Throughout the years, the MS/MBA: Engineering Science group continually juggles between enterprise, engineering and entrepreneurship endeavors. Our efforts culminate within the annual MS/MBA Know-How Showcase, which collectively brings together the MS/MBA: Engineering Sciences Program and the Undergraduate Technology Innovation Fellows Program in the neighborhood.
This year, we (just about) love classes that range from dean’s receptions to breakout classes with the various incredible startups students are following. The showcase reminds each one of our ambition and the celebration of our progress. It was an honor for the group to have my own startup targeted at an issue I’ve been fascinated with fixing from HBS already.
My undergraduate expertise at UCLA was built on the premise that I could become a health care provider. Along my journey, I made a decision that while I used to be fascinated by molecular biology, that career path was no longer the most effective match for me.
Curiosity inspired me to take a programming class that turned my profession into knowledge. With no formal laptop science diploma, I entered tech from a molecular biology background through a mix of my thrown coding abilities, my community, and sheer luck.
I landed my first job at Pink Hat as a software program engineering consultant, and launched into a new world of software program engineering. Two years later, when I joined Invitae as a full-stack software program engineer, I combined my curiosity in biology with my love of coding.
As a software program engineer, I preferred to spend time advising friends or friends in my community on ways to get into tech. I also introduced my learnings to the stage at major tech conventions like the Grace Hopper Celebration and Girls of Silicon Valley.
However, when I sat on several hiring panels for candidates and watched our soon-to-be crew wrestling in a big way, I couldn’t help but really feel like the image didn’t move.
Why do individuals with the proper skills have such a hard time entering engineering jobs when companies across the board can’t find software program engineers quickly enough? This led me and a good friend to begin to explore the pipeline of the tech profession and the constraints limiting the expansion of expertise. From there we made a pathlight.
Pathlight is a recruitment platform where engineers build their careers in public. We have focused on broadening the expertise pool in technology by guiding expertise across multiple backgrounds into their first technical roles and transforming requirements from hiring expertise to proving capabilities. Given the US job progress for software program engineering is 5 times the normal job progress, we all know this can be a significant problem to solve right now.
At the MS/MBA Know-How Showcase, I shared my story and my mission with my classmates, my mentors, and the wider MS/MBA neighborhood. Buyer interviews, objectives presented between MBA courses, and the late hours it took to complete many of our key points is when I noticed that my idea resonated with this crowd.
As we build up our experiments and time in MVP (minimum viable product) this summer, we’re excited to see our bold hopes come to life in the long run.
My EC (second) year at HBS can be largely spent focusing on progress, scale and financing so that I can tackle this full time after beginning. I already want to share my progress in next year’s showcase with the various exciting startups that our group is following.