Senior Frontend Engineer at Eventbrite Why don’t you go ahead and tell me about yourself? I got excited about computers at an early age. Probably early elementary school. My mom had a 286 computer that only ran DOS (pre-Windows). When she’d come home from the store, I would take the receipts and type them up in the word processor. I loved it! I learned basic DOS commands; enough to games like Math Blaster, Word Muncher, and Typing Tutor. I owe so much of my trajectory to those early moments. I went
How did you get involved in technology? When I was thirteen years old I was extremely obsessed with documentary films. I ended up watching a documentary about the history of computers. Everything from the first computers in the 40s/50s, to Microsoft and then the internet as it is today. I was like ‘this is so cool I’d like to learn about all this stuff’. So, I just self-taught myself programming from high school, and my interests were in artificial intelligence and machine learning. So, I come in from a sort
I started programming 10 years ago this fall, and in many ways it’s shaped who I am today. But my future could have been totally different: I almost quit before I even started. My introduction to programming was a large “Intro to engineering” class of 200 undergrads at the University of Michigan. For the longest time, I thought I was the only one in my class who didn’t fully get it. I was so close to concluding that coding just wasn’t right for me. I’m so glad my 19-year-old self
Chief Technology Officer at Jopwell How did you get into technology? My interest in making things started when I was young. My mom’s an art teacher, so my brother and I were always working on different projects around the house. I played with an astounding amount of LEGOs and got super into origami at some point during middle school. It wasn’t until college that I learned about programming as a craft, where you can create stuff that is in itself an intellectually stimulating discipline and could also be a
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
Who are you and what do you do? I’m a web developer by day. I try to understand and get better at all things security. What made you decide to work in tech? My father taught math, mathematics was his thing. Back in 06, me and my sister really got into computers. My dad saw it as a viable option and got us a computer and a C++ book. Fast forward a few years, a friend of mine who was working in a php agency in New York asked me
What made you decide to work in tech? After several years of working as a structural engineer, I started to feel bored and unchallenged by the slow pace of construction projects. A project I might be working on would typically not finish for several years and most of my projects required the same types of calculations over and over. I wanted to work in an industry that was faster paced with more innovative technology and decided that that was the “tech” industry. What was an obstacle you faced and how did you overcome that obstacle?
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
