In episode 162 of the Teacher Career Coach podcast, Elizabeth chats with Nestor, a former middle school theology teacher who transitioned into software engineering.
Elizabeth, who also left teaching for a corporate role, sets the stage for a lively discussion on career pivots.
Nestor shares how the pandemic prompted his career change, leading him to discover a passion for coding.
He highlights the transferable skills from teaching, such as problem-solving and communication, that helped him succeed in tech.
Nestor also provides insights into the interview process and his day-to-day responsibilities, offering inspiration and practical advice for teachers considering a new career path.
Listen to the episode in the podcast player below, or find it on Apple Podcast or Spotify.
Mentioned in the episode:
- Use code “TCC” to get 50% off of everything at Aspireship
- Our career path quiz at www.teachercareercoach.com/quiz
- Explore the course that has helped thousands of teachers successfully transition out of the classroom and into new careers: The Teacher Career Coach Course
Episode Transcript:
Elizabeth Suto: welcome to the Teacher Career Coach podcast. I’m your host, Elizabeth Sudo, and today we’re very excited to welcome Nestor to the podcast. Welcome, Nestor.
Nestor Cayanan: Hey, thanks so much for having me on. This is a, this is a little weird. I’ve always wanted to do a podcast, so this is fun.
Elizabeth Suto: Well, I’m super excited, especially because you just mentioned that your sister found the Teacher Career Coach Instagram. I’m so excited And then her friends follow it. So it’s just like this small world coming together. So
Nestor Cayanan: Yeah. It is really cool. Yeah.
Elizabeth Suto: cool. Well, we’re excited to get to know you. Um, you’re in software engineering now, uh, and we’d love to hear a little bit about.
the backstory. So what got you into education? What did you teach? What was that experience like?
Nestor Cayanan: it’s a, it’s an interesting one. So when I entered college, in California, I was a civil engineering major and I really wanted to become a civil engineer, but then I met what was it, calculus two. And so, you know, I kind of did like that regular, college thing. Did it really focus? And then, and then I was like, you know, and so I ended up failing that class, but then the next year I decided, you know what, I bet if I put my mind to it, I could do it. So I tried and it didn’t go too well. So, so I was really like in, um, you know, I was trying to figure out what was my next step, what, what did I want to do? Uh, what was I, what did I feel passionate about doing? And during that time I was in youth group at a church that not my church, but I some of my friends, part of youth group, a youth group.
So going to that, I realized, you know, I really wanted, or I really enjoyed speaking. about Catholicism. And I ended up just like realizing that I wanted to become a teacher and I wanted to teach theology. I wanted to teach Catholicism and I wanted to do it in a meaningful and like logical, and hopefully like Through that like life changing way. I was really inspired to, to do that. Like that was my big goal. And actually so I, I went to school, got my masters in theology, and then I taught at private school for a private Catholic school for six to seven years. I taught middle school religion. And that was that was really fun. Uh, it was, you know, my time as a teacher, it was, it was. I feel like if you were to put it, plot it on a graph, it was like the amount of fun I was having just like slowly, gradually like went down. there were a lot of reasons why I want, why I decided to leave. But I don’t want to understate the fact that it was a lot of fun and I thought it was, um, it was, yeah, it changed my life. It made me a better man and made me a better person. And honestly, My family, we were just talking about this. It made me a good dad, honestly. Well, at least I hope it made me a good dad. Anyways. So yeah, I decided to leave for a lot of reasons. The big reason that I really, and I really struggled with this, with leaving actually, but the biggest reason why I left was because I realized that what two things, one was that I I really liked teaching, but everything else I came with teaching was very difficult. you know, whether it was the extra, like extra things, check boxes that we needed to do, or. Honestly, like the paperwork grading was hard. There were a lot of, um, I felt like there were a lot of hoops that I had to jump through in order to just do something impactful, at least I thought it was impactful and honestly and this is like really humbling for me to admit, but after. After I felt like after COVID, COVID was really like the turning point in my, in my teaching career. I just felt like after COVID students became, uh, I grew more impatient and I felt like students became less, uh, like they, they, they were, they were more apathetic and I have a hard time dealing, especially when I, like, When it’s theology, like, I am really passionate about my faith, and so when kids, like, come into the classroom, and they just don’t care, or they’re just there for the grade, that really irks me, I couldn’t handle that anymore, or, like, not, I had a hard time dealing with it, and I knew that I couldn’t do it anymore.
