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Tabby Toney <\/strong>didn’t set out to have a career in tech. She followed a friend into the industry, doing manual testing of software, with little prior experience and no clear idea of where she wanted the field to take her.\u00a0<\/p>\n It didn’t take long, though, for the Oklahoman to fall in love with the industry. “I loved tech because of the intellectual stimulation it provided. I enjoyed the creative problem-solving and critical thinking required to make things happen,” she told Business Insider<\/a>.<\/p>\n So she set to learning everything she could, taking virtual classes and studying in her downtime. Eventually, she became a software engineer in her own right.<\/p>\n Don’t Miss:<\/strong><\/p>\n Things were going swimmingly until May, when Toney was laid off. It was something she’d seen coming, largely because of the direction the industry was heading with AI. Having financially prepared for the change, she initially intended to take a month off of work entirely in order to reset and decide what her next steps would be.<\/p>\n “But I don\u2019t sit still very well,” she said. “So I decided to take up welding.”<\/p>\n “I didn\u2019t want to start over again, but I also didn\u2019t want to be bored,” she explained to Business Insider. “I needed something to keep me engaged and feeling like I was contributing, but my tech job didn\u2019t do that anymore.”<\/p>\n Much like software engineering, Toney’s choice to pursue welding wasn’t super intentional. “I took welding in high school, and I remember running around as a kid in my grandpa\u2019s garage, where he and my dad did it a bunch,” she said.<\/p>\n