OppFi Career Growth & Development

What new skill or role did you want to learn? Why was this important to you?
When I joined OppFi nine years ago as a loan advocate, I was simultaneously attending a coding bootcamp with the goal of transitioning out of a customer-facing role to a more technical role.

After completing the bootcamp, OppFi offered me the chance to transition to the tech department as a quality assurance engineer, with a clear path to becoming a software engineer. Leaders within my company provided a comprehensive learning journey, including videos, books and projects. Within five months of starting in my new role as a quality assurance engineer, I achieved the role of software engineer.

How did your employer help support this time of learning and professional development?
OppFi fosters a culture of professional development and continuous learning where leaders champion investing in our people.

OppFi has sponsored my travel to attend software conferences including RubyConf, Strange Loop, Velocity Conference and Go-To Chicago. These conferences offer exposure to new technologies and networking within the tech community. Internally, the tech department hosts a tech book club and hackathons, allowing employees to explore ambitious projects and experiment with emerging technologies.

Our tech team emphasizes pair programming, which has been a consistent source of real-time learning guided by senior employees. One initiative I’m proud to have implemented is a mentorship program for developers. At this time, the program has run through four iterations and set up over 50 mentorship pairings for developers looking to grow in specific technical domains. OppFi provides free access to online learning via LinkedIn Learning, FranklinCovey and Pluralsight. I’ve taken classes on Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, React, Java, domain driven design and GitHub Copilot, among others. For the new year, I plan on using OppFi’s tuition reimbursement program to get my MBA.

What was the outcome of this experience? How did it impact your future growth in your profession?
My nine-year tenure at OppFi has supercharged my career. Over this period, I’ve held approximately eight different titles, each offering a unique opportunity to enhance my skill set.

The impact on my earning potential has been particularly notable. My compensation has increased significantly as my skills and responsibilities have grown.

During my tenure, OppFi has consistently offered numerous learning and advancement opportunities, enabling me to significantly enhance my skills while also significantly improving my overall quality of life. This underscores the value of a supportive environment that fosters skill development and career progression.

Describe your career journey so far. What skills or experiences have you acquired along the way that have helped you get to where you are now?

My career has been a journey focused on embedding quality and efficiency within software organizations to provide value. It began unexpectedly, shifting from actuarial science to a programming role at a consulting firm. This four-year immersion in a programming role gave me a crucial, hands-on understanding of the development lifecycle. 

Seeking greater impact, I transitioned into management as a QA manager, building my first team. To maximize my value, I proactively mastered automated testing, moving quality assurance from a final check to an integrated practice.

For the last 25 years, I’ve focused on leadership by refining a core skillset: building high-functioning teams, designing best-in-class processes and driving organizational efficiency. Learning skills such as critical chain theory and agile frameworks helped me improve my strategic leadership experience and leverage my technical and process background to help companies systematically build quality into their software’s DNA, ensuring reliable and scalable delivery.

What support did you receive from individuals or resources that helped you step into a leadership role?

Throughout my career, I’ve received amazing support from several individuals as mentors and collaborators to hone my leadership skills. Chief technology officers and executives at my current and previous companies provided the most critical type of support — trust and freedom. They provided the trust and freedom for me to experiment with innovative organizational structures, processes and tools to drive efficiency, consistently backing my expertise. I also benefited immensely from veteran mentors who acted as sounding boards, sharing their experiences and candid advice, which was invaluable for honing my strategic thinking. Finally, the automated testing community offered immediate, actionable feedback that kept my technical and process knowledge sharp. Today, I strive to pay this forward by actively mentoring emerging leaders, sharing my experience and fostering that same environment of trust.

How do you encourage other women on your team to become leaders themselves? Are there any stories you can share that showcase how you’ve done this?

My approach emphasizes empowerment and strategic visibility. I advise women in leadership to actively participate in discussions and practice professional negotiation to ensure their opinions are heard, emphasizing that their perspective is crucial for decision-making and contributes to team and company success. I share insights into leadership challenges and rewards, stressing that leadership is a set of behaviors requiring strong communication organizational skills and compassion. This approach aligns with OppFi’s talent management philosophy, which stresses that performance includes modeling expected behaviors and encourages team members to leverage professional development opportunities to improve leadership abilities and drive success. When an employee was struggling to find her place in the organization, I found that she was talented at finding solutions to customer problems. I reorganized her responsibilities to lead a support team, which empowered her to play to her strengths by leading others in providing superior customer service. This boosted her job satisfaction and leadership growth, resulting in increased customer satisfaction and development of a strong leader!