[3][4] Baker received a BA in Chinese studies[5] at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1979, achieving a Certificate of Distinction.

[6][7] From January 1990 until October 1993, she worked as a corporate and intellectual property associate at Fenwick & West LLP, a law practice specializing in providing legal services to high-technology companies.

[citation needed] In November 1994, Baker was hired as one of the first employees of the legal department of Netscape Communications Corporation.

She was responsible for intellectual property protection and legal issues relating to product development, reporting to the general counsel.

[10] In November 2002, Baker was employed by the Open Source Applications Foundation, helping to guide the group's community relations and taking a seat on OSAF's board of directors.

[12] The reasons cited for this change was Mozilla's rapid growth, which made it difficult for executives to continue to take on many different roles.

Baker stated this was due to the COVID-19 pandemic, despite revenue rising to record highs in 2019, and market share shrinking.