Why did I pivot from a 10 year career in fashion retail to software development?
In 2018 I put everything on the line to join the founding team of a seed stage startup.
Making this leap was driven by my passion to positively impact societal and environmental well-being through my work, specifically through innovative customer experiences. I was attracted to SilkRoll because of my interest in sustainable solutions for the fashion industry, and that the most sustainable thing we can do in fashion is use clothes that already exist. The company’s model is a new take on traditional thrift shopping: instead of buying and selling with cash, users can trade their high end fashion using a point-earning system, therefore retaining greater value from past purchases.
To help make this innovative business model possible I drew on all my previous experience to automate pricing, manage warehouse processes, create strategy for organic marketing and build custom reporting. But there was one piece that I was missing: the technology.
Working closely with and eventually taking over for the Head of Operations Technology, I realized that this business model (selling secondhand on the internet) would not have been possible 10 years ago.
It was the technology that we incorporated in our warehouse processes to make them continuously more efficient and effective that make the business model viable. This entirely new customer experience is available because of the technology that enables it to be possible. I found this incredibly exciting.
As my time with SilkRoll had to come to an end because of the pandemic, I saw it as a set up instead of a setback. Given my personal mission of positively impacting societal and environmental well-being through outstanding customer experiences, I realized the most impactful way to continue my mission would be to create the technology that make the most innovative, niche, exciting user experiences possible. So I signed up for an immersive engineering program.
It’s not a surprise how much I enjoyed my time at Flatiron School studying software engineering. Both my parents are engineers and I used to borrow my mom’s CSS textbook when she was in grad school so that I could code custom LiveJournal and MySpace pages. Although I didn’t foster that curiosity until recently, what drew me to retail was the combination of art and science that it takes to be an outstanding retailer. It’s that same mix of art and science that makes me love coding today. It doesn’t hurt that my love of problem solving makes me enjoy debugging.
At the time I am writing this in November 2020 I have just graduated from Flatiron’s program and the need for inclusive products centered around well-being is more evident than ever. I am honored to be in a position to contribute.