From Classroom to Cloud: My Unconventional Career Journey

Changing careers is a challenge.

Changing your career after a decade of pouring yourself into practice and professional development feels impossible.?

I loved teaching. As an unapologetic advocate for public education, I spent countless hours honing my craft, preparing standards-based student-centric lessons, and tweaking my delivery to be just a bit better each class period. Working with students was undoubtedly the best part of my day, and anyone who knows me (or sat in my classroom) will tell you the same.

But it burnt me out. Be it some confluence of educational politics, bureaucratic hoop-jumping, low pay, long hours, or loss of agency, like the 35% of teachers likely to leave the classroom in the next two years, I knew I needed a change. For my relationships, for my sanity, for my future.

It sounds simpler than it felt: teaching was all I’d ever known as a professional. Teaching was who I was as a professional. It was the identity that I’d constructed for myself, built brick-by-brick through completing a graduate program, regularly attending further professional development, leading sessions on topics like differentiated instruction or gradual release, and so on. If I were to leave education, I would need to disentangle myself from my professional identity and figure out what could still bring me joy.?

I started with the most challenging part: sitting with my thoughts of a future beyond the classroom. What brings me fulfillment and can still earn a living? What can I do well and consistently deliver? Where is the intersection between my current interests and long-term goals??

Somewhere in the mountain-esque deluge of cover letters, resumes, and interviews for positions spanning a spectrum of copywriting to enablement, a friend suggested I consider the cybersecurity startup he worked for, Sysdig . I had never heard of containers or Kubernetes, but we spent an evening discussing entry-level roles, the space, and all the doors it could open. I don’t think many 30-somethings seek out an entry-level position, but I had nothing to lose by applying. So, I did.

I applied to be a Business Development Representative (BDR), and I took the prospect of interviewing the interviewer very seriously. I wanted to learn why folks were choosing to work at a startup, why they stayed with Sysdig, and where they saw its future. By the final round, I knew I’d found my next home — after months of inner turmoil and preparation, just like that, I chose to go from public education to cloud security.

Aside from the opportunity to be part of a truly innovative company in a quickly changing space, I felt as though accepting the offer afforded me the chance to prove myself and grow within its ranks. So, I started a new career, one away from the classroom, with Sysdig.?

Candidly, I fully expected the world of remote work to leave me, a self-acknowledged extrovert, feeling somewhat disconnected. I was also prepared to spend my nights supplementing standard onboarding with self-guided study so I could actually understand the cloud-based challenges we were solving. This, however, couldn’t have been further from my experience.

Not only was Sysdig’s new hire enablement just thorough enough for an overachiever like myself, but new coworkers from across the company digitally introduced themselves and opened their calendars to me off the bat. Within a matter of weeks, I’d begun to feel more confident in my understanding of the space and, maybe more importantly, like a real thread in the social fabric. These new relationships gave me access to seasoned developers who made themselves available for each of my rookie questions, and my new manager made it a personal point to see to my success (I can’t not tag Erik Bartelucci here).

As I grew into the role and began to flourish, I searched for opportunities to contribute beyond being a BDR. I sought out conversations with people across our marketing organization, the space where I felt I had the most to give and grow, hoping to prove myself by finding opportunities to contribute. One by one, those opportunities came, and with each also came a chance to build another relationship.

I credit these three things — seeking opportunities to contribute, building meaningful relationships across the company, and having an incredible manager — with presenting even the possibility of moving into public relations, a dream role for me. And while these three factors may not be exclusive to Sysdig, they are abundant.

Just a little over a year after leaving the classroom, having decided to move on from a profession I truly loved and believe in, I accepted the offer for that dream public relations role. Today, I get to work on a wildly talented corporate communications team at an exciting time for the company. Not even three school semesters after making the most difficult decision of my adult life, I have been empowered by Sysdig with trust, agency, and confidence.

Taking a chance on yourself is, and will always be, worth it.