Kaitlin Maddever

Kaitlin Maddever completed a degree in linguistics, but she sought a career in building things that people used.

This led her to explore the Master of Software Development programme at the Wellington ICT Graduate School. “I’d enjoyed mathematics and science when I was at high school, and realised that I missed that sort of thinking. The Master of Software Development sounded like a great option because it is meant for people like me, with non-technical undergraduate degrees.”

The in-person nature of the programme and its one-year duration were key reasons for Kaitlin to opt for this degree. “The person-to-person connection was especially important since I was a beginner looking to make a career for myself in this field.”

The practical nature of the programme appealed to her. “I wasn’t looking to add formal degrees that offered no practical experience, which is why I found the industry experience component of the programme very useful. My internship at Avenir Technology included creating an interface for clients to use—and this was great because it helped me look at what the client needed and customise the solution for them.” She continued working on the project when she joined Avenir as a full-time developer after completing her internship.

“Software is an inherently collaborative field where you’re working on tools that other people have made, and it’s very likely that someone else, with their own skill sets, will work on it again at a later point. It’s this sort of collaboration that I really enjoy, because there are always new things to learn and new tools to make your life easier—or harder!

“It’s been an incredible journey since I got here—pursuing what I cared most about at the time, learning from it, and using that to determine what direction to go next. But it’s really important to cultivate that sort of curiosity, to try out something that you find interesting and see where it takes you,” she says.