Product Manager of Venmo What made you decide to work in tech? Well, at the time I decided 4 years ago I wasn’t sure what to do, so I decided to start following a few of my passions. One was Vgames–so in a sense, learn how to code. I also did something called Learn Python the Hard Way, from James Shaw, and from then I realized I wanted to do something in tech. A half year later, an opportunity presented itself at FemRow. A high school friend that I
What made you decide to work in tech? The short answer is that it was a financial opportunity for me. When I first started, I really didn’t understand what a software engineer did or was. I was just happy to be graduating from college with a pretty decent salary offer. But tech/software development was a natural fit for my curious personality. The technical challenges of building software appealed to the problem solver in me. What was an obstacle you faced and how did you overcome that obstacle? As a software
What made you decide to work in tech? My mom was super controlling when it came to going on the internet. She used to set this AOL feature where it limited the time the child account was allowed to use the internet each day. My two other siblings and I had to share one hour of internet per day and it was horrible. My childhood consisted of modding the Sims, customizing my Myspace page, and figuring out how my older brother always bypassed the internet timer and parental controls. I played
What made you decide to work in tech? Coming into college, I didn’t have a clear idea of what I wanted to major in. I knew I wanted something that blended science and art, but I didn’t know what that something was. An advisor suggested CS, but it didn’t seem like anything I wanted to do. That summer I had an internship at Sandia National Labs, and I was exposed to web development. I took to it immediately, but the extent of what I could do was limited by the fact that I
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? Since as far back as I can remember, I’ve always loved gadgets. Technology and problem-solving have always piqued my interest. Back in the 80s, consumer technology wasn’t what it is today as far as being accessible and affordable and so we never had a computer in our household. To compensate, I read A LOT and also played with tech at school and even more so in college. This is where I got to build my first computer and never looked back. What was an
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
Designer & Engineer tonianni.com platformsforwomen.com What made you decide to work in tech? I grew up with knowledge about the digital world through gaming. We got our first console, an Atari, when I was 4 years old. I’ve written more details about my journey here. While I always had the heart for storytelling and design, it was my father who prompted me to study what would end up being an engineering degree. I had no idea there was a specific tech industry, I just followed my passions. What was the biggest
