I Made A Career Switch From Broadway Star To Software Engineer
HuffPost
Carla Stickler shares how to make a big career leap and how to sell your seemingly unrelated experience in job interviews.
During the December COVID-19 surge in New York City, cast members for the Broadway production of “Wicked” were sick and unavailable. Needing the show to go on, producers called Carla Stickler, a software engineer living in Chicago, and asked her to fill a role she had not played on stage for seven years: the musical’s lead, Elphaba.
Stickler, who had been a full-time understudy for Elphaba and a fill-in for the show’s ensemble roles before making a career switch to coding, said yes and got on a plane. During her whirlwind stint as an emergency Elphaba, she got to revisit a chapter she had closed and perform on her own terms, without the stress of worrying about her career.