These architects wanted to do meaningful work, so they quit their jobs and joined the public sector

These architects wanted to do meaningful work, so they quit their jobs and joined the public sector

In 2021, Sanaa Shaikh was burned out. As a South Asian woman working in an overwhelmingly white and male profession, she had spent years experiencing her fair share of discrimination and microaggressions—while at the same time being tasked with designing housing developments for underserved communities where she routinely felt like her ideas and perspective were dismissed. She was ready to move on. A friend asked whether she’d consider going int…