Chronicle

I've just been keeping my head down and powering through work. There hasn't really been anything difficult lately, it's just working from home is starting to take its toll on me after more than year. After talking with coworkers and friends in a similar situation, I don't seem to be the only one with feelings of stress, anxiety and despair. It's not extremely bad; it comes and goes, but there are some days that I just can't seem to function normally and I just need to veg out. Despite this, I suppose it could always be worse. I still need to get the vaccinate; I was slated to get it this past Friday but the facility cancelled due to issues with availability, so I have to reschedule.

In other news, I finally achieved a milestone in my plan. In college, more specifically during my stint at Hunter College, I decided to pursue a career in health care and become a psychologist. During my junior year, I joined a clinical services company and became a compliance officer. The company worked with nonprofit agencies throughout New York and provided services to low-income intellectually disabled individuals. As compliance officer, I would go around the various sites and go through the therapist books and make sure everything was in order. When the administrative assistant had left, the owner decided to try me out in the position. I started out enthusiastically and worked to make operations run more smoothly and efficiently. After a few years, I became the administrator and attended graduate school. I started out taking night classes, which meant working from 9 AM to 5:00 PM, taking dinner at 5:15 PM alone by myself in the empty office, and then trekking it from Midtown East to Columbia University up at Harlem to attend night classes that would end around 9PM. I'd go get a couple of slices from a pizza place and then take a cab home. Towards the end of grad school, I had to take classes in the late morning or early afternoon since that was the only time they would be offered, which meant I'd have to stay at work later during those days. I did this for 3 years since I only took 2 classes a semester and took around $50K in student loans. I was really happy when I graduated, I felt like I was able to achieve something great, that I made my parents proud, and that I knew I could do whatever I wanted as long as I put my heart into it.

The plan was always to become a psychologist, so I started applying to doctorate programs during my last semester. Later that year, I got my rejection letters; no program wanted to take me. I knew I was going to have a hard time since I didn't have any real research experience aside from college level work that I did, which I truly did forget about until just now. My work was on how word frequencies affected proofreading; it's actually much more interesting than it sounds. Anyway, I didn't get in so I applied again, in the meanwhile I had been promoted at work again and had more responsibilities, so I busied myself with studying for GREs and taking them. At this point, a friend of mine had changed his careers and took a coding bootcamp and was urging me to join him. I was hesitant of course since I had invested so much time, effort and money into becoming a psychologist, but when the second round of rejection letters came, I was deflated. I started questioning what I was doing with my life and whether this was what I really wanted. When it came down to it, was this worth fighting for? I couldn't really progress forward in my career in healthcare without a doctorate, which meant I'd have to ensure at least another 5 years of school just to get to my dissertation, then defend it, and then have to sit for a license and then start off at a group practice. To top it off the starting salary at that point would be less than $100K. As Bill Clinton once said, the arithmetic of the plan just didn't make sense.

That was when I decided to start looking at freeCodeCamp and went through their front end certification. I started doing Project Euler questions and creating simple Python scripts to automate tasks involving Excel at work. At work, I got promoted again and my boss became ill so he started coming in less and less, which meant I had to pick up the slack. I liked my boss I really did, he took a chance on me and I felt the need to be loyal to him. In July of 2016, he passed away and I was left to take care of the business. I helped his wife get the affairs in order and helped transition the company to the new owner, which was one of our own therapists. I couldn't really focus on changing careers at this point since I felt a responsibility to make sure my former boss' company, his legacy lived on. I stayed on and ensure that operations ran normally, without any disruptions. After a bit, I signed up for a full stack course on Udacity. I would work during the day and learn and code at night. When I finished the course, I started applying. I'd get interviews here and there but they were few and far between. I'd give it a good effort but ultimately, I'd get hosed during the onsite.

The new boss decided to close down the office and have us working from home while he found a new office. Toward the end of the first quarter of 2017, he found a place out in Queens, which meant I'd have to take the LIRR to work, then take a cab to the office since there weren't any buses that went there from the train station. When going home, I would take a 45 min bus ride to the E train and then take another 45 mins to get to the 6 train and get home. Sometimes, it would take 2.5 hours to get home since the buses would be packed with hospital staff going home, and I'd have to wait and wait and wait. At times, I just couldn't take it and call a cab to grab the LIRR. I hated the commute, it was a nightmare.

