Anel Perez

About Anel

• I grew up in Providence, Rhode Island—my parents are both immigrants and come from large families, so I was always surrounded by family from all different backgrounds.
• When I graduated from high school, I had a newborn baby and was working in retail, but I was struggling to make ends meet.
• A friend of mine graduated from Year Up and found a full-time job, so I decided to give it a try because I could see myself working in a similar field.
• I applied to many jobs but didn't land one until I finally found a contract position—it ended up opening a lot of doors by giving me experience, teaching me skills, and making me more marketable.
• I kept doing contract work until landing a full-time position with a commercial real estate company—because it was a small company, I got a lot of good experience in multiple aspects of the company.
• I eventually decided to go back to school and received my bachelor’s degree in information technology from Northeastern University.
• After graduating, I felt that I had reached my full potential in my current position, so I decided to look for a new job—I ended up moving to New York and joining a larger corporate company.
• I now work as a solutions architect for Amazon Web Services and feel very happy and secure with where I’m at.