Maria is a Director of Architecture at Fidelity Investments, and has been in Software Development for almost 13 years. She started as a freelance web developer back in 2009, with only a Web Development Diploma. As a working mom/wife with limited education, she had to build her skills and learn on the job. HTML, CSS, JavaScript with MySQL were her bread and butter. Once she had a solid portfolio, she landed a compelling opportunity at Santander Bank in Boston. After working with Java, Oracle, Microsoft SQL servers, and Angular 1, Maria was ready for her next adventure. In 2015, she was going to school part-time for her Associate’s in IT and landed a job at Fidelity Investments. Here’s where Maria’s career took off. She is a full-stack engineer, but her best work has been backend work, which is where she prefers to spend her days. In the last two years, she has applied for two patents with a college at Fidelity, one of which has been accepted. In December, she completed her Bachelor’s in Computer Science and achieved Summa Cum Laude honors. Still, of all things, her two beautiful boys are her most significant achievements.