A purely professional history doesn't tell the full story, so you're getting a mix of personal and professional.
Growing Up
I grew up with working-class parents and three younger brothers on the South Shore of Massachusetts. Though I was a shy, awkward kid who didn't want to stand out, I still did talent shows, art contests, essay contests, drama performances, and open mics. The drive to express myself beat out the urge to blend in.
Finding Direction
After high school, I had no idea what to do next. At my family's (well-intentioned) urging, I enrolled in community college on Cape Cod at the last minute. I stayed for a semester before dropping out due to lack of focus and direction. My music major almost killed my love of music.
For a while I worked in retail and learned what I truly, absolutely didn't want, which was to work in retail.
At one point I earned a certificate in web and graphic design. My poster design was featured in the advertising campaign for the local Summer concert series in Plymouth, MA that year. I couldn't find full-time work in graphic design as the field was saturated, but I did a few small freelance gigs on the side of my retail jobs.
Life at 30,000 Feet
The life of a flight attendant had always fascinated me, so I jumped at the chance to find out for myself. After answering an ad for a major airline, I left my retail job and proceeded to train in Minnesota for a month-and-a-half. It was a dorm-like setup where flight attendant trainees lived four to an apartment. We took school buses from Burnsville to the training center in Minneapolis. Thirty minutes before it collapsed, our buses had taken the I-35W Mississippi River bridge to get back to our apartments. 😳 Once I completed my training, I traveled the world as much as I could in 9 months on my limited route. Most of my flights were domestic, but I also frequented Amsterdam.
So, the high-flying lifestyle was amazing but far too intense. Handling life-or-death situations gave me nightmares. Second to that, every time I made plans with friends or tried to go on a date, I got called to fly out for several days at a time. When my airline merged with another, the other airline's longer-tenured flight attendants were shuffled into the roster above me. My level of seniority plummeted, so my selection of trips became less desirable. This was when I made my way to the nearest exit.
Game Master & a Very Bad Week
The next job I got was as a game master (or GM) at a local game studio. This involved moderating a massively multiplayer online game associated with a major franchise. This was an incredibly cool job, but my position was eliminated at the start of the 2008 recession. As the Irish side of my family likes to say, the worst misfortunes arrive in threes. This happened to be the same week I totaled my car, and permanently fell out with a best friend.
Back to School & Into Tech
I took a few administrative jobs to keep my head above water, and began my final, successful try at college. The accomplishment I'm most proud of is having earned my bachelor’s degree while working full-time. I eventually made my way to my first start-up job in technical support at a software company. While I was good at solving technical problems and enjoyed helping people, I burnt out easily. I'm, dare I say, chronically introverted, so that much social contact per day can be brutal.
At some point, a former coworker and I chatted on LinkedIn about his career as a QA engineer. He assured me I'd be great at QA and encouraged me to try and pursue it, guiding me through the way he worked his way in. When we said goodbye, I copied the chat and pasted it into a text document, keeping it on my drive and revisiting off and on.
The QA Journey
Eventually I made the leap to Quality Assurance via a few conversations and a promotion at a company I stayed at for seven years. After (*sigh*) another layoff, I realized I needed to upskill because noticed a pattern: everyone wanted QAs to know automation. So, I worked between January and July 2025 to earn a certificate in quality assurance engineering where I learned Python and Selenium, beginning my journey into learning automation. I finally found another full-time job at the start of 2026. I'm in a rebuilding stage.