Technical Careers

Shailaja Tuppad’s career journey took her from software development in India to graduate studies in Durham, North Carolina, to a career break in California. After being out of the workforce for two years, she found it difficult to break back into her previous field. After finding out about Path Forward, she applied for and received a returnship at OSIsoft, where she was then hired full-time as a Software Developer. How…

After establishing her career as a Java programmer in New Delhi, India, Romasha experienced two momentous changes in a short period of time when she had a child and moved to America. With a young child at home, she decided to take a career break. When her son started kindergarten, she felt that it was time to return to the workforce and found a returnship at LendingClub though Path Forward.…

Company: Cloudflare Position: Technical Support Engineer Cloudflare is now considering returnees for all current job openings in any field! Learn how you can apply here. Gloria stepped away from the workforce for more than 10 years to raise her son. She joined Cloudflare as one of their first returnees and has been with them since November 2016. Here’s her story. What type of work did you do before taking a…

Lavanya earned an MBA and worked for more than five years in the technology sector before she left her career to raise her child. After three years away from her career, she found it difficult to re-enter the workforce at the same professional level. She attended a Path Forward Career Restart Seminar and applied for a returnship at Medallia. She now works as a full-time Senior Analyst at Medallia. What…

Ellein Cheng left her career for four and a half years to raise her children. Ellein was a high-school math teacher, and held a career as a market risk analyst before that. When she started her Path Forward returnship as a product support specialist, not only did she re-start her career, but she changed it completely. After her returnship at AppNexus, (now Xandr), she converted into a full-time role, and…

Anne Smith has 28 years of software engineering experience. After taking a three-year career break to spend time with her teenage children, she re-entered the workforce through a returnship at Cloudera. Despite the fact that Anne had not worked in a hands-on engineering environment for a few years, her understanding of software engineering concepts made her an excellent fit as a project manager within the Quality Engineering team as an…

Name:  Trisha Almeida Company and position title: Demandbase, I started as a solutions consultant and was hired full-time as a project manager. What did you do before taking a break? I worked as a project manager in IT. I started my career as an engineer, grew into an analyst position, and when I quit I was working as a project manager. How many years of experience did you have before your…

Name: Viviana Bhandari Company and position title: Demandbase, software engineer. What did you do before taking a break? I was living in Costa Rica where I worked as a customer service rep for call centers for different companies. I moved to the US for my husband’s career and I wasn’t able to get a work visa right away so I used the time to finish my degree. How many years…

Name: Tricia Slovacek What was your returnship position at Return Path? I was a Software Engineer in the Data Pipeline group. In your career past life, what did you do? I have experience as a weather modeling and verification software engineer, magnetic recording I/O firmware engineer, and I/O control systems software engineer. How long were you out of the workforce? 11 years What do you do each day as a returnee at…