We Belong Here: Lessons from Unconventional Paths to Tech
Lauren Lee
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A podcast that aims to interview career changers & folks that are diversifying the tech industry. Sharing stories about the different routes people have taken to enter the industry and chatting about the skills they learned in their prior jobs, schooling, or life experiences & how they apply them to their current roles in tech. https://WeBelongPodcast.com/
Available episodes
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Jan 5, 2023
From Web2 to Web3 with Zsófi Major
Zsófi Major has had many roles over the years within the web2 space: project manager, COO, and business developer.
After business hours she volunteered within the Drupal community, bringing together developers from all over the world at conferences she organized.
After burning out from web development projects, unmanageable deadlines, and clients - she quit her job and decided to take a break and apply for roles she really wanted to do full-time - ones where she could be involved in community and event management.
She joined Parity’s DevRel team in March 2022 as a newbie in web3 and I’m happy to report she loves her job, for the first time in her life!
*Resources:*
@ZsófiMajor Twitter
@Polkadot Twitter
Parity blog
Hackathon calendar
Madly Deeply: The Diaries of Alan Rickman
*We Belong Here Podcast:*
Follow on Twitter:
@LoLoCoding
@AaronBassett
@WeBelongPodcast
WeBelongPodcast.com
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*We Belong Here Discord Community*
* Join us on Discord Server today! bit.ly/webelongdiscord
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Dec 29, 2022
Sustainability and Blockchain with Alexandra Heller
Alexandra Heller is the Founder of Crypto Philanthropy Club, a club for crypto people who care and give, and is the Marketing Director at Bitgreen, the sustainability blockchain.
Her life’s quest is to help the helpers and spread the ideas the world needs. She previously was the Head of Marketing at Parity Technologies as well as the Marketing Director at Floracopeia.
*Resources: *
* CryptoPhilanthropy.club & podcast
* Bitgreen.org
* Alexandraheller.com
* @alxheller on Twitter
* ReFi DAO - podcast & Twitter
* Giveth
* NFTrees
* endel.io
* I Will Teach You to Be Rich book
* Living a Committed Life book
* Lynne Twist The Soul of Money
*We Belong Here Podcast:*
Follow on Twitter:
@LoLoCoding
@AaronBassett
@WeBelongPodcast
WeBelongPodcast.com
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*We Belong Here Discord Community*
* Join us on Discord Server today! bit.ly/webelongdiscord
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Oct 24, 2022
Introducing, We Belong... in Web3!
We Belong is back!
We're (Lauren and Aaron ) talking about what we've been up to since the last episode - including new jobs in Web3 AND an incredibly adorable new member of our family.
This episode kicks off a new season of We Belong and it's all about Web3. Today they're discussing our own initial hesitations and skepticism around Web3, why we made the ultimate choice to join a Web3 company, and what we hope to achieve this season.
Join us this season as we celebrate the stories of those diversifying the Web3 space✨
*We Belong Here Podcast:*
Follow on Twitter:
@LoLoCoding
@AaronBassett
@WeBelongPodcast
WeBelongPodcast.com
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*We Belong Here Discord Community*
* Join us on Discord Server today! bit.ly/webelongdiscord
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Feb 22, 2022
A Bootcamper's Companion by Caitlyn Greffly
Caitlyn joins Lauren to talk about her new book, The Bootcamper’s Companion.
If you're trying to break into tech, you probably already know it's a huge and complicated world. Maybe you're thinking about a career change, currently enrolled in a bootcamp, on a self-taught journey, or trying to figure out what will set you apart to land your first job.
Caitlyn wrote this book to give you the tools and information she wishes she had when she was career changing into tech. In it, you'll find the best resources, simplified explanations of technologies and job titles, and specific advice to help you stand out and find a job.
Unlock the tech industry today!
*Resources: *
Caitlyn’s first episode on We Belong Here
The Bootcamper’s Companion : use “BELONG” for a 20% discount at checkout!
