Early in her college career, Julianne Costa worked as one of the first retail employees for Warby Parker. The sunglass startup chain gave her a steady income and an opportunity to learn about business while she studied the subject at Fordham University, in New York. And she happily stayed with the company for years, opening stores across the country. But then she started to feel like she needed a challenge to further test her intelligence and drive, one that could also provide long-term financial security. That decision led her to App Academy and becoming a software developer.

Years later, Julianne sees that time as a key part of her life that set up a journey to her current job for a drone company, compiling coded imagery for industrial-level clients. It was a path laced with tough choices and self-doubt, but one that helped shape her in ways she didn’t anticipate.

We sat down with Julianne at App Academy’s San Francisco campus to talk about her career thus far, her experience at App Academy, and more.

The following has been edited for clarity and length.

Let’s get started by telling us about how you started to think about a programming career and did you ever see yourself in that type of role?

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So you’re here in San Francisco trying to figure out what you’re gonna do. It’s a big tech area of the world. [But] I never knew what a software developer really did. I didn’t know what code was, what it looked like, I had not been in the terminal of my computer. [I was] very non-technical. Luckily my older brother has lived in this city and he went to a coding bootcamp, had a great experience, got his first software engineering job and just loved it. It sounded like gibberish to me, but I could tell he was passionate about what he was doing and sustaining life in San Francisco.

So that planted the seed for me. I just started exploring things I wanted out of my next career, trying to talk to as many people as I could. I actually reached out to some engineers on the Warby Parker team and I added their calendar to mine, schedule a 30-minute phone call with me. There was one female engineer on that team at the time [and] she really validated everything I was thinking software development would be for me. Through conversations I got the confidence to take the leap.

[Then] I was just dabbling in free online mini-courses…getting my hands a little bit dirty with code. [That] kind of ignited a spark. I’m like I could really do this.” I think what excited me the most in the beginning was the challenge and the fact that it’s just going to open up so many more pathways to learning.

Why did you choose App Academy?

I’m a very academically competitive person. I always have been. It’s weird. But even when I was working at Warby Parker and going to school full-time