How do you identify?

Just over 5 years ago, I decided to make a career change. Armed with a new and shiny master’s degree, I was walking out of my life as an engineer and stepping into the unknown as an analyst. To navigate the transition, I watered down my engineering career to make it sound more “analyst”, I changed my job title from “Technology Development Engineer” to “Engineering Analyst” just to make recruiters believe I would know how to be an analyst. 

Moving into a new space came with challenges and insecurities: the steep learning curve; not having a track record to fall back on; and not to mention, impostor syndrome! Here I was, the most senior analyst in the team, in a new job, new organization, new industry and I felt like I constantly needed to catch up.

The same feelings returned in 2018 when, for the first time, I sat at my desk in the postgraduate research office in Bush house at King’s College London and I thought to myself “someone is definitely going to tap me on the shoulder and apologize for mistakenly offering me admission”. That feeling was only exacerbated when I attended seminars with my “model-driven artificial intelligence (AI)” colleagues whose research expertise were areas of computer science I had very little understanding of, as my research falls under “data-driven Artificial Intelligence”. 

Recently, I have come to embrace my identity as an engineer, data analyst and computer scientist. I have accepted that I may not have as much expertise as someone who has spent their entire career in only one field but I believe my diverse career brings significant advantages to myself and my employer and I am ok with that. I have since changed my job title from “Engineering Analyst” back to “Technology Development Engineer” and from “Yield Analyst” to “Process Integration Engineer”. I have found that my engineering skills transferred so much more than I anticipated to data analytics in financial services and my analytic skills are transferring strongly to computer science. If I were on a STEM venn diagram, I would be in the center. 

If you are considering a career change, like I did 5 years ago, trust in your experience and trust in your training and remember, it’s ok to feel like you don’t belong. If you don’t fit on a venn diagram, make your own venn diagram.