The new office wasn't much better. It actually wasn't really an office, it was located at a house where the first floor was converted to a therapist's office, while someone lived on the second floor. Of course, our 'office' was located in the dark dank basement that sometimes flooded. I'd come in the morning and walk into the dark basement to be alone and answer the occasional phone call, reply to emails and go through paperwork.

After a few months of the hellish commute that left drained and the office environment that left feeling devoid and alone, I just couldn't take it. On Nov. 13th, 2017, I turned in my resignation. At that point, I had about 20K in savings and I was scared I was going to find a job in time before it ran out. I ramped up my efforts and started applying everywhere. I still remember the phone call to this day, I was prepping for an onsite interview with another company when Michelle, a recruiter from FDM Group at the time, called me after 5 PM for a quick impromptu phone screening. I remember going through my background and experience and then she asked me about my interests and I talked about music. I remember talking to her about how I felt a deep connection with music and use it as a unifying experience among people, and rambled on about divinity and sacred connections and all this stuff, and I guess I had impressed her. I came in a couple of weeks later to the office on Wall Street, took a quick assessment that had an essay portion I wasn't aware of and then had a couple of interviews. I remember feeling good about everything and went off to Chinatown to grab some lunch and take it off. As I was walking to get noodles from my favorite place, Michelle called me and asked me what I thought. I remember thinking that I had missed one question and only realized the answer afterwards and was iffy on another but I think I had it right, and she chuckled since I seemed to have done pretty well. I got an offer letter from them on Dec. 14th, 2017 and I was over the moon. Those few weeks between quitting and getting the offer letter were the darkest I've ever experienced. I felt like I'd had hit rock bottom before, back when I was at Stony. This was a little different. This felt like it was only a matter of time before I'd dig myself out. Or at least dig myself out before I'd drown, and that was the scariest thing ever. But I had done it.

I started with FDM towards the end of January 2018. I was to join a cohort of 12 other trainees and go through a 4 month course that focused heavily on backend Java development. We would learn the basics of Java as well as Shell, some SQL, and the banking world in general. After the course, we would be placed with FDM clients, which were mainly financial institutions. I remember being really anxious the first week since I was the oldest one there and one of the few ones without a computer science background. After a few days though, the stress faded away. During the third week, I interviewed with IHS Markit for a front end developer position. We were in the middle of learning Shell and I had to take the interview during one of our breaks. I wasn't really nervous which was unusual for me and felt really comfortable during the interview. I spoke with a team lead and we went through some of my projects and he grilled me about javascript. I thought it went well. After days later, I had a meeting with Michelle where she gave me the news that I had been selected and was set to go to work with the client. At first, I didn't realize what she meant since the interviewer had mentioned a take home and I was expecting at least another round. I was congratulated when I returned to the classroom and the other trainees were surprised by my success since it was a 'one and done' interview and that it was only the third week of training. After all, we hadn't even received our first paychecks yet.

I stayed around for a few more months and started at FDM on April 9th, 2018. I walked onto Hudson Yards and into the office and was instantly impressed by the grandeur of it all. I met my team and had to adjust to the fact that most were working in offices around the globe, mainly London, India and Kiev. Eventually, I learned Angular and started on a newly commissioned project, called NCM, which stands for novation consent management. I also got an intern that first summer and created an fpml validator tool. Eventually, I became the UI tech lead for NCM and developed it for a couple of years. I then joined the admin team, which is where I am today and helped migrated the platform identity and access management system from Ping to SAM authentication. In the first quarter of 2020, IHS had offered to convert me to a permanent employee but the position would be in Raleigh, NC with my former line manager. I declined since I wanted to stay in New York, and was expecting to leave but then the managing director assured me I would have a position in New York. So I stayed but then COVID happened and the offer fell through. I kept asking about it periodically but there was no movement. Finally, after a year, I will be working converted to a permanent employee starting April 26th, 2021.

If you had told me 5 years ago that I'd be working as a software engineer in financial markets, I wouldn't have believed you. That's why I felt the need to write this all down; It's been a crazy journey and I don't know what the future holds, but I look forward to what the next five years.