00:00 Introduction: Welcome to Tech Talk, a podcast featuring employees and leaders discussing all things tech at Mutual of Omaha. Join us to learn what tech professionals can gain from a career with us. Let’s talk tech.
00:12 Brian Poppe: All right. Welcome, everyone, to another episode of Tech Talk, a Mutual of Omaha sponsored podcast. I’m Brian Poppe, and with me today is…
00:21 Maura Ramsey: Maura Ramsey. Hello, everybody. I am a part of the Organizational Change Management Team in I/T here at Mutual of Omaha.
00:31 Brian Poppe: Yeah, if you recall, Maura is the new host along with me, your consistent host, I guess from Tech Talk in the past. And, Maura, where are you joining us from?
00:41 Maura Ramsey: I am coming from the Windy City, Chicago today. So, we are finally getting some sun after some overcast for the past ten days. So very much needed. How is Omaha doing?
00:54 Brian Poppe: Make sure you get outside. It’s not too bad out there. I think it looks like a nice day outside. One of the perks, I suppose, of working for Mutual of Omaha is you do have the ability to work from anywhere, we’re fully committed to hybrid. I’ll be in the office later this week. But yeah, working from home today.
01:14 Maura Ramsey: Absolutely. It’s been nice. Started off in Omaha and moved to Chicago.
01:19 Brian Poppe: Awesome. Why don’t you introduce our guest today, Maura.
01:22 Maura Ramsey: All right, today our guest is Abby Jones, a Senior Software Engineer at Mutual of Omaha. Welcome, Abby.
01:30 Abby Jones: Hi. Thanks for having me.
01:33 Maura Ramsey Hello, hello. We’re excited to have you today. And thanks for coming on. So go ahead and introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit about what you do here at Mutual and how you ended up at Mutual.
01:45 Abby Jones: Yeah. So, yes, I’m a Senior Software Engineer here and I’m currently on a team that’s working to kind of modernize the tooling that we have available to our salespeople, which doesn’t sound super exciting all by itself, but, you know, at Mutual we talk a lot about how we’re here for our customers and we really exist, you know, to take care of our customers.
02:07 Abby Jones: And the salespeople that we have are an important part of that, right? Because they’re able to get out there and talk to our customers and help them understand, our products and make a decision. So, our team is really focused right now on providing those salespeople with the best possible tools we can give them so that they can support our customers and help them get what they need.
02:26 Abby Jones: So, that’s what I’m doing now. And I’m getting to explore a new technology that I’m really excited about, but I had a very roundabout kind of path to get here. I came from a very nontraditional route. I actually was a high school English teacher for two years, and then I was a teacher for the deaf and hard of hearing for ten years.
02:46 Abby Jones: I left my classroom for the last time in May of 2016, and came over to Mutual of Omaha in July that summer. And, I started my career here as a Software Engineer just about six weeks after I left the classroom. So, it was wild. It was different, a different path, but it actually ended up being a really good path.
03:08 Abby Jones: I spent about four years learning to code just kind of on my own through a variety of different resources, you know, online classes and books and things and just building projects for friends, convincing them they needed a project and then building it for them. So, it gave me a lot of good experience. When I started at Mutual, they actually brought me straight into the mentoring practice.
03:28 Abby Jones: With my teaching experience, I had some front-end experience, so I got to be a part of our mentoring practice and just helping set our standards for front-end development. And then, going out and mentoring other team members. About a year later we started working with AWS for the first time and, I got to be a part of that. Kind of figuring out how that works and then helping our other team members get started with it.
03:49 Abby Jones: And I’ve gotten a chance to work with a few different areas, kind of, you know, building out those AWS skills and practices, building functions and features on top of that. And so yeah, it’s been a great kind of wild journey around a few different teams. I’ve gotten to know a lot of really good folks in different business areas.
04:09 Abby Jones: So yeah, that’s it. That’s my circle.
04:14 Maura Ramsey: That’s pretty incredible. It’s interesting to hear how you started off in high school English and ended up in tech at Mutual of Omaha. It’s a great story.
04:26 Abby Jones: It’s amazing how much communication skills, speaking and writing skills are actually really important, even in a career in software development. So, it’s better preparation than I realized.
04:36 Brian Poppe: But tell me, tell me about the transition from teacher into software engineer. Like, how did you go about making that?
04:45 Abby Jones: Yeah, So I’d been teaching, I guess for about eight years, and one summer I just was feeling like I maybe was ready for a change but, I had no idea what I wanted to do because I had just always wanted to be a teacher. I didn’t know what else might be out there for me. I was actually watching the show NUMBERS and, if anybody hasn’t seen it, you should go back and watch it. It’s an old one, but it’s probably still on Prime or Netflix or something. But anyway, there was a character on there who would help his brother solve crimes by typing code and it’s like, this is where your criminal lives, go find him!
05:18: And I thought that looked really intriguing. Not that it was probably as easy as he made it look, but just the idea of being able to write code to solve interesting problems. And so, I just got intrigued. I got a couple of books on Amazon, then a friend told me about some MIT resources that they had just made available for free actually online.
