In this episode of the freeCodeCamp podcast, Abbey chats with freelance developer Colleen Shnettler about how she switched from electrical engineering to development, how she founded her business, and how she makes time for kids and family - among many other things.
Colleen studied electrical engineering at Purdue and then went to work for Motorola in Chicago - a job she loved. After getting married and moving to Virginia to be with her husband, she worked one of the only tech jobs available in her area: defense contracting for the military.
But she wanted to be her own boss, and so she decided to learn how to code. After falling in love with Ruby on Rails and working on a few projects, she founded her own company, Bitmapped Designs. She now works from home designing and consulting on web apps for a wide range of clients.
When she's not working, Colleen spends time with her children and husband, attends Ruby on Rails meetups, travels, and contributes to the open source community. She dreams of helping other developers, especially military spouses and moms, find ways to work and make money that are inspiring and challenging.
This episode is a 1 hour listen in your favorite podcast player app - just search "freecodecamp" and you should find it.
If you have an Amazon Echo, you can just say "Alexa - play the freeCodeCamp podcast."
Or you can listen to it right here in your browser.
Find Colleen on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/leenyburger
Find Abbey on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/abbeyrenn