Zoe Madden-Wood Becomes a Top Software Engineer
Written by WWCode HQ
Community Support Helps Zoe Madden-Wood Become a Top Software Engineer, And An Inspiration to Others
Zoe Madden-Wood was always interested in coding. To her, working as a programmer sounded exciting, like becoming a novelist, a translator, or a marine biologist. She enjoyed tinkering with personal projects as a hobby, but had yet to consider devoting her professional life to coding.
While working full time, Zoe continued to work on her passion projects and began attending Women Who Code events, beginning with the “Ruby Tuesday” series. It was here, that she found both education and inspiration, which energized her to pursue her programming projects with greater enthusiasm. It was also at one of these events that she was first asked if she was seriously considering becoming a Software Engineer – a question that wound up having much more impact than one would think and soon after, Zoe devoted her time to becoming a full time Software Engineer.
According to Zoe, the biggest challenge that she had to overcome when making her career change was actually puncturing the bubble to get her first job. Fortunately, she was able to get help from WWCode, both in the form of a supportive community, and through networking opportunities. One of those networking opportunities, facilitated by WWCode, actually led to her achieving her first position in the field.
However, even after getting the job she still faced challenges. Being the least experienced Engineer on a team of talented people was difficult, and caused her to doubt whether or not she had made the right decision. Luckily, she was able to look back at the work she had already accomplished through her passion projects and her projects with WWCode and take pride in herself, and her abilities. From her reflections came a new sense of confidence, one that allowed her to thrive and flourish in her new position.
Today, Zoe is a full-stack developer for SocialChorus. She works in an agile, test driven, pair programming environment, utilizing hexagonal Rails, Ruby, Backbone, Javascript, and OOCSS in a service oriented architecture that is scaling to meet the demands of a growing customer base. Some of her prominent projects have included building an infrastructure and interface for admins to add external content through RSS feeds, creating mobile content decks for the company’s mobile app which allow users to share from their phones, navigating social media API’s, and creating a powerful messaging application.
Zoe has achieved great success in her field, but she still has her sights set on the future, with aspirations of rising to the position of Software Engineer Manager. She is also heavily involved in the community, and works as a mentor to women who are looking to make the transition into technical careers. In addition to her advocacy work, she is an active member of Women Who Code, having helped start and lead events series, while also serving as a Director for the San Francisco Network.
Follow Zoe on Twitter.
Media Contact: Neal Brown | Chief of Staff
Address: Women Who Code HQ, 44 Tehama St, 5th Floor San Francisco, CA 94105
E-mail: neal@womenwhocode.com