Like, I just knew that it was unfair really to the kids to have someone who was going to be impatient with them. Someone who was going to basically just be, you know, like hold a grudge against them because they don’t care. And they’re just kids, you know, one, you can look at it as like, they’re just kids.
It’s okay. But now it’s like, I wish they would grow up a little bit, but it’s all good. Yeah. So, yeah. So that was the biggest reason why I left.
Elizabeth Suto: That’s very helpful to hear. And I think just good to hear because a lot of teachers right now are feeling that guilt. You know, it’s like,
Nestor Cayanan: Yeah,
Elizabeth Suto: do I want to leave? How do I know what the right time is? And it sounds like, you know, you knew exactly you weren’t, you know, is that time to move on? It, it wasn’t the best fit between you two anymore.
And then I love the, the bit at the beginning about how you studied theology and got a master’s in that, and then went directly to teach that to middle schoolers out of all ages. So that’s. That’s awesome. That that’s definitely a memorable experience that’ll be with you for your life.
Nestor Cayanan: thank you.
Elizabeth Suto: And I, I’d love to hear a little bit about, so now you are a software engineer and how in the world did you narrow this down?
You know, this is a very specific, hard skill. And how did you even know like that you were interested in it? Did you tinker when you were a kid? Tell us a little bit about that. Of course.
Nestor Cayanan: I mean, I could go really far back, back to the MySpace days and just, I remember those times like messing with, uh, the colors and the font of my MySpace page, but you know, I always thought that was cool, but really, one day, really the story goes like, I came home from, I was, I was driving home from work one day and I knew I wanted to, I had decided like, I want to make a change.
I need to make a change. So I called a good buddy of mine and he suggested all of these things. I, I, I thought about my strengths, strengths, first and foremost. So I thought like, Maybe I could do real estate or I could do I could like be a manager somewhere like work with people more like keep that people, you know, working with people, part of the teaching, but just with like adults. And so. So I was, I was chatting with him about all of those different possibilities and eventually, literally at the very end of our conversation, he went, you tried coding? Do you, do you code at all? And I said, no. And he said, you should try, you should look at it. I’m going to give you a website.
he shouted out a Code Academy, code Academy, uh, and it’s, it’s a free learning platform. Anyone could go on and he suggested that I learned JavaScript. So I went there. I went, uh, so that night I went on and I spent like an hour and a half to two hours looking at it.
And really my. Goal was to figure out if I could understand it. And if I liked it and I learned that in that short amount of time that I did. And so, you know, I did a little bit. I did. I continue to do that. I took a break because the school year got busy and then during the summer. I did a little bit more free learning, and then eventually that led me to, uh, to enroll into a bootcamp. Codesmith, and that was a nine month long program. And yeah, there was a lot of learning there. I was still working during my bootcamp, during the bootcamp. That was, whew, that was a tough time. That was a lot of work. My wife and I, we rarely saw each other. It was like, maybe we spent, you know, very little quality time together. And yeah. So I did all of that. And by the time I had graduated from Codesmith fortunately they offered me a position to be like a TA. I did a little bit of that. And then and then, yeah, and I mean, during that time, I was still applying, during the time of the, the mentorship, I was still applying, that whole time, pretty much, I had been learning, I did, I did some self learning first for about, like, three to six months, and then Codesmith was about nine months. nine months to like a year. Yeah. So about, yeah, one and a half to two years.
