This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Cher Scarlett, a 40-year-old former programmer and current community college student based in Southern California. It’s been edited for length and clarity.
Growing up in a chaotic household, I never had much of a choice but to figure things out on my own. At age 6, I learned how to bake bread when my family needed dinner, and in middle school, I used that same initiative to teach myself how to code.
My home life worsened, and I dropped out of high school and went down a dark path. When I got pregnant at 19, I knew I wanted a better life for my daughter. I earned my GED with a near-perfect math score and broke into tech as a front-end engineer without a college degree. My tech jobs became my identity and source of self-worth.
Twenty years after starting my tech career, I quit my job at Apple. What followed was one of the hardest times of my life, but it was what I needed to finally see my true value.
My engineering career was fun at times, but unfulfilling
I worked for companies such as Blizzard, Starbucks, and USA Today as a software engineer. I had the opportunity to work on some really interesting projects, but I felt unfulfilled. I was always the activist type at work, speaking out against injustice, and I kept looking for a company that I felt like was making a positive impact on its community and employees.
When I was hired as a principal software engineer at Apple in April of 2020, I thought it was what I’d been looking for: Apple invested in education, installed computers in elementary schools, and even advocated for human and environmental rights. It seemed to embody the counterculture and activist movements that had been ingrained in my identity as someone who grew up in the Seattle area in the 1990s.
I started the #Appletoo movement and had no idea it would impact my career
About a year after I started working at Apple, coworkers and I created the #AppleToo movement, where we gathered testimonials from employees who shared their allegations of harassment, discrimination, abuse, and more.
I later helped send an official open letter to Apple asking for specific changes in how the company handled labor-related issues and complaints.
Two months later, I resigned. I didn’t view what I did as something that could ruin my career or put myself in a position where I couldn’t provide for my daughter. I was still taught when you see something, say something — so that’s what I did.
After I quit Apple, I couldn’t find another tech job
I had mixed feelings about my departure. I felt grief and disbelief at how it was ending, but I was self-assured and excited to reshape my vision of how I could impact the world with the software I worked on. I wasn’t fearless, but I had a lot of belief that I’d find another programming job because it had never been an issue in the past.
I applied to places that seemed to align with my values, but I wasn’t hired. Some hiring managers told me it was because I was underqualified without a college degree.
In August 2023, a year and a half after I left Apple, I ran out of money to pay my bills and enrolled in a community college to pursue a degree in computer science. Not only was it out of desperation because I needed a job to take care of my daughter and myself, but also because without that part of my identity, I felt like nothing.
I experienced homelessness before enrolling in community college
The same month I enrolled, I left an abusive situation in my personal life. I had to send my daughter to live with someone else, and I lived out of my car. I ended up withdrawing from my classes.
I spent some time in shelters before getting referred to an intensive, 10-week domestic violence program. I went to classes daily and counseling sessions multiple times a week to talk about why, my whole life, I kept going towards abusive situations. I realized that I put all of my self-worth into my identity as a software engineer and neglected the rest of myself.
I left the program feeling like a completely different person and re-enrolled in community college, but this time it was for something I’ve always been passionate about — astrophysics and earth sciences.
I’m on track to graduate with highest honors this spring, and I just applied to transfer programs. I don’t know what I’m going to do with my degree yet, but I know that it’s something that’ll make me happy.
I don’t have any regrets about leaving Apple
If I could go back and change anything about the time I left Apple, it would be that I reached out for help with the domestic violence I was facing, instead of suffering in secret.
I’m redefining what success means to me, and it has nothing to do with money or prestige. I’ve landed an internship at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a research assistant position at Caltech. It’s interesting because the thing that has gotten me noticed at these places is my programming experience. I’m finally in a place where that’s no longer my whole identity, but it’s a part of myself that I’m getting to reclaim.
College has done for me something that no other part of my life has given me. I feel rewarded for my hard work. Getting that positive attention means everything to the bright little girl who never got any and has helped me learn to truly value my whole self.
If you quit your job for an unconventional path and want to share your story, please reach out to this reporter at tmartinelli@businessinsider.com.
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