# My Career Pivot: From Retail to Engineering

DevFeed: [My Career Pivot: From Retail to Engineering](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/my-career-pivot-from-retail-to-engineering-32388.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://medium.com/@SkyscannerEng/my-career-pivot-from-retail-to-engineering-630426f131d7?source=rss-401f3b3c958f------2>)

Author: Skyscanner Engineering

Published: 2022-06-22T09:59:02Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Stories by Skyscanner Engineering on Medium](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/stories-by-skyscanner-engineering-on-medium.md>)

Topics: [Software Engineering](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/software-engineering.md>), [Development](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/development.md>), [Front end](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/frontend.md>), [Bootcamp](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/bootcamp.md>), [front-end-development](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/front-end-development.md>)

Tags: [career](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/career.md>), [career-change](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/career-change.md>), [course](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/course.md>), [developer](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/developer.md>), [front-end-development](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/front-end-development.md>), [software-engineer](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/software-engineer.md>), [software-engineering](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/software-engineering.md>), [women-in-tech](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/women-in-tech.md>)

## AI overview

Louise Reid describes moving from retail and system support into software engineering. She discusses online courses, a 16-week CodeClan bootcamp, her time as an instructor, and her eventual focus on front-end development before joining Skyscanner.

## Source excerpt

Louise Reid, Software Engineer As we celebrate International Women in Engineering Day this week, we're profiling female-identifying engineers across Skyscanner's business. Here, Louise Reid tells us how she took the leap from retail to software engineering, what her day to day looks like, her advice for anyone looking to career change, and how the perception of engineering being male-dominated is changing. Louise, you didn't set out to be an engineer -- what was the path that took you from retail to where you are now? I didn't: I have a honours degree in Business and Management. Honestly, going through school, the concept of working as a software developer was so far off my radar. During my degree I worked in hospitality and really enjoyed it, so for a while saw myself working in hospitality management in some shape or form. After uni I travelled in Australia for a bit and then went back to my role in retail with a large well-known shoe retailer, before moving to head office there and working in system-support for the stores. At 29 I found myself in a job that didn't excite me and wasn't really going anywhere. I was really good at my job, but there wasn't a huge amount much transferable knowledge I could take from it into other roles, as a lot of it was in house-built systems. I was also at the level that any progression was reliant on someone above me leaving or the company expanding in some way. It wasn't until I started working with developers there that I started to think of software engineering as a path I could take too. I dipped my toe in the water a little, doing some free online courses with Code Academy, which I really enjoyed. I was then pointed in the direction of CodeClan by my line manager and introduced to their 16 week software development bootcamp. After completing the course I still had a sense of "I don't know what I want to do" and whilst I got offered a few development roles, none of them really excited me. I ended up staying at CodeClan as a cla