From Coding to Closings

If you had told 10-year-old me I’d be working as a Realtor in San Francisco, I would have laughed and said, “No way.” Back then, I pictured Realtors as perpetually perky people in gold blazers with name tags, eager to sell the “perfect home.” That wasn’t me (and turns out it’s not most Realtors either). Even then I knew I would become an engineer because I loved learning all things math, solving puzzles, and building things. But life has a funny way of steering you toward unexpected paths. I worked as a software engineer in Silicon Valley for years, built out my own real estate portfolio, helped friends and family with real estate, and most recently became a Realtor!

When people hear about my career path, they almost always ask me: Why the change? How did that happen? Here's the story of how I went from engineer to an agent with the Swann Group, and how that experience makes me uniquely qualified to help people with Bay Area real estate. (More details below, if you’re interested I’ll be giving a talk on real estate for engineers and analytically minded people, register here.)

I’ve wanted to be an engineer since I was 7 years old, so it surprised no one when I went to undergrad at a small engineering school called Harvey Mudd College in Southern California. While I was there I discovered programming and earned a degree in Computer Science. I loved operating systems and multithreaded programming, so I went on to study distributed storage systems at UC Santa Cruz and earned my Masters degree. I loved doing research and started working at IBM Almaden Research Center at the same time. But working in Silicon Valley, it wasn't long until I caught the start-up bug and went on to work at early stage companies for the rest of my engineering career.

My favorite problems were debugging distributed systems and tackling complex technical challenges across the stack. The process of breaking problems into manageable pieces and seeing everything come together was both rewarding and exhilarating. While engineering kept me busy and engaged, real estate started to become more of my creative outlet. My husband and I started buying rental properties in Austin, Texas almost 20 years ago. We gradually expanded into other cities, states, and even multifamily and commercial buildings. I loved the process: researching deals, crunching numbers, and envisioning how to improve properties. Friends and family often asked for advice, and I happily dove into their questions.

Somewhere along the way, I realized real estate wasn’t just a side project—it was a passion. So when I found myself at a career crossroads during a job transition, I had some big decisions to make. We were preparing for parenthood, and I wanted more flexibility than a full-time engineering role could offer. I decided to spend some time focusing on expanding and optimizing our own real estate portfolio for a year or two so I could be in a better position to decide what to do next career-wise. In doing so I ended up creating a full-time job managing our properties, tackling development projects, and navigating 1031 exchanges. This “break” became a crash course in real estate and the beginnings of a new career. Soon thereafter we welcomed our daughter to our family, and then life threw in a global pandemic and lockdown.

After the dust settled, I had time to start thinking about what was next. My favorite part of real estate is finding and developing properties, and researching new markets, but we were done growing our personal portfolio. What tipped the scales towards working as a Realtor was recognizing just how much I enjoyed researching and analyzing deals, imagining new possibilities for properties, and helping others. The fact that I was filling my nights and weekends with real estate while I was working a full time engineering job was a clear signal about where my true interests lay. I saw a great opportunity to merge my engineering and real estate skills.?

My engineering background gives me a unique edge. When appropriate, I approach real estate like I would any systems problem. I first try to thoroughly understand the desired outcome and motivations for it, making sure I have the core requirements and metrics that need to be met. Based on this I also try to establish a values framework to evaluate trade-offs that need to be made, because properties are complex systems just like software. Things rarely line-up perfectly when finding, prepping, and developing them, and the bigger the property/project the more decisions there are to make. Then I break out the individual problems and work my way through the steps needed to overcome them, with the understanding it may take an iterative approach to arrive at the best outcome. This makes me focused, patient, and persistent.

My background working as an engineer at start-ups keeps me grounded and agile when things don’t go as planned - requirements change, building codes change, deal terms change, project scope starts to creep, supply or demand is not on our side, etc. These things probably all sound familiar if you’ve worked on software, especially at a start-up! I could write a whole lot more on this, and I probably will in the coming years. In fact I’ll be giving a talk on real estate for engineers and similarly minded analytical folks with some of my real world examples at the beginning of February that will cover buying, selling, investing, and some math to go along. You can grab a spot for my talk here.

Looking back, my career transition wasn’t a departure to something radically different—it was following a path I didn’t realize I had already been carving out for years. Both engineering and real estate allow me to solve complex multivariable problems, create a product I’m proud of, and help deliver solutions to others that meet as many of their requirements as possible given the constraints of time and money. This path may have surprised my 10 year old self, but from where I’m at now it feels like a logical next step!

I just got a nice holiday card from a friend’s family member thanking me for helping them almost a year ago think through a real estate conundrum, whether to sell or lease out a property they’d owned for years. What had been a months-long discussion for them, together we were able to figure out a plan they felt good about in 15 minutes! I asked them about their goals, their fears, their estimated equity and gain, predicted income and expenses. Then I gave them some ways to reason about it and a little math they could use to help evaluate their choices. Being quite analytical themselves I think they appreciated having this framework to make a decision, and some math to measure the investment and opportunity cost.

In their case, they decided selling was the best path forward for them. They asked if I knew a good realtor in San Francisco so I referred them to The Swann Group since I knew they had an excellent reputation and customer rapport. They managed to sell over-ask with multiple offers during a notoriously slow season.

Several months later when I received my California real estate license, I decided to join the Swann Team because their approach reminded me of the best parts of a tech startup. The small size of the team fosters a sense of camaraderie and adaptability, where every member can take on multiple roles. Just like in a startup, the entire team can rally around a single challenge when needed, which creates a powerful focus and sense of shared purpose.? At the same time, being part of Coldwell Banker gives us access to extensive resources and support, striking a balance between agility and stability. If you or someone you know has questions about buying, selling, or investing in real estate, I’d be happy to help in any way I can.