Monique had done everything right. Years of climbing had made her a Software Engineer III, and the grind was fine when she was single. Then she got married, gained two stepchildren, and had a baby girl. The role that built her career started draining everything else. In her words, "it was taking from my family."
In January, a post in a Black women in technology Facebook group stopped her scroll: a story about a single mom of four who'd gone from teaching to instructional design, working remotely with a real income. Monique and her husband had been looking for exactly this kind of path, one that used her skills without consuming her.
Her first objection is one corporate women raise constantly: "I thought I wasn't artsy and creative enough." Then she saw that successful grads of the Applied Instructional Design Academy (AIDA) came from all kinds of backgrounds, and something clicked: her corporate engineering experience wasn't a gap to apologize for. It was going to be her edge.
Monique joined AIDA while returning from maternity leave, juggling the engineering job, a side business, and a house full of kids. Two weeks back at work, she asked for time off to focus. Her employer said no to a second week.
"I decided to resign."
She's blunt about the risk, and her warning deserves to be heard exactly as she gives it: "Do not do that if you are not prepared for what comes with that." Most people should keep the paycheck while they build. But Monique had run her numbers, her family was counting on her, and the pressure became fuel. There were all-nighters. She came to every coaching call with updated work and left with feedback.
Somewhere in the middle of rewriting her resume with AIDA's resources, she made a discovery that changes how she tells her whole story: "I actually have way more training experience than I thought." Years of onboarding teammates and explaining systems had been instructional design all along. It just needed translating.
Her first month of applications brought silence. No calls. Then her portfolio samples went live, and the market flipped. She put in 150 applications over three weeks and sat 20 first interviews. One offer came in by the end of that first month with the portfolio live. In her final two weeks of interviewing, everything broke loose: five total offers, and more interview requests than she could accept.
She took a first contract, realized a month in that better fits had materialized, gave notice, and stepped straight into her second ID contract the next day. Employers kept telling her the same two things: you don't need us to explain corporate culture, and you can hit the ground running. Several were surprised this was her first ID role.