*We Belong Here Podcast:*
Follow Lauren on Twitter @LoLoCoding
WeBelongPodcast.com
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*We Belong Here Discord Community*
* Join us on Discord Server today! bit.ly/webelongdiscord
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Jan 17, 2022
Caroline Kerns: How Dabbling in Careers Led to Community and #DevRel
Caroline is originally from Germany and has tried many different careers on for size. She has had roles ranging from recruiting, automotive, and retail and her interest in programming began a few years ago with a desire to create a Jane Austen quote website (because who doesn’t want to read daily Jane Austen quotes?).
Since then, she’s dabbled in JavaScript and Python and today is the Community Manager at Vonage.
In today’s episode, we chat all about the power of community, especially within the Developer Relations space. Reflecting on her time as a recruiter, Caroline shares tips on how to write the best possible resume and get it in front of a hiring manager. We talk about how the pandemic impacted online communities and led to developers streaming on Twitch and she also gives advice on how to find tech communities that are inclusive and the right fit for you!
*Resources*:
Follow Caroline on Twitter @grumpysnek: https://twitter.com/grumpysnek
Caroline’s LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/captcalli/
Software and Game Development Twitch Category: https://twitch.tv/directory/game/Software%20and%20Game%20Development
The Live Coders Twitch: https://twitch.tv/team/livecoders
Instafluff Twitch: https://twitch.tv/instafluff
BaldBeardedBuilder Twitch: https://twitch.tv/baldbeardedbuilder
*We Belong Here Podcast:*
Follow Lauren on Twitter @LoLoCoding
WeBelongPodcast.com
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*We Belong Here Discord Community*
* Join us on Discord Server today! bit.ly/webelongdiscord
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Dec 14, 2021
Shamira Marshall: From Attorney to Software Developer
Shamira Marshall is an attorney who learned to code in 2019 and today is a software engineer at GoDaddy. Her interest in tech started in law school and then attended Ada Developers Academy to make the career switch. Which is where she and I met!
*Resources*:
Ada Developers Academy
Shamira on Dev.to/MiraMarshall
Shamira on Twitter @MiraMarshalll
*We Belong Here Podcast:*
Follow Lauren on Twitter @LoLoCoding
WeBelongPodcast.com
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*We Belong Here Discord Community*
* Join us on Discord Server today! bit.ly/webelongdiscord
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Nov 30, 2021
PJ Metz: From Teacher to Coder
My guest today is a former educator who now works as an Education Evangelist at GitLab. After teaching English for 11 years in Florida and South Korea, he made the transition into tech in May of 2021 after teaching himself to code with Codecademy during the pandemic.
He’s a passionate public speaker and has spoken at a Microsoft conference as well as hosted several meetups and other events representing GitLab. You can catch him on Twitch building a website about poetry or building his next pop-star-based Twitter bot.
*Resources: *
* Follow PJ on Twitter: @MetzinAround
* Codecademy
* Gitlab
*We Belong Here Podcast:*
Follow Lauren on Twitter @LoLoCoding
WeBelongPodcast.com
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*We Belong Here Discord Community*
* Join us on Discord Server today! bit.ly/webelongdiscord
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Nov 2, 2021
Tonya Sims: From WNBA to Python and DevRel
Tonya Sims is a self-taught developer and is the Python Developer Advocate at Vonage. She has an eclectic background ranging from roles in business, pharmaceutical sales, and even is a former professional women’s basketball player!
Tonya is humble and down to earth and has a ton of empathy. All of her life experiences allow her to see the world from many different perspectives.
She started her career in tech working as an executive assistant for a leading financial investments company in their IT department. Shortly thereafter, she transitioned into a computer operator role and started learning how to code. Eventually, she worked her way up from an entry-level position to earn roles as a software engineer in test and software developer contracting with some of the top financial services companies in Chicago.
Tonya is passionate about helping other budding engineers and loves to see people succeed!
*Resources:*
* Tonya on Twitter: @TonyaSims
* Python Discord
* Women in Tech Slack
* To Sell is Human by Daniel Pink
*We Belong Here Podcast:*
Follow Lauren on Twitter @LoLoCoding
webelongpodcast.com
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*We Belong Here Discord Community*
* Join us on Discord Server today! bit.ly/webelongdiscord
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Aug 30, 2021
Allen Whearry: Don't sell yourself short, you can code
Allen is a self-taught iOS Developer who made the switch from a professional sales career and now sits as a software engineer at Yelp. He believes anyone can learn to program, they just have to put in the time and effort.