Elizabeth Suto: That’s some motivation right there. And if you don’t mind me asking, you know, a lot of teachers are working full time in the classroom. They’re upscaling on the side, they’re applying to jobs and it’s very overwhelming, kind of like what you mentioned, was there anything that helped you during that time to kind of like push through and survive?
Nestor Cayanan: Uh, yeah, I mean, I could give a joke answer, but really my, it, for me, it really was, um, like defining my why, you know, I knew, I mean, so you asked me earlier, you know, why did you leave education, something that I didn’t mention, and it was a huge part of it. Of was that I, like, I have, I have a wife and we have, uh, our son is now 4 and we wanted to grow our family.
My wife is a counselor. I was a teacher. We just had gotten a new house and we were really like our when it comes to budget. It was like, there was barely any room for. You know, for like investing or like emergency, any, like any, you know, fun stuff, any of that. And so that, that was a huge reason why I knew I needed to make a change and really, you know, like at the beginning, I was like, Oh man, what if I make like 200, 300 K and I could get some cool stuff.
But then I remembered, and this is what I’m trying to get at is the, the, why was I knew. That my, what pushed me was that I’m doing this for my family. I’m doing this so that we could have a, we could grow our family. I’m doing this so that we, so that I could provide for them. I, I am a huge. I just hosted a bunch of people or my family hosted a bunch of friends this weekend.
And I feel like I’m always like, Hey, is everyone okay? Like, and so like, I feel like I take that to you know, You know, I definitely do that with my family. I want to make sure that everyone has they want to an extent, uh, and but also just remembering, you know, like, for them and, and it’s so that we could continue to grow our family and, and so that I could provide.
Yeah, that, that, that is my biggest piece of advice would be to just define your why and then when it’s those hard moments, you know, like I have a picture of my family right by my desk, um, and I just remember all of the things that you know, yeah, just that motivate me and honestly, it takes a lot of confidence and that, I mean, you know, that’s a whole different. Topic there, but yeah. Mm hmm. Mm
Elizabeth Suto: That’s so good to hear. And I think that just knowing your why that’s, I think that would be really helpful for people to just look, look to and connect with and persevere. And then as we dive a little bit deeper into your actual position now,
Nestor Cayanan: hmm.
Elizabeth Suto: um, you know, there’s so many different types of software engineers, it seems like, you know, front end, back end, and then within that.
There’s all these different languages of JavaScript and Python. So could you talk a little bit about that? Is that something you tried to learn all of them? Did you try to learn one and get really good at that? What’s kind of like a pathway forward for those who are interested?
Nestor Cayanan: That’s a great question. It is really tough because I think that there are A lot of people out there that see something me, including by the way, see something, a new hobby, a new skill, a new, whatever it is. And they, and it’s like, let’s take software engineering. What does the software engineer do?
They, there’s some that do front. That’s something I do back. There are these languages or these technologies. And it’s like, I need to learn it all. And like kind of that, that completionist sort of. Thought and really, you don’t have to do that. What I did personally, as you, as I said earlier you know, I did do the bootcamp and the bootcamp focused on, uh, JavaScript. it did do, you know, um, front, it was full stack. So when I say full stack, I mean, you do, you know, like front end and back end. And really. Uh, and you do that with JavaScript. So I basically, I just studied JavaScript, but, uh, I guess what they instilled in me, what Codesmith instilled in me and what I have always tried to instill in myself and do for myself is, like I learned how to problem solve and I learned like when I was learning JavaScript or when I was learning like certain technologies. What I did was, like, think about the very, like, foundational stuff that you’re learning, because all of those foundational things transfer from language to language, from technology to technology. So, for example, Um, one of the things, one of the stories I like to tell is that when I was first hired, well, I was hired, at least I think I was hired for a more front end focus role. They asked me questions on JavaScript and react, which is a front end framework for JavaScript. But my first, like my first task on the job was a backend. And so the completely other side, a backend Java. like with Java, with Spring Boot and that those like, you can’t, I mean, you can get more opposite, but you know, they’re, they’re like, it’s like the other side of the coin, but really, like I said, was I learned how to problem solve.
