What made you decide to work in tech? I remember watching films growing up where “hackers” were glamorised and I think that instilled an intrigue in me. However, I didn’t realise I wanted to build software until I started university and began to play around with iOS and Objective C. The joy I got when I first built something that lived on my phone hasn’t yet disappeared and I think that’s why I continue to do it. What was your perception of the tech industry before entering it, and what
Founder of 20/20 Shift www.2020shift.com How did you get involved with General Assembly? I’ve been here [General Assembly] for about a year now. I was always familiar with them since their inception, but my background is in recruiting and talent acquisition. I had gone to an event maybe about a year or so ago. One of the guys, now a former colleague, worked there. We met. When my role became available, he reached out to me, and he said, “This sounds a dope role for you. Would you
COO: Messiah Jacobs & CEO: Savalas Colbert www.entercharge.com Tell us a bit about yourselves. Messiah: Yeah for sure. We have a start-up that we’ve been pushing forward for the last year called entercharge. entercharge’s focus is on creating additional services in the restaurant space. We created a hardware device that sits on top of tables and allows people to charge the battery in their cell phone. We’re also allowing people to do other things right from the table, such as paying for their bill or requesting additional services. This is something
Lead Mobile Developer at LegalShield http://forge42.com What made you decide to work in tech? I’ve always been drawn to programming, ever since I was 13. I remember I used to spend all my time reading as many programming books as I could to build my own games and simulations. This idea of being able to manipulate and create new experiences fascinated me. So I knew I would pursue some sort of engineering education. In high school, one of my teachers, Mr. Tom Guarino, always
Software Engineer Intern at Microsoft What made you decide to work in tech? Growing up, I played video games non-stop with my brothers and it always fascinated me how reality could be recreated virtually. As a kid, I remember telling myself that if I did not make the NBA as a pro athlete I wanted to be a programmer and be around computers and/or video game production. Nonetheless, I unexpectedly ended up in the tech field late in my college career. As I was going into my junior year as
You seem passionate about your job. Oh, yeah. I love Slack. Slack is the greatest place ever! I feel like when I am not at Slack anymore (I don’t see that happening anytime soon) this [will be] my last job in tech. I’m not going to go anywhere else. I don’t think it gets better than here. Why is that the case? The team here is great. People here are really good people. I’ve worked other places where the people I was working with weren’t real people. You know what I
iOS Software Development, Training, and Coaching So, what made you decide to work with technology? Well, I got interested in computer graphics. If it weren’t for computer graphics I probably wouldn’t be doing anything with computers. I’m one of these hybrid design/tech type people, and it all came together with computer graphics. It’s programming, it’s visual, you have to think about a range of things and they all have to come together otherwise you don’t really have a solution. How was your time at Apple? Apple was amazing.
How did you start, or what made you decide to work in tech? I was 7 and my mom got our first computer, and she was showing me the stuff she did at work because she was in combat plans at the Air Force so she used to have to use Basic to do stuff. When we moved to Alaska, the people at my school knew I liked computers and I was in the gifted program, so they said, “Here, we’re going to send you off to this thing down
Co-founder and CEO at Classana. Host at of10podcast What made you decide to work in tech? My dad was really into computers when I was growing up. There were always computer parts spread throughout the basement: motherboards, monitors that no longer worked–all sorts of parts. I specifically remember him sitting in his office, which was next to my room in the basement and separated only by a very thin wall he and my uncle had put up, and he would talk from time to time with people on the phone and
Silly question to start off with, but what exactly is a data journalist and how does that differ from a normal journalist? I think that’s a really good question, as I hate it when people take things for granted. A data journalist is one who uses data as much as they possibly can in their work–which I know sounds really really silly, but it means I can write on any subject whatsoever; the only criterion is that data has to be available.Some of the pieces we write are about how