He studied psychology in school and figured he would end up going to grad school for it as well but ended up finding joy in the world of sales. While in sales, he learned so many lessons: the art of receiving negative feedback, the art of storytelling, as well how to both clearly and concisely communicate with people in his day-to-day life.
He had always had an interest in coding but wasn’t interested in studying Computer Science in school so thought that would never be a possible career path for him. But the curiosity never left him so eventually he began teaching himself Ruby and Python! But he wasn’t successful in finding a full-time role and so he pivoted to learning iOS and building apps he actually wanted to use in his life.
Today he is a Software Engineer at Yelp and continues to use the lessons he learned in sales. He also is the organizer of @iOSDevHappyHour - a place where current and aspiring iOS devs can come together and enjoy a good time!
*Resources: *
Allen on Twitter: @codeine_coding
@iOSDevHappyHour
Extreme Ownership book recommendation
codeinecoding.com
*We Belong Here Podcast:*
Follow Lauren on Twitter @LoLoCoding
webelongpodcast.com
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*We Belong Here Discord Community*
* Join us on Discord Server today! bit.ly/webelongdiscord
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Aug 24, 2021
Alex Merced: Learn, Build, Blog, Teach, Repeat!
Alex Merced taught himself to code just a few years ago. Before that, he spent a decade training people in finance and has also moonlighted as a political candidate, concert promoter, and comic book store owner.
Today, he’s a developer for CampusGaurd and Instructor for General Assembly Coding Bootcamps. He is also the creator of devNursery.com - a developer community and is the creator of many Javascript libraries.
*Resources: *
AlexMercedCoder.com
devNursery.com
Podcast: Web Dev 101
Book Recommended: Nassim Taleb - Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder
*We Belong Here Podcast:*
Follow Lauren on Twitter @LoLoCoding
webelongpodcast.com
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*We Belong Here Discord Community*
* Join us on Discord Server today! bit.ly/webelongdiscord
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Aug 16, 2021
Wesley Faulkner: The Path to Developer Relations
Wesley Faulkner is a first-generation American. He is a founding member of the government transparency group Open Austin and ran for Austin City Council in 2016. His professional experience also includes work as a social media and community manager for the software company Atlassian, and various roles for the computer processor company AMD, Dell, IBM, and Daily. Wesley serves as a board member for South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) and today is the Head of Community at SingleStore.
*Resources: *
Wesley on Twitter: @wesley83
FreeCodeCamp
Wesleyfaulkner.com
Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion
*We Belong Here Podcast:*
Follow Lauren on Twitter @LoLoCoding
webelongpodcast.com
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*We Belong Here Discord Community*
* Join us on Discord Server today! bit.ly/webelongdiscord
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Aug 10, 2021
Sierra OBryan: From Lasers to Androids
Sierra is a Senior Consultant at Atomic Robot in Cincinnati, OH, focused primarily on Native Android solutions. She loves building beautiful and accessible Android apps, sharing knowledge with the community, and mentoring aspiring mobile developers. She serves as a Director of Women Who Code Cincinnati and a global track lead for Women Who Code Mobile.
Before becoming an Android developer, she was in graduate school in a Ph.D. program to become a laser physicist. She had actually always wanted to go to beauty school but after high school, because she had scholarships and was good at math and sciences, she ended up in the math and physics department in college. As she says, the passion for the subject wasn’t necessarily there but she ended up finishing her degree! But eventually, that lack of interest caught up with her and she recognized the need for something different.
JP Morgan was looking to diversify their tech pipeline and so she took a leap of faith to enroll in their progra…
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Aug 3, 2021
Domitrius Clark: Always Putting the Customer First
Domitrius is a Developer Experience Engineer at Cloudinary. From retail to engineering, his focus has always been on making sure the customer's experience is the top priority. He’s the founder of Reactadelphia, a Philly meetup for React & JavaScript developers, and is an avid community builder & consultant.
