I started full-time at NCR in February 2022 as a Business Analyst. After a couple of very technical internships, I wanted to explore other opportunities with NCR that were a little more aligned with my skill sets. That initially landed me in the realm of writing requirements and working with customers/stakeholders to understand their needs. After a short while, I realized I missed being more technical, so I transitioned into a data analysis role. In this role, I created Tableau and Looker dashboards to present data to customers. This, of course, mainly involved using SQL to query data.
In an effort to further increase my skill set and experience, I picked up responsibilities as a scrum master. This has allowed me to work closely with the development teams and learn new tools and skills such as Jira and agile methodologies. I now have experience working with very high-level writing requirements, but also gained granular experience working with the development teams. Moving forward, however, my passion lies with data analysis, and I continue to gain experience and expertise in this field
My next internship was with my eventual full-time company, NCR Corporation. During this internship, I wanted to leverage both my technical skills, as well as my soft skills. I found the perfect role for this as my main focus was developing a proof of concept web application hand in hand with a customer. In this role, I learned the fundamentals of front-end web development, utilizing HTML, JS, and CSS as my primary languages. During my internship, I forged many relationships and learned a substantial amount. That experience, coupled with my performance over the summer, led me to receive a full-time offer the following year.
I'll never forget the state of disbelief I was in when my recruiter told me over the phone I had gotten the job. Landing an internship at such a prestigious company was a dream come true and I was overwhelmed with excitement and anxiety of what was to come.
Throughout my time at Delta Air Lines, I was challenged to embrace many different tools and technologies used in Revenue Management such as Tableau and SQL. I also learned what it takes to become a business professional—or at least get closer to it. By the end of the semester, I was chosen to represent my department in front of other Co-ops and employees, showcasing not only my growth as an individual but also the projects I was able to implement during my time with the company.
While my time with Delta Air Lines was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I will cherish my memories and knowledge I was able to obtain during my time there, and I'll continue to keep climbing!
At 20 years old, I co-founded my first company, Thriftlet, with my cousin Sam.
With no real knowledge of programming, let alone app development, I dove head first into Swift and Xcode, discovering my passion for iOS development in the process. Unfortunately, my school didn't offer any courses on iOS development, so I took it upon myself to learn it in the evenings after class. Fast forward to now, I've learned so many skills that I wouldn't have had the chance to learn in school, all thanks to Thriftlet.
We created Thriftlet due to the shortcomings we saw in current e-commerce applications. We sought to innovate on the idea of buying and selling items within friends and communities. We eventually launched on the App Store and had a fully functioning app and company. This experience was invaluable, and I highly value the memories Sam and I made throughout the life of this app.
I began my studies at Georgia College in 2017 with a clear idea of what I wanted to study: Computer Science. I don't think I realized at the time just how difficult that major is; if I did, I might not have chosen it as my major.
I enjoyed programming applications, namely iOS apps, in my free time, and this is something that Georgia College really encouraged. This led me to co-found Thriftlet with my cousin Sam, and it continuously inspired me to tinker with iOS apps in my free time even now. About halfway through school, I realized I wanted some more knowledge of the business management aspect of technical careers. That led me to studying Management Information Systems as well and has certainly contributed to where I am today. I graduated in Fall of 2021 with a degree in Computer Science and a minor in MIS, a feat I will always be proud of.