I learned. How to really like software engineering. A lot of it is reading documentation. If you know how to read documentation, how to digest it really long and somewhat boring, kind of dense stuff, you know, you, you could definitely do it. So, yeah, yeah. So I think I answered your question somewhat, but yeah, yeah, yeah.
Elizabeth Suto: You did, and it kind of brings me to another question, because you said, you know, digesting information, reading, problem solving, are there any, like, personality traits or skills that you can think of that, you know, a teacher might have inherently that, or, or a person that might lend them towards software engineering?
Nestor Cayanan: I think that one of the things that I truly believe in some of the things that I saw, try to sell myself on during interviews were teachers. At least my experience with teaching was always like man, what is it called now? Uh, Oh, differentiation, individualized teaching, things like that. Talking to families and seeing, you know, when, when families call you or email you and they’re like, Hey, my, you know, my kid needs this or that. Really is like trying to figure out what they actually need. Right. So a lot of what. A lot of the skills that I brought over from teaching was, were really like individualized, like figuring out what a user needs delivering it to them the best way that you can.
Right. And sometimes, sometimes the user, a family doesn’t even know what they want. You know, and so you have to figure that out for them and then create it. Right. So, so I, I really do believe that those skills transfer over. I know that. And I really do know, I mean, I experienced it firsthand, you know, you sit down and you’re like, okay, teacher, software engineer.
Wow. That’s very, such a drastic. But I truly believe I, I really do. I really believe that could make and do make great software engineers. I think if they could get over that technical hump, like the idea that you as a teacher, like you, feel like, you know, you’re working with kids. Most of the time you have to explain things to them.
And a big part of software engineering is technical communication is Talking to people about what you did, the decisions you made and why that works out or why you believe that works out. And so, not a lot of software engineers do that. I think a lot of software engineers they, they don’t, and I don’t say this like to, I guess to like blanket to blanket a majority of the software engineers, but I do know that there are some that, uh, that software engineers tend to be like, I just want to be on my computer. just want to. Be on the keyboard and type and, um, and, and so, you know, I, I think that there, there, it would be great or I think that teachers would, would be a great asset, you know, to the software engineering field.
Elizabeth Suto: Those are such good parallels. And it makes me think too, you know, like teachers communicate all the time with parents, district admin, all these different stakeholders. And so that was such a good way you explained it where you’re doing the same thing, you know, you’re taking this, digesting it and being able to explain what you did to make things more efficient or effective.
Nestor Cayanan: Mm-Hmm.
Elizabeth Suto: Very cool. I’m curious to know a little bit. about the interview process. I know it’s competitive out there in the tech world. So what was that like? And then how did you stand out in that process?
Nestor Cayanan: Yeah. So I will definitely answer this question. I just want, for everyone who is listening to this, I wanna say first and foremost that like, if you’re trying to become a software engineer. and you feel like, you know, you’ve done everything you can, you’re applying, you’re not hearing anything back, just remember that it’s a numbers game, and I always tell people this, like, you, sometimes you just get lucky, and that is either a good thing or a bad thing, I don’t know you know. And also not to let your lack of responses, uh, be a representation of how good or how bad of a software engineer you are. So I want to say all that. To begin with, because I guess fortunately for me, I feel, I felt like I got very lucky with my interview process. So with this company, the interview process, it was, um, so I applied on, I, I I applied on their websites. Then I had an initial interview, so I had an initial phone screen with the engineering manager. There, it was really, the initial interview is mostly, like, You know, tell me about your resume. They, they really want to just kind of get to know you, no real technical stuff that you, you might need to answer some technical questions, you know, like, Hey, have you worked with react or, you know, like kind of your experience with these technical, with these technologies. and then and so after that. Usually, well, in my experience for, for this role, they immediately were like, okay, let’s schedule a technical. Um, and so, um, and so, yeah, so they scheduled a technical interview with me about a week and a half later. and that was really, so I guess I’ll stop there.