He spent many years of his life working and managing retail stores. But upon learning that the path to success in that industry was very narrow, he knew he needed to find a different path. He had always had an interest in tech and coding bootcamps were just beginning to emerge at the time and thus he started exploring that as an option.
He attended a bootcamp in Philadelphia but struggled because of the lack of support and poor curriculum decisions the school made. The program has since shut down, but it was a really hard time for Domitrius. Ever resilient and determined to succeed, he decided to teach himself JavaScript and go on the job hunt on his own.
Domitrius is a communi…
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Jul 25, 2021
Chris Ferdinandi: How to Hack your Job Hunt
Chris Ferdinandi helps people learn vanilla JavaScript. He believes there’s a simpler, more resilient way to make things for the web. His developer tips newsletter is read by thousands of developers each weekday which you can check out at GoMakeThings.com.
In college, Chris had a lot of curiosities and even 4-5 majors before landing in Anthropology. He loved studying the content, but the work wasn’t exactly interesting to him. His dad suggested he explore the world of HR (Human Resources) and he did, for quite a while in fact.
Interested in helping people solve problems within the world of HR, he started a blog and began teaching himself WordPress, HTML, and CSS. As he was learning but still working at his 9-5 job, he and his HR manager had the idea to create a scavenger hunt app to help new hires learn more about the company. The problem was that it was WAY too expensive to outsource and have someone else build. So Chris was given the opportunity to build it himself! And while c…
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Jul 20, 2021
Mindy Zwanziger: From Teacher to Coder
Mindy is a math teacher turned software engineer with the goal of supporting folks entering the tech field. She had wanted to be a teacher ever since she was a little girl but after teaching middle and high school for a few years, she decided it wasn't quite the right fit.
She started searching for roles where she could use her math degree and found work as a temp at a civil engineering company. She was always looking for a new challenge and began to explore helping them automate their processes. That exploration led her to have a conversation with friends about potentially looking into learning to code.
So she attended an online coding school called Launch School and was fortunate to participate in one of the first cohorts of Collab Lab - a project-based collaborative experience for new developers. We talk all about her journey of applying to jobs and finding the right company and fit.
And she tells the story of landing her dream role as a Software Engineer at New Relic!
*Resource…
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Jul 15, 2021
Yechiel Kalmenson: Torah && Tech
Yechiel Kalmenson is a rabbi and teacher who pivoted to engineering three years ago. After serving as a rabbi and elementary teacher for a few years, Yechiel faced a crossroads and needed to pivot careers. He started working in technical support, took courses online, and ultimately enrolled in a boot camp to learn to code. And today, he is a software engineer at VMware!
He still loves teaching and does that as much as he can through mentoring and using his blog and weekly newsletter, Torah && Tech.
*Resources: *
Rabbi on Rails
Torah && Tech
Yechiel’s LinkedIn
Yechiel on Twitter: @yechielk
Yechiel on GitHub: @achasveachas
*We Belong Here Podcast:*
Follow Lauren on Twitter @LoLoCoding
WeBelongPodcast.com
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*We Belong Here Discord Community*
* Join us on Discord Server today! bit.ly/webelongdiscord
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Jul 9, 2021
Cecelia Martinez: Know your Story and Share your Passion
Before learning to code, Cecelia worked in journalism and financial services. She always had a hobby of making WordPress websites for friends but never thought of pursuing tech professionally. But after moving to Atlanta, meeting a few bootcamp grads, and discovering that coding is such a creative form of expression, she knew it was the path for her!
She is a graduate of the Full-Stack Software Engineering Program at Georgia Tech and today is a Technical Account Manager at Cypress.io where she spends her days talking to users about testing strategies, helping them overcome technical challenges, and providing education and training.
