The full story of Efe Dincaslan
CHAPTER ONE: Beginnings
I was born in Richmond, Virginia — though I barely had time to settle before we traded it for the sunny valleys of San Diego, where I spent my earliest years. California was the first home I remember: warm, open, easy.
Right before first grade, everything changed. My parents wanted my younger brother and me to grow up inside our own culture and close to family, so they both took jobs in Istanbul — my dad as the CEO of an insurance firm, my mom as a corporate lawyer. Overnight, a diverse, English-speaking world became a new language, a new city, and a whole new set of expectations.
CHAPTER TWO: Şişli Terakki
In Istanbul I went to Şişli Terakki, a private school that, looking back, was extraordinary. It felt less like grade school and more like a college campus — eight classes a day, three or four languages always in the air, and a curriculum that ran from stop-motion animation, painting, chess and theatre straight into advanced math and science.
We were dissecting hearts and brains at an age when most kids are still coloring inside the lines. Honestly, some of the best years of my life. Every day felt full and completely different — a swimming day in gym, or the homeroom olympics, where every class went head-to-head until one was crowned.
CHAPTER THREE: A Competitive Fire
Turkey was also far more competitive than anything I had known, and school leaned all the way into it. In 8th grade you sit the TEOG — a high-stakes national exam, a bit like the SAT but years earlier — and another one waits at the end of high school. You get a single shot at each, and the school you tested into could quietly set the trajectory of your life.
And then, at the start of 7th grade, my dad took a job in Charlotte, North Carolina — and after I had finally grown into my life in Istanbul, I was uprooted again, dropped into a new country in the middle of middle school.
CHAPTER FOUR: The Banquet Hall
In high school I took a job as a banquet server at Ballantyne Country Club, and it humbled me fast. Picture a fifteen-year-old working fourteen-hour shifts, surrounded by some of the most successful people in the city, day in and day out.
Two lessons stuck. First, how much a network matters — I watched, up close, what relationships could open. Second, what it really means to work: not until you are tired, but until the job is actually done. I still hold myself to that standard.
I also did a short stint on a BBQ line at 521 BBQ & Grill — prepping pork butts and wings and cooking to the tickets. Hot, fast, and no place to hide. Honest work that taught me speed and composure under pressure.
CHAPTER FIVE: What Do I Want to Do With My Life?
Through middle and high school my electives always bent toward science and math — but, funny enough, I wanted nothing to do with coding or programming. When college applications came, I applied mostly to business and finance programs.
Virginia Tech offered something different: Business Information Technology. It blended data science, security, database work and analytics with finance, accounting, management, marketing and law. I came away with a rounded view of how business needs and technical solutions actually meet — the exact overlap I think most engineers and client-facing teams are missing when they cannot see eye to eye.
CHAPTER SIX: Hokie Years
So I became a Hokie. At Virginia Tech I threw myself into it — clubs, Greek life, and a lot of genuinely great people I am lucky to know.
I also made myself a rule: intern every single year, and never stop stacking experience.
CHAPTER SEVEN: The Consulting Summer
The first was at an IT consulting firm a friend’s father had started. We would handle the sales, then jump on consultation calls to understand a client’s real problems — their projects, budgets, timelines, and the skills their team was missing — and then go find the right people to fill the gap.
It was fun and, again, humbling. Nothing teaches you quite like getting deep into a deal, only to watch it fall through at the very last moment.
CHAPTER EIGHT: The CFO’s Apprentice
The next summer I worked directly under the CFO of EBARA — a former EY man who taught me how to actually read the numbers behind a manufacturing business that sold industrial pumps for everything from data-center cooling to plumbing.
He noticed accounting had no concrete system, so I learned the roles from the inside — sitting with Accounts Payable and Receivable to map a process for every function, so anyone stepping in would know exactly what to do. He once sent me back to redo one map eight times, finding edge cases I had never considered. I also organized hundreds of bolt types into a clean two-bin system and built a Power BI dashboard on Salesforce data. Process, it turns out, is its own kind of engineering.
CHAPTER NINE: All In
Going into junior year, I knew this internship would likely decide my full-time offer — so I went all in. Somewhere between 500 and 600 applications. Around forty networking calls. A pile of referrals. For a while it felt blind and unanswered, and I got discouraged.
Then the interviews came: Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Fidelity, Guidehouse, Morgan Stanley, First Citizens, Ally, Medtronic, Hilton, Capco, Freddie Mac, and more I am forgetting. Two turned into offers. I will never forget the first one landing — the moment all that quiet, unrewarded work finally paid off. I accepted Fidelity Investments.
CHAPTER TEN: Finally in Tech
Before Fidelity started, I spent a week at A2 Analytics — then a brand-new startup — building a data-mining project for a law client. Then came Fidelity’s Enterprise Cybersecurity team, where I automated identity and access work at real scale.
Back on campus, I took on the course with the worst reputation in our major — Data Mining, known as the hardest and most unforgiving. I finished the month-long projects ahead of everyone, with a grade north of 100 while the class averaged 60 to 70. They asked me to come back and TA it.
CHAPTER ELEVEN: Back in the Flesh at A2
A2 has since scaled, and so has my role. Today I own multiple full-stack web apps end to end — censusflow.com and findbetterinternet.com among them — handling the data, the visualization and the publishing myself. And now I am starting a new chapter: heading back to Fidelity, this time in Raleigh, as a Data Engineer.
This is my life on the surface — there is, of course, far more personal to it that does not need to live online. But the throughline is this: I have constantly adapted to change, and I have kept chasing the next goal.
If this is the kind of person your team is looking for — or if you need contract work done — please feel free to reach out.