ABOUT ME
My transition isn't a leap — it's a lateral
move with a steeper learning curve. In my
previous role, I was already functioning as
a practitioner: I audited our LMS for
accessibility gaps, designed onboarding
flows for new faculty, and ran usability
testing for district-wide assessment tools. I
realized the problems I cared most about
solving weren't inside the classroom —
they were in the software surrounding it.
I'm currently completing a Learning
Experience Design certificate at the
University of Washington and freelancing
for a nonprofit adult-literacy platform while I
search for my first full-time role in product
or content design.
How I got here
I started teaching high school biology in
Sacramento in 2010. Over the next decade, I
moved from the classroom to department chair to
district instructional technology coach. In that last
role, I discovered I preferred debugging
courseware workflows to disciplining
sophomores. I spent evenings teaching myself
Figma, reading
Refactoring UI
, and shadowing
our IT director. By 2023, I was building demo
lesson flows for our vendor's UX team — unpaid,
on weekends — and loving it. That clarity made
the decision to leave tenure surprisingly easy.
How I operate
I operate at the intersection of rigor and empathy.
My teaching background trained me to translate
complex topics into scannable, actionable
sequences — a skill that maps directly to UX
writing and instructional design. I'm comfortable
with ambiguity, fluent in stakeholder
management, and unusually patient with
feedback loops. I also know when to escalate:
after fourteen years in unions and district
bureaucracy, I can navigate organizational
complexity without taking it personally.
2 / 4