*Resources*:
Women Who Code Front End
Out in Tech Atlanta
Cecelia’s website
Cecelia’s personal GitHub
Cecelia’s professional GitHub
Blogpost on Networking
*We Belong Here Podcast:*
Follow Lauren on Twitter @LoLoCoding
WeBelongPodcast.com
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Jun 29, 2021
Ceora Ford: Learn in Public and Share your Journey
Ceora is a software developer based in Philadelphia. She worked in childcare and with children but was always interested in tech. Coding was always in the back of her mind. She starting freelancing as a digital marketer and was finding success, but then the pandemic hit, and lost all of her clients. At that moment in time, Ceora had an opportunity to reset her career progression and decided to go all-in on learning to code.
In a moment of transparency, she decided to share her learning with her community and create tutorials and blogs with others learning to code as well. Egghead.io saw her initial blog post and asked her to become a learner advocate for them. She took their courses, attended workshops, documented her learning, and published those notes to GitHub, all while getting exposed and building relationships with experienced developers in the industry!
She worked as a teacher with Kode with Klossy, as a writer for Digital Ocean, and as a Developer Marketing Coordinator at Cod…
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Jun 23, 2021
Kenneth Cassel: A QuikTrip Journey to Code
Kenneth is played the saxophone in school and always wanted to be a high school band director. But soon he discovered that while he was passionate about music, it wasn’t exactly the career for him. In college, Kenneth worked at a QuikTrip gas station part-time. When offered a promotion to be a night assistant manager, he realized that he would be making more money in that role than what he was studying in school. The competition in music was high and the pay was low, so he did not pursue it any further.
At QuikTrip, he learned the trade of handy maintenance and learned how to fix nearly anything! One day while browsing Reddit, he discovered a smart kegerator and wanted to see if he could build it himself! He began teaching himself Python, started creating web apps, and was thrilled by the new skills he was learning.
He worked out a schedule with QuikTrip and decided to go back to school to learn to program! There he joined a programming club, met some incredible individuals, partic…
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Jun 8, 2021
Claudia Maciel: Conquering Clouds from Aviation and iOS Development
Claudia Maciel grew up in a small farming community in California and had dreams of exploring the world. She went to college full of enthusiasm and curiosity - eager to discover what she was most passionate and interested in. In her first year, she enrolled in an intro to computer programming course but was the only girl and the only Mexican in the entire class. Her professors were encouraging though and she loved the class. In fact, she was so great at it she decided to major in Computer Science!
But when she graduated from college and started going out onto interviews, she suddenly was back to that same place of feeling alone and as though she didn’t belong in the industry. She just didn’t feel as though she belonged. So instead, she decided to help others and to teach students about computer science and aviation.
Oh yeah, in college she also discovered a passion and aptitude for aviation and flying!
So that is what she went on to do for a long time - she was teaching at an af…
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Jun 1, 2021
Dan Morse: It’s Never Too Late to Learn to Code
Dan worked as a freelance sign language interpreter for nearly two decades. He has always had an affinity for visual learning and languages in particular. And in high school, he remembers observing that sign language itself was a visual language.
Once in college, he finally took a sign language class and discovered how incredible it is to express something in three dimensions. He soon began his freelancing business and quickly turned that into a full-time thing!
In 2008, he bought his first Apple computer and began building small Python scripts to automate some of his freelancing processes. That sort of tinkering piqued his interest and he began to start playing with other learning platforms as he and his kids began learning coding concepts together. Eventually, he enrolled in the Lambda School on the iOS track and has since joined Nordstrom as a mobile application engineer!
Today we tackle what it’s like to join tech as someone older than the industry average and Dan gives the ad…
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May 22, 2021
Jess Bonanno: Rooting for the UnderDog
Jess Bonanno grew up in Brooklyn and moved to NJ during high school. She has always been obsessed with tech and planned to study it after high school but began getting herself into trouble.
She thought she had missed her chance to make tech a career and in 2004 became a house painter - of which she has been mastering that trade for the past 16 years.
In 2019 she decided to teach herself to code in hopes of a career switch. She started at Lambda School and earlier this year!
In September of 2020, she was invited into UnderDog Devs, a group dedicated to supporting formerly incarcerated & disadvantaged aspiring developers, and has become an active part of the community.
