Workhuman’s Ciara Walsh discusses career development and her advice for others looking to take the same professional route.
“Growing up, I was always interested in science and engineering, so I knew I would end up in some kind of STEM-related field, but I had a really hard time figuring out which path to take when I first approached my career,” says senior software engineer at Workhuman, Ciara Walsh.
Encouraged to build computer skills from an early age, he joined the local CoderDojo, a community coding club, where he helped young children with basic computer skills and later taught his own classes. From there, he realized he could have a future in software.
“The communication that this could be my career finally came through my late grandmother, who brought this up one afternoon when I was still struggling with my CAO application. That conversation was a lightbulb moment for me and the rest of my career journey has followed.”
What do you enjoy most about your job?
I really enjoy solving problems and have to really think about how to come up with solutions. Software engineering is essentially problem-solving as a profession in many ways, whether that’s finding a way to build a new feature for users or investigating why a test fails. What I do most every day involves finding a way forward to some combination of a puzzle or a problem. For me, that’s really satisfying, and I love getting to that ‘aha’ moment at the end where it all works.
What is the most exciting development you have seen in your field?
I remember a meeting early in the morning at my work that focused on the ‘internet of things’ and how connected devices will change everything about everyday life within the next 10 to 15 years. The discussion at the time was about how ambitious the idea was, and how many technologies and tools would need to be invented to achieve a quarter of the ideas set out in that category. It has been great to be a part of the industry since then and to see many of the ideas discussed at that meeting come to life in the real world.
The sheer number of technologies we use every day now that didn’t exist when I started my career is astounding. It’s exciting to be part of an industry that’s doing this quickly, and I’m looking forward to seeing what the next 10 to 15 years bring.
What is the most difficult thing you have faced in your career and how was it overcome?
The hardest thing I had to face so far was the decision to leave my job for a year, not knowing what was next.
In 2024, I decided to go back to college and study for a master’s degree in electronic engineering. At that time, the industry had declined significantly in terms of hiring companies, so leaving a job where I had a decent level of security was a big risk. However, I also felt that I needed to take that step back and spend time growing my knowledge and skills to be successful moving forward, especially given the direction the industry has moved in, with AI and machine learning, so I took a risk.
During the course, I tried to ensure that I kept a balance between new topics that I wanted to learn and those that I had some knowledge of but that I could not develop more in-depth, and this was very beneficial for me because I was able to avoid losing my existing skills in the process of acquiring new ones.
Having said that, the imposter syndrome and the stress associated with that journey – especially during the later stages, when my studies are over and I’m trying to restart my career – was not what I expected. I found it more challenging than I expected and even after joining my role it took time to regain full confidence. Looking back now, I think the risk paid off, as I have a solid understanding of some important concepts and – perhaps most importantly – a set of strong research skills, which will be useful as I move forward in my career.
If you had the power to change anything within the STEM field, what would it be?
STEM is a very broad field, so it’s hard to define any specific things that I would change about it all, but I think something that I would like to see celebrated and emphasized more is how old many of the fields under the STEM umbrella are. We tend to focus too much on data-driven and efficiency, but the reality is that most of the work we do in STEM involves some form of innovation and/or creative thinking. I think sometimes we lose sight of that between deadlines and customer requests and we don’t leave enough room for innovation and to really explore the hidden art behind the science and technology of it all. If I could change anything it would be to give ourselves more space and time to be creative, rather than always doing the best thing. Hackathons are a good example of this, where time is given to experiment and experiment with commercial tools. I have been involved in many hackathon projects that ended up being deployed as full products after some polishing. Those only exist because team members are given space to think and explore outside of the normal day-to-day structure.
How do you connect with others in the STEM community?
I have been incredibly lucky in my career so far when it comes to mentors and mentoring in general. I received a woman in technology scholarship during my undergraduate degree, which provided me with amazing mentors from the start. Their advice and guidance has stood the test of time, and I honestly think I am a better developer because of all the people who have worked with me in my career thus far. I have continued to benefit from many different types of training throughout my career, and have had the opportunity to teach other people myself, which I think has been equally rewarding. Mentoring gives you so many opportunities to really explore your own growth, and for me it has often led to my own development alongside my mentors.
What advice would you give to someone considering a career in your area?
I think the best advice I can give to someone who wants to get into software engineering as a career is to start coding and trying to build simple programs. Start with something like Scratch to learn basic logic patterns and experiment with other languages and tools as you get comfortable. There are many free resources and courses online and you can learn all the technical skills you need to be able to do this job using them. Some of them I still use when I need to learn something new in my role. Another piece of advice I would give to someone considering this career is that software is always changing and there are always new frameworks and tools to learn. To be a successful software engineer, you need to be willing to learn new things throughout your career. This can be challenging at times, but once you learn the general basics it’s much easier than you might expect to transfer skills.
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