I’ll take a pause there and say. cause you asked, you know, how do I think I stood out. honestly, after that initial interview, I was like, wow, I feel like I really hit it off with this person. honestly, it, it kind of, I don’t know. I just felt super confident that they wanted me, but they just, obviously they also need to check your, Technical skill, and that’s what the technical is for, and I believe the reason why I stood out was because of my, I mean, because of my personality, I think, I think it was like my willingness to continue the conversation with her to my willingness and my emphasis on collaboration, working with people. The way that I talked about how I like to problem solve and how I go about problem solving, how I communicate that problem solving. and so that’s how I felt like I stood out. That was 1 of the things, that made me feel like I stood out to stood out for the role. And so, yeah, so I had the technical, usually a technical interview.
Well, there are many different kinds of technical interviews. Some of them are. Like, so sometimes you’ll get like a take home, you gotta like build something, and then you go to a technical interview and you explain it, some of them are like just do algos, algorithms, I’m sorry, uh, and like solve these, really, these like, these, really, some of them are complex problems in front of them. my technical interview was, um, I had like one, one really easy algo, uh, algorithm, and then they asked me a bunch of questions about some technologies that I use, and so, And this kind of goes with, uh, I want to mention this because it kind of goes with, uh, the question you asked me earlier about, um, what was it?
Like, what languages, uh, did you learn? How did you go about it? So, on the job posting, they had asked, you know, for, they were looking for someone who did JavaScript and someone who did Java. Well, I didn’t do Java. Java, I had never written Java in my life, but I did know some things about Java and, uh, like some characteristics about Java and I had done practice those kind of like, I guess, like, That like type of framework, that type of thinking in with my other skills with, with JavaScript, with react and luckily enough, I had also done that during my time at codesmith as a TA. So when it came to the technical interview, they had asked me, Hey, do you know, do you, do you have any job experience or do you have any experience with this technology, which I didn’t. But what I, what I said was for example, I said something like, no, I don’t currently have any experience with. X technology, but what I do know about this technology is that it involves, let’s say, for example, it involves, uh, it focuses on object oriented programming and you don’t need to know what that means right now, but just just follow
Elizabeth Suto: Oh,
Nestor Cayanan: that, I do, um, I do know what that is. And not only that, but I have worked with it in my previous projects with JavaScript. I have incorporated some object oriented programming, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. other words, I was showing them like, look, I know the foundational stuff.
And I know that with some time. That I could transfer that over to, and like, be able to pick up Java. so that’s how I handled those type of questions. Cause sometimes, you know, people they’re like, I kind of know everything. I’m not qualified because I don’t know Java, but it’s like, you do know, like, okay, yeah, maybe you don’t, but you are qualified.
Just, just think about the other stuff you’ve done anyways. So I did that and then. They asked me some technical questions about JavaScript. They asked me some technical questions about react, um, about graph QL. These are all like key technologies that I, marketed myself for. then, uh, and then this is like super fun. Uh, one of the. One of the people on the on the, um, that held the technical interview said, Okay we have about 20 minutes, 25 minutes. I want you to build a calculator app right now. Uh, you know, it was like, you didn’t have to worry about the UI, the way it looked. You didn’t have, like, I didn’t have to really show anything.
I just needed to show them. How I would build it with a technology in this case, react and really what I did there was, um, so this was a question I had not prepared for. I didn’t know they were going to ask me this question. you know, I, I knew the underlying concepts. And so what I did was, as I was kind of thinking through and writing the code, I was talking I’m going to do this because, you know, when I think about how to solve this problem.
