Teachers Pay Teachers are hiring on POCIT In 2018, Tez Smith finally mustered up the courage to enter the tech industry by enrolling in a software engineering boot camp. It was a dream that began right after he graduated from college in 2011. After successfully finishing the program, he now works for Teachers Pay Teachers (TpT), the world’s most popular online marketplace for original educational resources. But why did it take so long for him to turn his dream into reality? In this interview, Tez talks about his work at
Flatiron Health is hiring! Changing careers is never easy. When Richard Chounoune left a six-figure income to pursue a career in tech as a software engineer, he initially had a hard time adjusting to his new industry. Today, Richard works at Flatiron Health, a healthtech company, as a recently promoted software engineer. Here he shares his experiences as a young immigrant from Haiti who felt stuck at a dead-end job and mustered the courage to pursue a passion for programming. From Selling Cars to Software Development Richard arrived in the
Tara Reed is a true tech rebel. She’s a Black founder who travels the world working from her laptop, building tech companies and teaching others how they can do the same. Tara runs a multi-million dollar school teaching people how to build apps, without needing to know how to code. Her TED talk went viral, inspiring unlikely entrepreneurs to launch their own businesses. We had the opportunity to speak with Tara about her entrepreneurial journey, Apps Without Code, and her advice to other founders. This interview was edited for clarity Tell us a
As of 2019, according to a report by the Nation Center of Women in Technology and Information Technology, Black women make up 3% of the computing jobs in the United States. While there are many aspects that come in to play, such as having the access and resources to learn or having a psychologically safe work environment to thrive in, a big factor can also be attributed to not having enough resources to feel that they can be successful as a Software Developer. Today we’ve put together a list of
Meet these amazing coders, their tech journey and how they learned to code without breaking the bank! Meet the coders Temi, Software Engineer & Founder Temi is a Software Engineer at a start-up in London and the founder of Simplex Code, an educational tech platform that aims to make technical concepts simple and industry information accessible to those interested in pursuing a career in technology. TEMI: I made the decision last year to fully commit to learning how to code by taking part in the 100 days of code challenge.
This post was initially published by Abstract! It highlights the career achievements and thoughts of Senior Front End Engineer Andrew McCloud. What personal passions bring you to Abstract? Design communities! I’ve been installing/building software for managing communities of designers since I was in high school. Shoutout phpBB, celerondude, Pixel2Life! In 2010, I attempted to create something similar to Abstract called Pixelcloud, inspired by Facebook’s internal design collaboration tool. What’s one childhood lesson that you still carry with you to this day? I can usually avoid the pain of finding out something on my
As a naturally curious and confident person, Linda Kamau is no stranger to trailblazing. There were four paths in her all-girls school, and computer science was usually the path least chosen. But for Linda, computers were a passion, and she happily chose computer science to the surprise of her peers. She also had a natural interest in making things better, a talent encouraged by her older brother with whom she would spend time around the house repairing everything from radios to the roof. At many African universities, it is extremely
Two years ago, I decided to radically change my career from nonprofit STEM education to software engineering. I had no background in coding, outside of a single programming class in 7th grade and a little HTML when I was a teenager. I entered a coding bootcamp, Ada Developers Academy, in January 2018 and had full-time software engineering offers from two of Seattle’s tech giants in December of the same year. Being a nontraditional Black female software engineer, preparing for the interview process began as a terrifying and mysterious endeavor. Through much
This story was originally published on Wogrammer here. Four years ago, Ana decided to leave her role as a business development consultant and become a software engineer. She caught wind of Women in Technology Peru, an organization that teaches women how to code. Although Ana was always interested in math and science, she grew up in an area of Peru that didn’t provide many opportunities to build upon those foundational STEM skills. However, once she immersed herself in an inspiring local community of female coders, it sparked her decision to attend
Originally posted here by Wogrammer Rochelle Valdez is a one-of-a-kind leader, coder, and organizer. Despite obstacle after obstacle, she has been able to find success as a developer at Google. She grew up in the Philippines on the streets of Manila, and at only ten years old, her family moved across the world to a small town in east Texas. Expected to work in the healthcare industry Throughout her life, it was made clear by her community and family that she was expected to work in the healthcare industry. However,
