When Sebanti Sanyal’s toddler was struggling with severe allergies and respiratory issues, she decided to step back from her career to care for her young daughter full time. Then, when the pandemic hit, she took an additional two years away before returning to her engineering career through our Intuit Again returnship program in September 2022.
Intuit Again provides a supportive pathway back into the workforce after taking a career break for caregiving purposes, including the opportunity for returnees like Sebanti to refresh their skills and apply newly learned skills in a structured 16-week program.
“I was nervous about managing home and office together after a four-year break,” says Sebanti. “But everyone, at home and in the office, was supportive. The program paired me with a ‘buddy’ right away. I also spent my first couple of weeks getting a good overview of the work my team was doing—and learning about Intuit resources to help bridge the gap.”
Since the launch of Intuit Again in 2015, more than 70% of participants have been converted to full-time employees. That includes Sebanti who is now a Software Engineer II working on the Monetization and Services Experiences (MSE) team, putting her Java, Microservies, Spring Boot, and other skills to work.
Srividya Krishnan also joined through our Intuit Again program. She earned a masters in software engineering and had five years of experience working in IT in India before she took a sabbatical to join her husband in the US for a career opportunity, while caring for her children. At the end of her sabbatical, she took additional time for caregiving. Her career pause ended up being five years, but she has no regrets as she was able to be the primary caregiver for her children.
Today, Srividya is a full-time Software Engineer II in our Mountain View office working on QuickBooks Payroll HR and Benefits team to continue to evolve the user experience. “For me, catching up to five years of software development evolution seemed like a mountain in front of me,” she says. “I had a deep learning curve, but also had the support I needed from the team to learn many new technologies with each task I worked on.”
Some of Srividya’s new skill sets include React jest, Cypress, GraphQL, and Kafka. “I love getting to do what I like in monetary benefits, meeting new people, and working on a team. Everything is so motivating.”
Sebanti agrees. “I’m passionate about problem solving and love programming. During my time away from my career, I was silently wishing to go back to the workforce. When my eldest daughter showed eagerness to learn programming, I was more than happy to teach her. Then, I brushed up my skills and was fortunate to come across the Intuit Again opportunity.”
And no one does it alone. Senior Software Engineer Chitra Chadalavada, also part of the Intuit Again program, says, “I was assigned a great mentor who helped me set small goals that I’d work to achieve each week. We’d meet regularly to go over milestones and this helped me adapt back to work culture.”
Chitra joined the Intuit Again program after a she took a break to raise her daughter and while also teaching computer science to youngsters. Now in her fourth year as an Intuit employee, she’s part of the Security and Compliance team as a full stack developer.
Throughout this journey, Chitra’s acquired a number of new skills, including Spring Boot, AWS, Kubernetes, Docker, and ArGoCD. “Most of these were completely new to me,” she says. “One of my biggest challenges was around the usage of cloud and tools that weren’t widely accepted before I took a break. But with the help of courses we were able to take through Udemy, in-person-training, and my program mentor, it didn’t didn’t take me long to get familiar with new technologies.”
For Srividya, preparation was the key. “My advice is to train yourself thoroughly and be confident. That comes hand in hand with your knowledge.” Sebanti echoes this sentiment. “Whatever skills interest you, dig deeper and learn.”
The Intuit Again program will do the rest. “Intuit Again is an amazing opportunity,” says Chitra. “It’s designed to help you be bold. And everyone wants you to be successful. So go for it and give it your all!”
In the process, you’ll have the opportunity to dream and build your career at a company that’s committed to helping everyone do the best work of their lives, while being good citizens. “Our Intuit values,” says Chitra, “including Customer Obsessions and We Care and Give Back have become an essential part of my life.”
Are you a technologist looking to return to work? Recruitment is now open: learn more and apply.
Visit the Tech Women @ Intuit for more opportunities that support women in tech.