career

28 May 2024

The plight of the generalist

My career is colorful, and I’ve been struggling to find my place in corporate culture – because corporate culture is a place that only wants to see specialists and does not seem to know what to do with a generalist like me. I have such diverse experience – and I have a PhD, something that is incredibly challenging to accomplish, and that not a lot of people succeed in. Regardless, I never seemed to meet the requirements of “X years of experience in topic Z” that is dominating most job openings in the eyes of recruiters. Or it doesn’t count […]

9 July 2023

The search is over: The journey to my new job

I’m happy to report that my job search is finally over! As of July 2023, I am employed again! I’m now working as a developer in the field of conversational AI for Germany’s biggest railway company, Deutsche Bahn. This job is a really great fit for me because it combines so many of my skills and experiences – my far-away past as a web developer and media designer with my more recent past doing a PhD in linguistics. I’m also quite happy to be working for Deutsche Bahn, not only because they play a vital role in Germany’s transformation to […]

2 March 2023

Back to Work

Today is my second day of re-entering the workforce, and it’s been challenging for me – mentally and physically. Yesterday I started to work in an agency for UX, branding and conversation design, and will continue to do so full time for the next three months. My focus will be on conversation design, chatbot user experience, and related topics. I believe that this will be an interesting and educational time for me, and is a good fit for my experience in linguistics and research, as well as for my background in design. However, on a mental and personal level, going […]

29 January 2023

My PhD experience and #LeavingAcademia

If you follow me on Instagram or LinkedIn, you might already know that, since last week, I am officially a doctor (PhD)! And with that, my academic career comes to a close after almost 12 years at university. A good opportunity to reminisce about my experience in academia, and my reasons to not stay there. Bachelor’s and Master’s I started studying in 2011, after previously having worked as a web developer. Why did I leave my career as a web developer in the first place? Well, I wanted a new challenge, and since back then I used my lunch breaks […]

1 September 2022

Dissertation defended!

Yesterday five years of hard work finally came to a conclusion in the defense of my dissertation. Being a PhD student was the most challenging thing I ever did in my professional/academic career – all the memes are true. While you’re doing it, you feel like you are climbing a never ending mountain that just keeps getting higher and higher. And when you finally think you reach the end (submitting the dissertation), there’s another mountain waiting for you (defending the dissertation), and then another small hill (publishing the dissertation). And only then it’s finally done. How do you even compress […]