This paper utilises the conceptual lens of intersectionality to explore gendered academic career trajectory in the context of one participant's challenge to a normative reading of the link between her private life and its relation to a "successful" academic career. The paper then charts the recalibrations that needed to take place to ensure certain sociocultural categories and intersections were not privileged over others. Finally, the paper then utilises the concept of intersectionality as a metaphor with which to view the intersecting and reflexive relationship between the interviewer, the interviewee and the performative event of the interview process.