This is a special episode of POCIT featuring former Twitter Engineer Leslie Miley. Please read his enlightening essay on Medium regarding Twitter’s lack of diversity, and how it informed his decision to leave a senior engineering position at the company. What made you decide to work in tech? I have what I call home field advantage. I was born and raised in Silicon Valley {laughs}. You couldn’t walk out the door without getting hit by a computer. It always fascinated me, I watched Steve Jobs as a kid, and witnessed
What made you decide to work in tech? I had no exposure to tech growing up. The only exposure I had was the tech I was consuming. I always loved tech and games, and I was a very early adopter of Facebook and MySpace. I always loved technology, but I had no idea I could be a developer; I didn’t even know what that was! Over a college winter break I came across two different videos: one was a TED talk by Kimberly Bryant of Black Girls Code, and [the
What made you decide to work in tech? Before I even knew what I was getting into, I picked up on some knowledge during middle school that engineers make a lot of money! {laughs} I was always good at math and science, but before it was a desire it was: What do my skills tell me I should do? As I got into high school, I think I had a soft pulse on the evolution of technology, and where it would be by the time I was a young adult. I
Senior Product Designer & Culture Ambassador at Neo damian.is Designer of experiences at TheGlint. Founder of Hunie, a 500 Startups company. Product designer at Neo. Tell us about your experience at 500 Startups? It was great. ‘500’ is an awesome program, with a great community. It makes a lot of sense if you’re looking for traction with an existing product (having achieved product-market fit). Unfortunately I was more in the idea stage, and I was also a single founder, so that carried a few disadvantages. How did you
What made you decide to work in tech? I’ve just liked computers for as long as I can remember. What’s your earliest programming memory? I didn’t start programming until I was in high school. I took a computer science course. We used JavaSwing to draw things, and it was really awesome! What was an obstacle you faced ? Oh yeah. In college, I had a project based class. My professor made me lead developer. I was normally the only girl developer in my class, and I was the only girl
What made you decide to work in tech? Working in tech was something that I fell into; it wasn’t exactly a conscious decision. As a teenager I ended up teaching myself how to code and fell in love with it. From there, it turned into a career. What was an obstacle you faced and how did you overcome that obstacle? I think the biggest obstacle I faced was ageism in the industry. Being a young person of color, it was tough for people to take me seriously at first. I still
Iheanyi Ekechukwu is a Software Engineer in IBM Watson, a cognitive system that enables a partnership between people and computers. Check him out on his podcast Two Black Nerds, where he and his friend tackle topics such as diversity in the tech industry, current events, and life after college. What made you decide to work in tech? I didn’t start coding until college. I got into tech, as I was always into video games when I was younger, and wanted to be a games developer. But once I got into