05:39: And so I started battling with that and really just kind of playing was the keyword and just playing, you know, one line of code at a time and experimenting and seeing what I could do. And the more I did it, the more fun it was like, I would get up on Saturday mornings and I would be excited to sit down at my computer and see what I could create. It really tickled that creative itch for my English creative writing side. And then, you know, the problem solving and the logic side of things. So, it was fun. I just did one book after another, one online class after another and then I ended up getting a chance to be a teaching assistant at Omaha Code School and at an online boot camp. Also, I got to do some freelance work just from small businesses.
06:20 Abby Jones: And so, I got to meet a lot of people in the community out at the different meet ups and that. So, after four years of that, I thought, you know, if somebody would pay me to do this Monday through Friday, that would be really, really cool. So yeah, I went and made the leap, I told my principal, I’ve spent my whole life in school and telling the kids that I’m getting them ready for the real world, I think I need to go see that real world. See what it’s all about!
06:47 Maura Ramsey: That’s pretty incredible Abby. So, when you started off at Mutual, how did the company help support you within that transition and get you to the senior level position?
06:58 Abby Jones: Yeah, I had really amazing mentors on my team and from other teams as well who were great at just helping explain the culture of Mutual. Introducing me to different people and helping me understand, you know, how the different business areas worked and how the business itself worked.
07:21 Abby Jones: And that was huge. They would regularly just take me out for lunch or sit down and have conversations to ask if I had any questions and just help me out. And then my managers too, each manager that I’ve had has been amazing at talking with me about where I am and where I want to go and just helping me understand, you know, the different paths that are available to me. The resources that are available, the requirements for taking those next steps and then also connecting me with opportunities. So really giving me chances to get out there and try things and learn things, make mistakes, get up, and try again. Connecting with resources across the company of people who can help me learn. So, it almost feels like you choose your own adventure in a way, like, here’s all of these possible directions you could go, here’s all the resources, what do you want to do?
08:09 Abby Jones: And it is really just up to each individual, I think, to really run with that. But I couldn’t have asked for more supportive, managers and mentors along the way. It’s been pretty incredible.
08:21 Brian Poppe: Boy, that’s creative. I like the choose your own adventure idea because I’ve gotten to do a little bit of that too in my career.
08:28 Brian Poppe: So, for new folks who might be interested in applying at mutual and picking that as their next step in their adventure, what advice do you have for them?
08:36 Abby Jones: Yeah, so I was thinking about this a little bit and, I came through such an untraditional path, but one of the things that was huge for me was really being a part of the tech community. And for me it was in Omaha, and it was also online. I had a chance to be a part of both. But by doing that, for one thing, as a career changer, that was huge for me and just helped me understand that I really did fit in this community. Like I was welcome, and I was accepted and there was a place for me. And I liked hanging out with these people and that was huge.
09:10 Abby Jones: So, if you’re thinking about changing careers and you don’t know, definitely hang out in the community because that was big. And those folks also helped me know when I was ready to make the change because they had gotten to know me and my skills a little bit and they were able to say like, Yeah, you’re good. You got this because I didn’t. How did I know? I had no idea. But they were able to encourage me. And then, you know, they were also able to help me understand more about the companies that I was thinking about applying to. And to be completely honest, I had no intention of applying to Mutual of Omaha. What I thought was that it was just, you know, a stuffy old insurance company and I would have to dress up every day and work on a Windows computer.
09:51 Abby Jones: And I didn’t want to do any of those things. So, I didn’t think this was a place that I wanted to work. But through a friend of a friend in the community, you know, we got to sit down and have lunch. And he was able to share with me, you know, his experience and just what it was really like and really changed my mind and helped me understand. You know that it was very different than I thought it was going to be. So, you know, definitely just get to know people, and have those conversations and, you know, pretty good chance to find out, maybe what you think you want and what you really want might be two different things. So, it’s good to have those conversations and find out for real.
10:27 Abby Jones: And then, of course, you know, once you start, I mean, the most valuable thing I think has been those relationships and being able to just continue building those across different areas. So, it’s not necessarily advice for applying for the job, but I guess advice for maybe knowing what job you might want and then jumping in with both feet when you get there. How’s that?
10:47 Maura Ramsey: It’s great advice. Abby, as a newer employee of Mutual of Omaha, I would have to agree. The more you know, the more you realize Mutual is really, truly a great place to work.
10:59 Abby Jones: I know my sister, one of my sisters, works here as well, and we’ve had conversations just about how amazing it is that you can reach out to somebody you’ve never met before and ask them a question and they’ll just be so generous with their time and trying to help you out. So, it’s a special culture, I think.
11:13 Brian Poppe: Well, thanks for joining us today, Abby. I mean, I’m super excited to hear about that kind of career path and man that’s fun to see a lot of different backgrounds here at Mutual. Omaha just really helps make us smarter. It makes us a better community. So, on behalf of Mutual of Omaha it’s been another episode of Tech Talk. I’m Brian Poppe, joined by…
11:33 Maura Ramsey: Maura Ramsey.
11:35 Brian Poppe: Thanks, everyone. We’ll see you next time.
11:37 Maura Ramsey: Thank you. Bye.