Building, not Buildings. Career Shifting from Architecture

I’ve told my career story a lot lately. It’s actually a story with lots of twists and turns but a big portion of it was my time in what we’d all know to be called “Architecture”. That’s because my Dad told me it was a “real job”. From the day he told me that, I embarked on what would be the most formative years of my career. 7 years of schooling and 2 years of working at SHoP Architects.  That is what it took for me to feel confident saying to myself: I like building more than I like buildings. 

Architecture is probably one of the best educations you could get but also one of the most tumultuous careers you could pursue. It has a built-in model of apprenticeship that makes it hard for people to sustain and has a selection bias that makes it even harder to excel early in your career (I’ll leave the systemic gender and racial bias for another day…). Yet the skills and experience that one gets are second to none. I often tell people that if they have the opportunity to hire an architecture student, to absolutely do it. They think critically, they know how to use technology well, they are visual analytical thinkers and they really are a rare breed of employee.

The amount of talent I’ve seen waste away behind a computer waiting to ascend within an architecture firm is truly unfortunate. Professionals working in the built environment are under tremendous career duress as it is an industry heavily affected by COVID-19. At Teal, we want to do our part because we believe it is right and because it is personally important to me to help these amazing talented people figure out new ways to deploy their talent.

As a career shifter myself, going from traditional “Capital A Architecture” to Building Technology to Real Estate and now the technology to manage careers, I’m super excited to partner with the team at Practice of Architecture to release a tailored version of Teal’s Career Shift program geared towards Architects and Designers. I’m incredibly excited to be running these sessions myself as I understand the nuances of going from architecture into other industries and in particular technology. We want to help people to have the confidence and tactics to do the same.

Dave Fano
CEO & Founder of Teal