The before
I started as a land surveyor, then moved to APEX Geoservices where I became a full-time geophysicist. From there I joined Murphy Surveys, continuing in geophysics. The work was interesting — you're literally mapping what's beneath the ground — but I kept being drawn to the tools we used rather than the surveys themselves.
I'd automate data processing scripts. I'd build small utilities to make the team faster. Eventually I realised I was a developer pretending to be a geophysicist.
The leap
In 2019, I enrolled in a Higher Diploma in Computer Science at Waterford Institute of Technology. Going back to college in your 30s is humbling. You sit next to 19-year-olds who grew up writing code while you were learning Python for the first time.
But here's the thing — the analytical thinking from geophysics transferred directly. Understanding complex systems, debugging anomalies, working with data: these skills don't care which industry you're in.
The internship
I landed a software engineering internship at Red Hat in January 2022. I worked on Fedora CoreOS — a minimal, auto-updating operating system designed for running containers. It was everything I wanted: systems-level work, open source, and a team that valued learning.
The lesson
If you're considering a career change into tech:
- Start before you're ready. I was writing scripts as a geophysicist. That was already programming.
- Your previous career is an asset, not a gap. Domain knowledge transfers. Problem-solving is universal.
- Contribute to open source. My Fedora contributions showed Red Hat I could work in their world before I officially joined.
- Be patient with yourself. It took three years from starting college to landing the role. That's fine.
The path isn't linear. It doesn't have to be.