How Ridgeline Helped Me Step Off the Hamster Wheel

A Wake Up Call 

Every morning, I used to ask myself the same question: “How can I spend my time today so that I will be rewarded for it in the future?” By the end of my junior year, I began to wonder, will I live my whole life spending time as though it were infinite? I feared the inevitability of never enjoying a day without a buzzing ultimatum. Like many college seniors, I was treading within the pre-real-world waters; I spent the past three years sacrificing my happiness and sanity, convinced it would “earn” me a “happier” future. When my friends went out on Friday nights, I stayed in to find forgotten semicolons. Over the summer, while my family enjoyed the cool breeze of Big Sur, I endured the Davis heat to take more classes. Rather than sleep in on weekend mornings, the feeling of never doing enough became a biological alarm clock that refused to go off any later than 5:00 AM. I lived in a world where the concept of “enough” was foreign and the concept of “more” was worshipped. My best friend and I referred to this as “The Hamster Wheel” to describe how it feels to live with this attitude for too long.

Inside the Career Fair

I still remember walking through the aisles of my college career fair. Each table felt like a different door into the rest of my life. (It sounds dramatic, and it was.) I wanted to explore options for Computer Science majors beyond working as a software engineer at a tech giant. I chose not to wait in the long lines for these established companies, which made me feel like an outcast. I was partially still fighting my own imposter syndrome but also partially embarrassed of my attire. Among the hundreds of students in dress shoes, I was wearing running shoes with my slacks because I had biked straight from class. Instead of a nice necklace, I wore my Garmin running watch as I figured my watch tan would be even more embarrassing. The Davis wind created the perfect bed head and my resumes were tie dyed from a sports drink that had leaked in my backpack. Thinking it was time to head out before my face turned any redder, the Ridgeline logo caught my attention.

The Day I Learned of Ridgeline

I was honest with the representatives of Ridgeline that I had never heard of the company before. If I am being honest now, once they told me they were located near Tahoe, I zoned out for the rest of the conversation. I smiled and nodded just waiting to ask how I could apply to be an intern. The excitement of living in Tahoe while working in tech overpowered any feelings of imposter syndrome and made me forget how out of place I was feeling. That afternoon, I received an invitation for an interview and signed up for the 8:30 AM slot the next morning. Although this would be my first ever technical interview, I chose not to spend all night on LeetCode trying to memorize the implementation of complex algorithms. Instead, I spent the evening learning about Ridgeline, its founder, Dave Duffield, and the story behind their mission. I woke up (well, I am not sure if I ever fell asleep) and made sure to dress more “appropriately”. I felt at ease with my outfit choice as I saw other interviewees pass by in their nice suits. Then came the irony: my interviewers were in their Ridgeline t-shirts, sneakers, and jeans. Looking back, I do not think my outfit played a role in the offer I eventually received.

I left the interview beaming not because I thought I aced the technical interview or showed up with a new blazer; rather, I showcased my authentic self, made it through my first technical interview, and could genuinely see myself working and making friends at Ridgeline. I would like to emphasize that last point because my biggest fear of joining the tech industry has been that I will struggle to find co-workers that could also be running buddies, adventurous friends, helping hands, and even shoulders to lean on. An offer graced me with its presence a few weeks later. For the next two quarters, I looked forward to being a product engineer intern at Ridgeline.

Adapting to a new reality

In the coming months, the world plunged into a health crisis, and I watched as people began to lose their jobs left and right. In May, I received an email with an update from Ridgeline. As I began to read, I also began to cry. One part was that I was grateful to still have a virtual summer internship but I was also mourning the lost opportunity to make new friends in one of the most beautiful places in the world.

June arrived and I began counting down the days. As one the few girls in my classes at school, I was excited to meet other women in tech. I clicked into the first Zoom of the ten weeks ahead and I couldn’t help but laugh that I was the only girl on the call. I was glad to soon find that there were other girls interning this summer at Ridgeline, they just happened to be in the group which had started a few weeks earlier. Might I also add that I spoke with numerous female full-time engineers during my ten weeks; they are some of the most inspirational women I have ever met. I remained open minded, but could not help but recognize just how different the first day I had dreamt up 8 months ago looked in reality.

Ten Weeks Later

Throughout the ten weeks, I created many fond memories and below are just some I would like to mention.

• 668 miles traveled in Truckee through a mix of running, walking, and hiking.
• Developed a serverless coronavirus contact tracing application for the Incline Village Area using React, AWS, and Javascript.
• 15 virtual coffee chats with engineers, interns, high up executives, product managers, and human resource specialists.
• Played intern trivia, unboxed fun surprises, and painted a picture of Tahoe (which taught me I should probably not look for jobs as an artist or apply to be on jeopardy).
• Worked with 3 other interns to develop a Slackbot that automates the pull request and peer review process, aiming to make the lives of developers easier.
• Learned and implemented multiple new technologies and concepts such as JIRA, Confluence, AWS, the Slack API, serverless, and GraphQL.
• Realized that not all boys are “bros”.
• Developed my confidence as an engineer.

Going Forward

The above list could go on, but it is more important that I highlight how it felt to wake up each day and be part of the Ridgeline family. Up until the day at the career fair, I built a narrative in my head that success is a measure of the results that come from a process. As I mentioned, I used to begin each morning asking, “How can I spend my time today so that I will be rewarded for it in the future?” At the time, I didn’t feel that it was possible to enjoy the process of working hard and still have a successful future. This belief kept me running on the hamster wheel - a never ending loop which managed to drain my energy without ever truly propelling me forward.

For the last 10 weeks, instead of always running for tomorrow, I learned how to wake up each morning excited for the fun challenges that I will tackle today. Although I am forever grateful for the technical skills, mentorship, and opportunities Ridgeline provided, what I truly want to thank them for is helping me step off the hamster wheel.