Profiles

Career transitions to tech beyond late 30s
WordPress sites – setup / maintenance
Content creation / social media
Golden retrievers, hiking, gardening 🙂

I came onboard at the #WCEU 2020 online, when I attended her first Contributor Day. I initially signed up to ‘try out’ contributing as I aimed to document the experience for an article I was writing for her site. The piece was recommending involvement with open source as a solid networking and skill-building strategy for people transitioning into tech in their late 30s, 40s or beyond (https://transitionintotech.com/contribute-to-open-source/)

As all latecomers to tech, I was struggling with a case of imposter syndrome. Despite my solid WordPress & budding web dev skills, strong writing & social marketing chops, I felt I was nowhere close to being able to make a valuable contribution. Something else that wasn’t helping? My rather introverted nature. Which is why I was super excited at the perspective of joining an online event, since working from the comfort of my cosy home office cancelled out some of the stress.

My favourite thing about the Contributor day is the possibility to shop around for your favourite tasks. After lurking for a while in various Slack channels, I eventually joined the Marketing team where I got started with captioning videos for WPTV. She is excited to bring her contribution and looks forward to staying with the community, possibly exploring other roles down the road. I’m also actively planning my first local WordCamp in Eastern France where she’s stationed.

If I were to give a piece of advice to others who are also looking to transition into tech in their late 30s, 40s or beyond, it’s this: contributing to open source, you get to expand your network and consolidate your new tech skills. And WordPress offers a stellar first experience – I couldn’t recommend it enough!