So a few things have happened since I last posted. First off, I got married. I didn’t legally change my name for a while, but I did eventually. I am now known as Kate Tester. The new domain is coming. I have had it for years, but like this site, it has just been hanging out.
Second major change, I have left the SEO industry. This site got a major hair cut and new posts will rarely touch on SEO. Not NOT at all, but rarely. After almost 4 years in house at a very large company (after an acquisition) and 17 years in the industry, I am changing things up. I am going back to school to learn software development. Here is why:
Always be Learning
I have spent half my life as a student and the other half as a marketer. I wrote a post once on how businesses should not hire a Director of SEO. Guess what my last title was? I also interviewed for a VP level position! I never thought I would see the day that there was a need for a VP level SEO position, but there apparently might have been (that company downgraded the position to a Director and is still looking for someone).
I had spent 2019 learning to be a Product Manager, something new and different, and while it was a LOT, I also came to realize I loved engineering. Really, I loved my engineering team, but I also loved learning what they do and how that worked in with the marketing world.
Alas, I was moved back to marketing to lead our larger organic marketing (including social) efforts without asking me if that was what I wanted. Something felt off when I got there. I had a great team and vision, but something was very off. More than I am willing to discuss here, but when the VP role and another SEO/PM role came to me, I was willing to entertain those ideas. I figured out I needed to be with engineers and I needed to learn more (in addition to one more point below).
Basically, I had reached a point where I knew what I needed to know about SEO for this company and this role. I needed more, to learn and grow.
Turns out, I’m not executive material.
No, really. On both sides of the coin. I was told from the VP role company that I wasn’t “executive enough” (yeah, that hurt a little) and in reality, I figured out that I don’t want to be an executive.
Hell, after an MBA, the VP or C-level title is what I figured I would end up at. But my fire is in the doing. It is in helping people, in managing, in growing with the people around me. I don’t do well with talking in circles. I don’t do well in talking for the sake of talking. I want action, and if I can’t get it, I’ll do it myself.
That burned me out.
It can’t be about money.
I got an offer to work with a cool company. A fucking awesome team. But the the learning, the change, was not assured due to the state of the world (see COVID). They needed me to be the SEO. When I was asked for “what would make you move” and they couldn’t make the money happen, I started questioning things. It was logical why they couldn’t match my salary expectations, but in the end, when I was assessing the offer, I was getting stuck on the money. Anyone that knows me knows I can’t work somewhere because of money.
I needed the learning, the growing, the doing. So I started questioning what I might do instead.
Back to High School C++ Programming
Back in 1999, we needed a “computer credit” to graduate. The “computer” classes all required a keyboarding class that sounded horrendous. One of the only “computer” classes that met the requirement but didn’t need the keyboarding requirement was C++ Programming. And I LOVED it.
To be clear, I should have been a developer to begin with. After years of being around developers, now married to one, I know that I missed something. Hell, at one point in my SEO career one of my favorite people Ian Laurie called me out in a talk I was giving because I said I wasn’t a “technical SEO.” I got an A in C++ programming, my love in school was everything logical, I have a love/hate affair with Excel, and somehow I convinced myself (or society had convinced me) that I wasn’t good enough. WHAT?
So I am taking the next year to learn software development. I am hoping that when I am done at Turing, I can find a team and company that can utilize my former industry skills in addition to learning new things. And away we go!
