Antonella is 32 years old, born and raised in Santiago, Chile, where she lives with her husband and two children – the youngest just a few weeks old. A lawyer by training, she built her career independently, client by client. But working on her own made financial stability hard to guarantee, and over time she found herself feeling stuck – professionally and personally. “I needed to set myself a challenge, get out of where I was.”

Chasing a Dream

She discovered Generation through an online advertisement that stopped her mid-scroll. The opportunity: learn to code, open new doors, at no cost. Technology had fascinated Antonella since childhood, but she had never dared to pursue it. This time, she took the leap. She applied, passed the evaluations and interviews, and waited. When the call came confirming she had entered the program, her reaction came without hesitation: “Wow! Where do I show up?”

In April 2023, Antonella joined Generation Chile’s Full Stack Jr Java Developer program, sponsored by Sumup. Java was a world away from constitutional law: abstract, unfamiliar, and at times overwhelming. But she committed fully, studied late into the night, and even connected with classmates after hours to keep learning together. The program being remote made all the difference: between sessions, she could step away from the screen to play with her young son. By the end, she had built a fully functional website for entrepreneurs in Chile, proof that the code had clicked.

A Life-Changing Program

Three months after graduating, Antonella landed a job at a tech company in Chile, where she has now been for over two years. She started as a Quality Assurance Analyst, but something unexpected happened: the head of cybersecurity learned she was not only a developer but also a lawyer. 

She was offered a role as a compliance attorney – reviewing tech contracts, drafting data protection and confidentiality clauses, and advising teams on cybersecurity law. Two careers, once parallel, suddenly converged. “This program was a miracle in my life, the push I needed to improve my quality of life, my confidence, everything” she concludes.

Writing a New Chapter

In her team, Antonella is one of very few women, something she meets with presence and conviction. “By proving to myself that I could learn something completely new and develop it well, I was breaking the preconceived ideas that exist about mothers, that we are somehow less capable,” she reflects. Her message to women who hesitate is clear: “You have been through harder things. Have faith in yourselves, we need more women in technology!”

Alongside her certification, Antonella completed a diploma that broadened her profile and today her combination of legal and technological expertise is increasingly in demand. “It was like a stepping stone, one step after another,” she says.

Outside of work, she shares her love of strategy video games with her husband, stays up to date with the latest in tech, and embraces every moment of her children’s growth. Her next goal: specialize in cybersecurity law and one day become a judge at the intersection of law and technology. To the Antonella who once felt stuck: “Trust yourself. You are capable of more than you think, and you can learn more than you believe.”