There is no doubt about the sacrifices that women make as daughters, wives, mothers and in every role that they take up. Many times, this means sacrificing their career. So when Yamini had to choose between taking care of her son and a growing career, her obvious choice was her son.
Here’s her story of bouncing back from a sabbatical of around 11 years in her own words.
I am Yamini Chandramouli. I will turn 39 this April. I was born and educated in Hyderabad, India. I have an educational background in Chemical Engineering and an MBA degree in Finance and IT. Until 2008, I used to work at Infosys in Hyderabad as a Data Analyst and later as a consultant. I quit my job in December 2008 to take care of my elder son and became a full-time stay-at-home mom. This was mainly because my kid would fall sick frequently. I used to spend almost 1.5 hours daily on my commute to the office. I used to feel very stressed and thought it would be better to stay with my kid and take care of him. As far as the work was concerned, I could manage well but I had to take leaves suddenly for my son which made me irregular at work.
We came to the USA in December 2012. Since 2013 I struggled a lot to get a job. I applied for hundreds of jobs and attended many interviews. At a point, I lost all hopes of ever getting a job and seriously began to doubt myself. Then my husband suggested that I do the Front End Web Development Nanodegree program through Udacity. He thought web-development could get me the much needed break. Later, I got the Udacity Google Scholarship and went on to do the Front-End Nanodegree program in 2018. This course helped me immensely, it helped me to develop my confidence, my communication skills and of course good technical skills. I then made a web-page (https://yamini32812.github.io/index.html) as my resume to showcase my projects and previous technical work. This started getting me noticed by recruiters. In September 2019, after a really long struggle, I landed a full-time job as a Jr. Data Analyst at Pactera-Edge Technologies with Microsoft as it’s client. My job has been really comfortable as it is an entry-level job which does not include much technical skills. Recently, I became the Assistant to the Lead of my team due to my good communication skills. So, I am dabbling in Project Coordination as well. I am able to manage both my home and office well after my return to the work-force. Apart from that, I volunteer on Sundays teaching kids my mother-tongue,Telugu language.
Now I feel I am living a happy life as a ‘Working Mother’ and a teacher apart from cooking, arranging kids play-dates as well as helping my kids with their projects and homework.
Kudos to you Yamini! Hoping your story would inspire many more women to come back to work.
