5 Answers From A Woman In Tech At Bloomberg
When Software Engineer Noelle Corbin was in college, she was counseled against pursuing a career in technology because “there wasn’t any future in computers.” Years later, armed with a master’s degree in computer science, she found her passion in web development.
PowerToFly chatted with the mom of two, now a consultant for Bloomberg, about company culture, summer beach trips, and coding games on her dad’s computer at age 11.
Hi, Noelle! Please introduce yourself to the PowerToFly community.
I’m Noelle, a Software Engineer Consultant at Bloomberg. What that means is that we’re building a new full stack application using a bunch of JavaScript libraries, and I’m helping pull that whole thing together. It’s a long-term project, at least 6 months, and I started back in June.
I live in central Massachusetts, in Holden, which is almost right in the middle of the state. I have two children — my daughter just turned 13 and my son’s going to be 10. I like to ski in the wintertime, and in the summer I spend a lot of time at the beach with my kids. I also have a vegetable and herb garden in my backyard, which is my view from my home workspace.
What’s the work culture like at Bloomberg?
I love the work culture, it feels very positive. Part of Bloomberg’s philosophy is that they really encourage developers to collaborate and help each other out. It’s a really nice climate. It feels like they want their developers to be their best, so they give us resources and access to training products, which is great.
“Part of Bloomberg’s philosophy is that they really encourage developers to collaborate and help each other out.”
It can be overwhelming to start anywhere new, and [Bloomberg] especially is such a big company that they have so many products I don’t know anything about. But everybody I’ve worked with has been so helpful with explaining the architecture to me, they’ve made it a lot easier to get started. That’s nice because it’s not always the case. […] I’ve worked in a lot of different environments, and I get along really well with people, but in the past I’ve worked with some people who almost try to set others up to to fail to make themselves look good. That doesn’t apply at Bloomberg; it’s like we’re one big team. For one of us to succeed, we all have to succeed, so we help each other out.
Tell us about your team at Bloomberg. How do you work efficiently together?
There are three main developers on the project: it’s me here in Massachusetts, a developer at the headquarters in New York City, and a developer in the London office.
“It’s like we’re one big team. For one of us to succeed, we all have to succeed, so we help each other out.”
[My team] has daily meetings at the same time every day. Sometimes it’s just a 5-minute check in: “Are there any stoppages? No? OK, let’s keep going.” Sometimes it’s a longer training session. My team has built a really good relationship because we see each other every day. It’s not face-to-face but it feels like face-to-face, so that’s been a big help.
We also use a whole bunch of tools to communicate. We have video conferencing and a chat program. The chat only has people who are contributing to our project, so if anyone has questions that’s a great place to start. I work really closely with a developer in New York City, so we often get on a video conference if one of us needs to explain something to the other that’s too complicated for chat or email.
Tell us about your journey into tech. What was the first thing you ever coded?
When I was 11, my dad had this old RadioShack computer and I used to program on it in BASIC and write little games. They were kind of just, “Do you want to do this or that?” and it would do different things, but I liked to do that.
In school, I was always stronger in the math and logic fields. But when I was heading to college, the tech boom hadn’t happened yet — I was actually told there wasn’t any future in computers, and was counseled against going into that field. I ended up graduating from college with a non-technical degree right when the tech explosion was happening. So at that point I took some programming courses, really liked them, and went on to get some prerequisites and a master’s degree in computer science.
“When I was heading to college, I was actually told there wasn’t any future in computers, and was counseled against going into that field.”
Even before I was done with my master’s I was working in the field too, because there was just so much opportunity at that time. I started out in a position where I was doing part time Unix administration, and part time website maintenance. I really liked the website side of it and I started writing more interactive pieces for it. At that time it was CGI script, it was kind of old school, but I really liked doing that so I moved into a position where I did all web development. […]
I was really excited to end up where I am now at Bloomberg, because it’s the best of both worlds. It’s a great company, and I get to use all this newer technology that’s really fun and exciting.
What advice would you give to other women who are interested in pursuing a career in tech?
I would say there’s a ton of opportunity in the field. Depending on what you go into you can be pretty [flexible] or sometimes work remotely, so it’s a nice field for women to go into if they want to be with their family more and still have a career.
If someone is just getting started, there are lots of Meetup groups for women in technology out there. Those are [good to join] to get an idea of what’s going on, and try out different technology to see what you like working in.
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To learn more about technology at Bloomberg visit www.techatbloomberg.com.