Since graduating from Lambda School in February, Jess started Hack Reactor and graduates on June 4th! She will then begin working with one of the partnering companies. All very happy and exciting things ✨
*Resources: *
Jess on Twitter: @JessDoesCode
@UnderDog Devs
UnderDog Devs Slack
Donate to Underdog Devs
*We Bel…
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Apr 27, 2021
Filip Hric: The Value of Learning in Public
Filip Hric always loved playing with and tinkering with tech. But growing up, he struggled with math and thus convinced himself that he didn’t belong in the world of tech. So instead, he decided to study Psychology and ended up even getting a Master’s in it!
After school, while working at an NGO, he helped build an application that allowed people struggling with mental health to chat with volunteer psychologists and social workers. He worked on the campaign graphics and changed the layout on the page. Slowly, he began to learn some CSS and HTML so that he could make even bigger changes to the app. These experiences led to him discovering that his heart desired to be in tech.
He spent his evenings teaching himself basic HTML and Javascript and that learning fueled a fire of curiosity and passion for him. His father’s tech company was searching for a tester so he decided to take the leap into the world of tech.
Today, he advocates that testing is a great way to enter into tech,…
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Apr 13, 2021
Tali Herzka: From Molecular Biology to Software Engineering
On today’s episode, I chat with Tali Herzka. Who has forever been interested in Science, genetics, and Molecular Biology. Molecular pathways and systems seemed to connect with the way she understood the world.
After getting a bachelor’s degree in Molecular Biology and working in a cancer research laboratory for several years, she moved cross country to pursue a drastic career change and learn to code. It was a massive leap of faith diverging from her prescribed future in science and felt wildly exciting and terrifying all at once. She moved into a “Hacker House” which was just a warehouse in San Francisco and was thrust into a whole new world of tech.
Since graduating from her bootcamp, Tali has been a full-time software developer/data engineer for 7 years now. She currently is a software engineer at Scribd but when not coding, she's crafting or taking pictures of her bird for the 'gram.
In today’s episode, Tali gives the advice of combining your prior interests and experi…
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Mar 17, 2021
Kilo Loco: Self Taught Sr. Developer Advocate at AWS
On today’s episode, I chat with Kilo Loco, aka Kyle Lee. Who is a self-taught developer, programming tutorial YouTuber, and Senior Developer Advocate at AWS.
Kilo officially entered tech in 2016. Prior to that, he worked in many different industries: in restaurants, real estate, car sales, telemarketing, and more. But he never found a true passion in any of those roles. Eventually, he came across programming and absolutely fell in love!
He navigated through different tech languages including HTML, CSS, Javascript, Objective-C, and Swift. To learn the language, he played around with building apps that he and his family wanted and/or needed. For example, he created an accessibility app for his great grandfather who was hard of hearing to better communicate with him. Although they were simple apps, he felt ready to start applying for full-time development roles.
He started a YouTube channel to share his learning with his community and today is a Sr. Developer Advocate at AWS.…
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Mar 11, 2021
42. Lucy Suddenly: There's Room at the Table for Everyone
Lucy Suddenly is a white, able-bodied trans woman from the greater Seattle area. She got a BA in psychology and spent a decade in box office management before realizing that programming was her destiny. She switched careers after attending Flatiron School and now works as a Builds and Deployment Engineer at Outreach.io in Seattle.
We chat about the box office industry, how small it is, and the lack of roles it has as a result. She had dabbled with code quite a bit as a kid and returned to it after a major life event and was searching for a new career path. She attended Flatiron School as a part of Seattle’s first in-person cohort and even went on to teach there afterward.
Today at Outreach.io, Lucy is building CI-CD services and accompanying tooling to abstract away the complexity of deployments for her new favorite customers: product engineers. Her free time is spent playing video games, bringing a chaotic evil DnD character to life, baby talking to her cat, and cramming as many n…
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Mar 4, 2021
41. Alex Trost: Horsing Around with this Frontend Dev🐴
Alex Trost grew up having, as he puts it, a fixed mindset. He studied graphic design and education in school and actually taught himself to program by making an app for his school when he was a teacher. In 2018, he realized he wanted to do development full time and has been a frontend dev ever since.