Um, I think, like, 1st, I need to make the buttons. So, in order to make the buttons, I’m going to do X, Y, and Z, right? And just technically communicate that. So, not only am I showing them how I’m thinking about the problem, but I’m also communicating to them, like, the process in which I’m going to do it. And yeah, and that was, I mean, I, I was able to successfully build, you know, I think another key thing I want to put out there was there was a moment where I did get stuck or, well, actually 2 key things. One was, there was a moment where I had said, okay, I think I want to solve the problem this way and then maybe like 15 minutes later, I said, Oh I realized now that I need to change what I did earlier. And so, um, and I need to change it because of these reasons and the way that I’m going to change it is by.
Uh, and then, so that was one key moment. And then the second key moment was I asked for, I, when I got stuck and I asked for, you know, I asked for help, I asked for questions and I think that’s really key because it shows like, you know, you’re not afraid to ask for help and it also shows them like, you’re not afraid to ask for help and, and you’re open to, uh, critique, you’re open to, you know, feedback.
And I think that’s a really, really, uh, Uh, key thing in software engineering, um, as a person in general. And so, yeah, so that was my, so I had gotten done with that. And then and then probably like, no, was it the day after? Yeah, I think it was the day after the day after they called me and they offered me the position. Yeah, and that was, Ooh, that was sweet.
Elizabeth Suto: nice work. That’s amazing. And what you said, I kind of noticed a key theme among all of it. You know, when you started with the recruiter, the screening call,
Nestor Cayanan: hmm.
Elizabeth Suto: interview, you know, even at the end, asking for feedback is just communication. Like you have to be a good communicator, engage in the conversation, ask them questions, talk to them, you know, and throughout, you You know, if you don’t know something that’s okay, ask questions related to something that you worked on that has something to do with it, you know?
So I think that’s, Oh, that’s so important because on, on the employer side too, they’re looking, they want to see that you’re excited and engaged as well. And that like, if you work there, you have that skill to be able to
Nestor Cayanan: Yeah.
Elizabeth Suto: communicate with the team members.
Nestor Cayanan: Yeah. And I think too, is like a big part of the process for it. You know, like a big part of any job interview is they want to see these people want to see if they want to work with you. Right. So it’s like, if you’re going to be like super quiet and I mean, some people like people who are really, really quiet. Um, like I said, I got lucky. think I really do think I got lucky in that they liked me enough and I was able to pass a little test. So yeah, it was great.
Elizabeth Suto: That’s awesome. And you had the skills and you had what they’re looking for and you’re prepared too. Um, so my next question is, what does it look like? You know, your day to day, can you kind of just walk us through, um, what you do after you get up in the morning and
Nestor Cayanan: Yeah.
Elizabeth Suto: what the day looks like?
Nestor Cayanan: Yeah, so, I, uh, currently I work 8 hour days, I try I do work through my lunch, just so that I could, like, my day over as, as, the work day over as fast as I can, mostly because my wife, they, my wife and kid, they come home from school around 4 o’clock. Anyways, I’m going, I’m skipping ahead, but anyways, so I’ll wake up, I’ll have like a small breakfast, and I’ll just like, turn on my computer, sometimes I will have, depending on the day, I will have a, it’s basically a check in, uh, Hey everyone, you know, what are you working on? What is your progress? Like, are you stuck? it really is a quick Ted, like a, an opening scrum, I guess is like 10, 15 and that is usually. Well when I was on a consistent project, I’m kind of in between projects right now When I was on a consistent project, that was about three times a week, and then the rest of my day was really and this is from my understanding, not typical, but you know, anyways it, the rest of my day is really me. Know, completing the ticket, the, uh, the, yeah, the tickets that were assigned to me. So sometimes what I’ll do is, um, is if I’m first, if I first pick up a ticket, I will, uh, I would do some research, right. I’ll read documentation or figuring out what I really need to do. That’s like a big part of like software engineering is what do you actually need to do?
