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My current career position is Director of Client Services for Sea
Change Systems, Inc., a software/IT consulting company. I manage
the overall schedule for many of our products that are used in hospitals
and community health centers. My previous jobs were in Quality Assurance
and Systems Analyst. Unlike many people in the software field, I
do not have a degree in Engineering. Instead, my BA is in American
Studies and I have an MBA in Marketing. I have always been interested
in computers and became the computer expert at my first job after
I received my MBA. After working at that position for about 4 years,
I went back and received a certificate in Client Server Development.
I then went on to my first official software position as a Quality
Assurance Engineer for Lotus Notes.
The most exciting part of my career is that I get to combine my
technological skills with my management skills. In my current position,
I have to understand the development life cycle and be able to communicate
with the developers along with being able to communicate what the
developers tell me to the client who does not always understand
the technology of what they are using. I then have to manage both
the development cycle along with the client's schedule.
The biggest barrier that I had to overcome to get to my current
position was that I do not have a degree in Engineering or Computer
Science. While I do have an MBA, that was not important when trying
to get a technological position. I had to prove to people that I
could do the job while having a diverse background. Many corporations
only look at the degree and not what people can do. I found that
I had to look at smaller companies that were willing to look at
the whole picture and not just judge people based on their degrees.
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