Growing up, he was always passionate about tech and loved to tinker and build. So much so that he had a pet project called FreeBasketballSkills.com where he modified the HTML and CSS of the site to share basketball skills with his friends. Despite that, he never thought he could actually program because he equated that with calculus and complex math abilities.
He thought he wasn’t smart enough to succeed in school, so wondered why even bother trying. He ended up going to community college to study graphic design. But eventually found himself in a career in teaching 2nd grade as he loved the moment of helping kids unlock new skills.
Soon he learned about the Growth Mindset Concept and…
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Feb 23, 2021
40. Dacey Nolan: The Power of Community While Searching For Your First Coding Role
In today’s episode, Dacey tells the story of studying Public Relations in school and pursuing many different avenues and industries to find a job she loved. She tried many different things from content management, social media, marketing, special education, and Non-Profit work.
One day, during a series of dates where she and her boyfriend (now husband) taught one another new things, he tried to teach her HTML and CSS. But the lesson wasn't a success because she didn't think she'd be good at it and zoned him out.
But eventually, she decided to build an app with him and they collaboratively built things that they were both interested in. He helped guide her self-learning and exposed her to core concepts and tools such as GitHub and pull requests.
When she felt ready, she left her full-time job in March 2019 to search for a job. She gave herself a year to learn the skills and wanted to be ready to apply to jobs by March 2020... which was a pretty rough time in the world to be applyin…
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Feb 16, 2021
39. Frank Foster: Persistence Pays Off After 100+ Interviews for this iOS Software Developer
Frank got his start in tech working at Apple’s Genius Bar doing all sorts of IT things. He loved Apple products and when a store was opening up near him, he jumped at the opportunity to work there.
Realizing that a lot of IT work was within the PC world, he jumped from Apple to PC to see what it was all about. But ultimately he craved something that would be more fulfilling and creative.
As a gamer himself, he became curious about how to create video games. Virtual Reality was super hot and he dabbled with VR and trying to build experiences despite there not being a ton of tutorials or docs out there on how to.
He's a firm believer that you can teach yourself to do anything and in 2018, he joined as a mentor for Inspire Idaho, a program created for adults who weren’t able or interested in following traditional education paths to become app developers. He became a volunteer and mentor for the program and helped people on their journey of learning iOS development. As he helped folks…
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Feb 1, 2021
38. JT Kaufman: Tips & Tricks on Breaking into Tech from a Former Recruiter
JT Kaufman dabbled in a whole lot of things before learning to code. She worked as a nanny, at a restaurant, as a janitor, and a load of different office work. At some point, she found her way into recruiting and eventually specialized within tech recruiting, which allowed her to learn about all of the different areas of tech.
After realizing that she was burned out from recruiting, lost, and unhappy in general, JT took a massive leap of faith and moved across the country to attend a coding bootcamp. She is super creative and she discovered that learning to code would be a super creative form of expression. Code ignited passion for her from day one.
We talk about how to differentiate yourself from fellow bootcampers and how to get your foot in the door as a developer. As a prior recruiter, she learned tips and tricks on how to smartly apply for jobs. She knew not to just apply for every role out there but instead use the boolean technique. She landed a role and took those recruiting…
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Jan 25, 2021
37. Cher: The Power of Resilience
My guest today is a self-taught engineer currently working as a Principal Software Engineer at Apple. With 20 years of experience in web development, she attributes her skills and success to being “passionately curious”. She has a deep affinity for gaming and is a published video game journalist.
Her journey started when she was in middle school when her mom worked as an office administrator and brought home computer parts. Cher quickly became fascinated in taking things apart and putting them back together again.
She faced abuse and addiction early on in life and eventually dropped out of high school. She soon started doing sex work and stripping. It felt as though no matter where she went, that was her story. At that point, it felt entirely impossible that she was ever going to become a scientist or an architect and decided that if she was going to be used for sex anyway, she might as well be paid for it and do porn. She managed to escape that situation but as a result, she tri…
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Jan 19, 2021
36. Jerome Hardaway: Founder of Vets Who Code
Jerome Hardaway is a writer at Stack Overflow, an Instructor for Front End Masters, a Developer Advocate at QuickenLoans, and the founder and Executive Director of Vets Who Code.