And then like, what do you not need to do? Sometimes it’s easy to over engineer things to think too much and to try and do everything, but really you don’t need to do everything. Um, and so anyways, I’ll do, I’ll do research. Sometimes that takes longer. Like if you’re picking up a new, like if you’re trying to learn a new technology.
So like, for example, the other day they had said, or actually I’ll start like best example is with the Java ticket that I had Java backend ticket. I had, I. had no experience with Java. I had no experience with that framework. So I honestly, I went online and I looked at some tutorials. Uh, I learned Java. Uh, I think I forget which website I use, but I found some websites to teach me Java. And so I, I did some stuff with that. I watched some YouTube tutorials on. Like how to implement this framework, how to use this framework. I built an app by myself, like on the side, just to kind of get used to it. And then, so basically like I did all the research and then I focused on the ticket. Usually, like, when I was done with a ticket, I’d have to write up, I had, I would have to write up a dev record, which is basically like, like a report of what you did, the changes you made, how you could test it, things like that. and then you submit your ticket for, or you submit your code for review. You make any changes needed. In between that, you know, you could also go ahead and review other, um, other people’s code, things like that, but I would say, I guess to, I kind of just gave you like a summary of like everything I do, but anyways, on a day to day, I would say, I would say, like, I alternate between, you know, I, I like wake up research. Work on the ticket and then, like, complete the ticket, write the dev record, so on. And it’s just like a cycle of that, I would say. Currently, currently. Um, and I say currently because, am in between projects, and I believe that things are going to pick up pretty soon. So, I’m excited. I’m really excited about that, actually.
Elizabeth Suto: What you said, you are resourceful. And that brings me back to a point, you know, it sounds like with software engineering, technology is changing rapidly. So you have to be resourceful because you’re going to have to research because these things keep changing. It reminded me like, At our company, our software engineer is like always researching these different things, keeping up to date.
And it’s so, it was just like fun to hear you say that. So yeah, you want that learner’s mindset, you know, be resourceful.
And, and you mentioned at the beginning of that, you know, you have a wife, a family, uh, a child. So tell us a little bit about, uh, the work life balance and how it has changed. If it has changed from teaching, are there things that you can do that are more flexible?
Nestor Cayanan: Yeah, um, yeah, I can, and it’s easy to answer. It’s amazing, but honestly, like one of the things that I, it’s like the small luxuries that are just so amazing. I could use the bathroom when I want, believe it or not. Like, no, but in all seriousness, yeah, the work life balance is great. Um, I do work from home.
My work home, uh, fully whole, uh, Work fully remote.
Elizabeth Suto: Mm-Hmm. . Mm-Hmm.
Nestor Cayanan: uh, it’s, it’s funny. So I, I started in March and yeah, that, that was great. I mean, I was able to just like do all my work and then when they get home, I could hop off. And if I need to do more work, I can work, you know, later on in the evening. Um, so that’s awesome. Uh, now that it’s summer, I just spent like the last two weeks. You know, they’re 2 months there. They’ve been in the house. So, most of the time it like they still allow me to like work. You know, my usual, I do my usual thing basically and, um, but, but yeah, it is great because sometimes I do get to like, if they need, if my wife needs help with something or Uh, if she’s like especially tired, Yeah, I could take my son and you know, and then just take care of him. Make sure that every, you know, yeah, it’s great. Like I get, I get to, I get to my work. work schedule is flexible. My company emphasizes like, yeah, we’re flexible. Do what you need to do.
Just make sure that you, you know, that you’re working the hours that you are said you’re going to work. And it’s great.
Elizabeth Suto: Mm-Hmm.
Nestor Cayanan: oh man, a teacher is out there. I, I know that I’m actually record right today. It’s July 31st. And my, like my wife, she, who is now a counselor at the school that I worked at. She’s going to work tomorrow. She’s like, oh my gosh. And so anyways, man. Yeah. The work life balance is great.
