How Breastfeeding Stalled — and then Accelerated — my Software Career
I’ve been a software engineer for 7 years, and — dare I say it — a breastfeeding mom for 5 of those years.
In those 5 years, I learned how to pump and hated it, left my office job because 12 weeks of maternity leave felt so painfully short, and been a stay-at-home mom, anxious that I’d be left behind in the fast-paced world of software engineering.
Yet in those 5 years, I also advocated for myself to work remotely before the Covid-19 pandemic made it cool. I volunteered at an anti-human-trafficking startup where we saved almost 1K people. I started my own consulting company so I could get paid, but keep the flexibility I had as a volunteer. And most recently, I achieved the status of a senior engineer and team lead.
I have my desire to “feed my baby and work too” to thank for those wins.
This is my story.
Pay Gap Anxiety
In 2016, I left for maternity leave 1 year, 9 months, and 1 day after starting my first job out of college. Six months later, I was expecting my second child.
(FYI, having 2 kids 15 months apart is great! They are best friends!)
It was clear to me that I wouldn’t be going back to the office for a while. Specifically, I worried:
- That women software engineers made $0.90 for every $1 that men made — and I would make it worse by staying at home
- That software frameworks would evolve too quickly for me to learn them (because being a mom of babies took up most of my time already)
Volunteering, Saving People from Human Trafficking, and Starting a Business
As a breastfeeding mom, I needed flexibility (to not drive to the office and to not have a required schedule, because babies are hungry when they are hungry).
So, I decided to volunteer. At an anti-human-trafficking NGO.
For zero dollars.
Yes, this is funny, given my worries about pay gap.
Almost daily, I would hand the awesome husband a baby and a toddler when he came home from work, and I’d find a silent corner in the house to focus on code.
While volunteering, I learned C#, Python, JavaScript, and Microsoft Azure. I proved that I could design & write software frontends & backends while fully remote, working completely non-standard hours.
And as soon as the NGO had funding, they hired me as a consultant. My company Vanderwerf Consulting was born, and I started to take other clients too. And because I had a track record of success while fully remote and working non-standard hours, I got to keep both perks. 🥳
“Coming to the Office is NOT Negotiable” — Getting a Remote Job
I was ready to re-enter the full-time working world (with employer-subsidized health insurance, finally!), and decided to interview at a company within 15-minute commuting distance. I was drawn to the fact that they hosted yearly Women in Engineering conferences. Perfect, right?
A remote employee interviewed me, and I got an offer.
I told my would-be boss that I would work from home, but come to the office often. I had a great track-record and knew how to build team culture without being there in person.
She told me that if I wanted to work from home, I would forfeit the offer because I was too close to the office to NOT commute, whereas the remote employee was farther away.
I wanted to say to her, “But I want to breastfeed my baby without having to pump at work. Don’t worry, I have a caregiver at home — I’m not going to be distracted.”
But that felt too shameful to say, so I just didn’t say anything.
I should be able to feed my baby AND be trusted to get sh*t done, right?
I declined the offer, and learned that if I wanted a remote job, I had to apply to jobs far away. I received multiple remote offers and negotiated my salary (article on this coming soon!). The remote offer I accepted came with 25% more pay and a team lead position.
PS: I still kick myself today — I wish I had told her breastfeeding was my reason. I wasn’t trying to be selfish, or pretend to be better than anyone else. This is a topic that’s still hard to talk about in the working world.
Did I Ultimately Suffer the Pay Gap? — Accelerating My Career
Although I was a full-time mom for 2 whole years, by the time my 3rd child came, I was making more than the average pay for a software engineer with my experience, living in a low cost of living area because I could work remotely, became an Exceptional Engineer℠, and… I’m still breastfeeding.
I’m extremely grateful for my non-traditional path of volunteering and consulting, which added diverse projects to my resume and which I could use to advocate for myself — and these awesome growing humans.
Being a Rockstar Software Engineer
Want more details on how to accelerate your career?🔥 Check out:
- How taking the Exceptional Engineer course taught me the leadership skills necessary to accelerate my career
- The 6 steps I use every time when I’m faced with a late software project crisis🚩⚠️ — and how to recover it
- My go-to guide for software demos that get noticed by the executives!
