Passed the Certified Cicerone examination. I’m literally certified to be a beer snob.
Ate a lot of pizza in Rome
Learned to scuba dive in Thailand, learned to cook in Bali
Visited Belgium, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Munich, and Berlin
Took a train from San Diego out to Chicago
Hugged some redwoods in California

I turned 30. I visited the seventh continen; made friends with a penguin
Backpacked around Patagonia, just for kicks
I did copywriting and editing for an advertising agency, working primarily for clients in the healthcare sector: Indiana University Health, Roche Diagnostics, Blue Cross Blue Shield
Mentored teens in web development at the Adler Planetarium’s Web-Making Workshop for Civic Action
Lost my best pal (this was devastating)

I edited Distance, a quarterly publication of long-form writing about design and technology.
Finally made it to the very top of Half Dome in Yosemite, after making my first attempt 15 years earlier.

I edited the second edition of Cadence and Slang, a book about interaction design by Nick Disabato.
Took an epic 4-week trip through the South Pacific, with stops in Australia, New Zealand, and French Polynesia
Died of happiness a little bit whilst hugging a koala, and probably smelled very bad by the time I finished backpacking along the Milford Track
Finished a Certificate in Medical Writing and Editing at the University of Chicago’s Graham School
Went to Bogotá for a bit

I planned a Pinterest-perfect wedding, handling all the visual design myself. Yeah, never doing that again.

From 2010 to 2015, I worked for the University of Chicago’s Center for Health and Social Sciences. I replaced their old fixed-width framed site with a responsive layout, and created updated templates for their Adobe Contribute CMS. I updated the visual design of all marketing materials and created a series of Annual Reports which were distributed widely to funding agencies and collaborators.
I moved from San Diego to Chicago. Learned the meaning of winter Yikes.
From 2007 to 2010, I was the Assistant Librarian for the San Diego Zoo. In 2010 we published our research on zoo libraries.
I hiked the Inca Trail in Peru. It was pretty great.

Finished a Master’s in Library and Information Science from San Jose State University
Taught SAT prep courses for Kaplan in the evenings and on weekends

Worked as a Library Assistant at the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego from 2006 to 2007
Volunteered for the San Diego Public Library and the San Diego Zoo library

Graduated with a BA in Literatures of the World from the University of California, San Diego