Elizabeth Suto: Um, that’s great to hear. That’s very good. And in, in your new position, what does opportunity for growth look like? Is there any room for advancement as you move forward in your career?
Nestor Cayanan: Yes. There is a lot of room for advancement. So some of the things that they offer, like, for example, so I don’t I guess I am unless, you know, I didn’t make this clear, but I don’t have a technical background. I don’t have a computer science degree, but they are. Like, my company, uh, has a perk that, like, they’ll pay for college tuition, so I could, I could go and get a computer science master’s if I wanted to, and, uh, move up in the you know, for promotions, uh, I know, like, I, like, kind of hesitate to answer this ques I’m not hes well, I don’t hesitate as in, like, I don’t want to answer this question, I’m just unsure like the other day I filled out a, yeah, like a career advancement form. And I’m not exactly sure how that works, to be honest. It was just like, Hey, what are your interests? What do you want to do? And, and yeah, they do a good job of, at least they’re always talking about like, Hey, we want you to grow. We want you to be where you want to be. If you want to work on, like, for example, if you want to work more on the front end side of things, then you can just let us know. They do a really good job of listening to their employees. Um, and so I’m sure, and I, and I know that there is, um, that there is opportunities to advance quite honestly, uh, I’m not a hundred percent sure how that goes, but you know, like I said, only been there for like, well, I’ve only been there for four months now. I’m sure I’ll figure it out sooner or later.
Elizabeth Suto: And I think that’s great that they offer that professional development. Like they want to be better. They want you to keep learning and getting value. Um, so that, that’s really nice and neat to know. Did you know that when you were looking at the company, that that was a perk or
Nestor Cayanan: Um, so when they had called me back, I was like, Uh, when I, they called me for the initial interview or wanted to schedule an initial interview, I did look and I was like, ooh, that’s really nice. That’s really cool. But then I was like, uh, do I want to go back to school? Uh, but I probably should. should definitely utilize that.
Elizabeth Suto: Oh, that’s so great to hear. And I’ve loved, it’s been so nice spending the evening with you. And we kind of love to wrap this up with this last question here, which is, which is what have you learned about yourself during this process, transitioning, you know, from a whole different career into this new technical career?
Nestor Cayanan: Yeah. Um, Man, a lot. I, I, really, I think the biggest thing that I’ve learned it was, is that, like, I could do difficult things. Like, I could solve, I could solve hard problems. I could, I could go through the hard times. Definitely, like, this switch for me. Like, my family and I, we went through a hard time, like, for, in a lot of different ways, and was, it was definitely a sacrifice, and it was definitely a like, it wasn’t a, it wasn’t a smooth road, you know, a smooth path, and, I just learned that we, that not only that we could do it, but that I could do it. That I, I could push myself, I could learn the hard things, and that, and that I, like, I didn’t, a big thing too, is like, I didn’t have to believe the quote unquote imposter monster, the person, you know, in your head that’s like, no, you can’t do it, the person in your head that was like, this is a dumb idea. I didn’t have to be like, I knew that I could overcome that or now I know that I could overcome that and, and yeah, yeah, I’ve learned that, uh, that you, you really, it’s such, such a cliche thing, but like, when you really like put your mind to it, you know, your why, and you’re dedicated and you’re, and you persevere, you could, you could accomplish what you put your, you know, what you want to do.
Elizabeth Suto: I love that mindset, that mantra, I can do difficult things.
Nestor Cayanan: Yeah.
Elizabeth Suto: I, that just kind of connects everything for us. And I’m so excited for people to listen and learn from you. And I’ve learned so much about software engineering and just feel like I’m on the journey with you. So Nestor, we really appreciate your time and can’t wait for everyone to listen, so thank you.
Nestor Cayanan: Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Thank you for having me on.
