Building a career with CAI Neurodiverse Solutions
What was your background prior to CAI?
I was born and raised in a town in southern Germany and moved to the United States when I was 14. Growing up in Germany, I had trouble connecting with most of the people around me, so I spent a lot of time playing and enjoying time on my own. Most of my peers kept their distance, but I always had support from my family, especially my mom. Although the experience was mentally taxing, it shaped me into the person I am today.
When we moved to the U.S., my peers were open and accepting, and I started to receive more support from teachers, family, and friends. This helped me realize that I was capable of more than I’d originally thought.
As I grew up, I adapted to acting as people and society expected me to act, which I realized was me masking my traits after my diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). I’ve always been detail-oriented and hyper-focused, which I started to fully realize during one of my final college coding projects. I sat down, began coding and debugging, and by the time I finished I thought only a half hour had passed – I looked up at the clock, and it had been 6 hours. By being able to focus on one detail at a time, I can hone in on issues more easily and effectively pinpoint them. I’m still a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to certain tasks, but I’ve come to realize that I just need to adjust how I work to accommodate these traits.
What did your career path look like?
I graduated from college in 2019 and worked as a computer science teaching assistant while I got my education. After graduating, when the pandemic hit in 2020, I pivoted to running a small business sewing and selling nursing caps temporarily before shifting my path back to technology. Having been diagnosed with ASD later in life, I wanted to find a work environment that allowed me to show my true talent and skills. I was looking for a positive environment that allowed me the opportunity to learn and grow, and CAI has provided me with both of these.
How did you find CAI Neurodiverse Solutions, and what is your current role?
As I was searching online for jobs, I found a posting for an opening with CAI Neurodiverse Solutions. I’d been diagnosed with ASD months prior, and the CAI mission statement really resonated with me, so I reached out and received a response. The Talent Discovery Session (TDS) genuinely showcased how someone functions both independently and within a team, and it eliminated a lot of the questions and requirements that obscure my skills. For me, growing up, most people didn’t spell out what the expectations were socially, so having it be presented to me in a structured way instead of simply expecting certain behaviors really helped.
After successfully completing the TDS, I began providing services for Northern Trust, a leading provider of wealth management, asset servicing, asset management, and banking to institutions and individuals. My experience with Python (a computer programming language often used to build websites and software) helped me find this role, and I currently have a few different responsibilities. I handle certain bugs related to visuals and data used for our Power BI dashboards, as well as the creation of new dashboards or enhancements that need to be made. I also help create new data models and write automated scripts to improve our workflows. Teammates will often reach out to me for questions or help involving anything from GitHub, Incorta, Power BI, Postgres, or Python. Being detail-oriented, good at pattern recognition, and channeling my innovative thinking have been important elements in my coding career. I’m good at following directions, but I’m also not afraid to question the “why.” I think these skills, and my ability to keep efficiency in mind, have really helped me be successful.
“Throughout Angela’s tenure with us, she has taken on complex projects and delivered results that exceed expectations. Angela’s work has not only garnered praise from within our CAI team, but also from key stakeholders within our client environment who have come to rely on her deliverables, expertise, and insights. Angela’s ability to implement data models, stage the data in accordance with the standard enterprise business logic, and build Power BI dashboards has been invaluable to client decision-making processes. This has directly contributed to the success of numerous projects.”
This journey has opened my eyes to aspects of my personal and professional life that I hadn’t been aware were rooted in my neurodiversity. The overall experience and people who have guided me through this process have given me the room to grow in my career, empowering me to work more independently and rely more on my own knowledge and skill set.
What’s the best part of your job?
Having struggled with things that I now understand stem from having ASD, I am most proud of having worked my way through college, getting my degree, and building a career regardless of the obstacles in my way. I’ve been able to adjust how I work and hone my skills to accommodate who I am rather than masking like I used to.
I enjoy writing code because I see it as a puzzle I can solve, and it logically makes sense to me. My ability to notice small details and recognize coding patterns allows me to easily help teammates who might be stuck with broken code or data models that don’t work, and it brightens my day when I can efficiently help others out.
Working for CAI and providing services for Northern Trust has allowed me to grow as a professional, improving my technical skills and laying the groundwork for future endeavors. I am entirely grateful to have been given such an opportunity to prosper.
To learn more about the successful partnership between CAI Neurodiverse Solutions and Northern Trust, read our client success story.
