Today Dawn Boydston knows just what it takes to be a successful software developer and uses that knowledge to motivate her team of developers in her role as Technology Manager at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

But it wasn’t always that way.

“Before I got into the computer science field, I did not believe it was something I could do,” Dawn says. “I was fortunate to have someone in my life who believed in me and recommended me for a programming boot camp.”

At the time, Dawn was 21 years old and working on an assembly line while attending community college during the day. She had no idea what she wanted to do.

“I was picked to attend an industrial programmer ‘boot camp’ that was created to ‘grow’ the software development staff the company needed,” Dawn says. “I found this a natural fit for me. I loved it!”

She earned her bachelor’s degree in computer science and spent several years as a contractor, developing small apps for many customers. She then worked for Lockheed Martin in Denver for 10 years before moving with her family to Kansas City in 2013 to be closer to her husband’s family land. She’s been at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City for two and a half years.

“I enjoy working with my developers, customer and project manager to solve challenging problems, meet schedules and deliver a quality project,” she says. “My passion is really to continually improve the software development lifecycle processes and tools.”

Outside work, Dawn enjoys her kids, the outdoors, camping and reading. She wants girls considering tech and computer science careers to know the field is not just sitting at your desk, alone, coding all day.

“You have the ability to do this work,” she says. “It is fun and will provide a solid income with versatility to work and live anywhere.”

Dawn found her fit in computer science and you can, too.