As a writer and instructor, he focuses on those learning how to code and who are looking to get their first job as a Web Developer. As a Developer Advocate, he focuses on externally championing the company's tools while internally focusing on improving the culture. As an Executive Director of #VetsWhoCode, he focuses on training and gathering the resources so that veterans can become employed javascript developers, with a focus on Javascript and APIs.
After an injury, Jerome medically retired from the military. Throughout his time in the service, he was told that his skills would be highly valued. But the government happened to be on a hiring freeze when he got out and thus those skills felt worthless. The transition process felt broken and not designed to support him afterward.
He was determined to figure…
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Jan 12, 2021
35. Caitlyn Greffly: Brewing Up a Career Change
On today’s episode, Lauren chats with Caitlyn Greffly, who made a bold career move in 2019 from selling beer to being a software engineer. She loves the work and is passionate about writing about it, talking about it, and encouraging others to make their own bold career changes.
Caitlyn studied Psychology in college, but after graduating, she found a job working at a beer bar, which led her to spend 7 years within the beer industry doing mostly sales. She became pretty fascinated by beer itself but wasn’t passionate about selling it.
She jokes that ‘All of her big decisions in life were accidents’ - but in a good way! She became curious about data analytics and began to explore new opportunities and coding bootcamps. She is a person who takes big leaps and decided to go all-in on learning to code and the rest is history.
She landed her first role out of her bootcamp pretty quickly and now is a software engineer at Zapproved. She quickly discovered how important it is to find…
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Jan 4, 2021
34. Jonan Scheffler: On the Value of Authentic Relationships in Tech
Today Lauren chats with Jonan Scheffler, who had over 40 jobs before entering the tech industry. He loved tech growing up but wasn't wildly intrigued or inspired by his CS classes and thus wasn’t interested in pursuing it as a career. He dabbled in various roles such as factory work, car sales, but eventually became a poker dealer on the Oregon coast.
When he began searching for roles in tech, he googled who was being paid the most and decided he wanted to become a Ruby developer. He then took the massive leap of faith, moved his family across the country, and attended a coding program called Hungry Academy. He fell in love with Ruby as a language then and has stayed passionate about the community to this day.
Jonan had faced some burn out in the realm of DevRel but has since returned and today is the Director of Developer Relations at New Relic. Lauren and Jonan chat about the world of Developer Relations and the disingenuine sales-pitches that can sometimes occur when someone doe…
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Dec 29, 2020
33. Reyhaneh Blackman: From Finance to Founder
Today Lauren chats with Reyhaneh Blackman, who emigrated from Iran to the US when she was 12 years old. She didn’t know English and had to teach herself the language and culture at an incredibly formative time in her life. She studied English in college and her first career was in journalism. After that, she went on to get a Master's in international finance and economics and became an investment banker. And today, she’s gone on to found a tech company, Media Scout, a video analytics platform, and has since taught herself to code!
She attributes the ability to be flexible, code switch, and wear many hats to learning to adapt to new situations and environments as a kid.
We talk about her journey and Reyhaneh shares how all of the lessons she learned along the way have helped to get her where she is today.
*Resources*:
Find Reyhaneh online @rey_blackman
ProductPair.co
*We Belong Here Podcast: *
Follow Lauren on Twitter @LoLoCoding
WeBelongPodcast.com website
Subscribe on App…
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Dec 14, 2020
32. PeterJohn Hunt: How to Convince Employers to Take the “Risk” on You
On today’s episode of We Belong Here, Lauren interviews PeterJohn Hunt. Who tells the story of how he went from convincing his first job to take a risk on someone who had literally zero formal education to becoming the Chief Technology Officer at Useful Group in Chicago.
*About PeterJohn Hunt: *
PeterJohn Lives in the suburbs of Chicago with his wife and children. He’s a self-proclaimed web developer and problem solver. He likes to bring the nitty-gritty of the technical world to people in an intuitive, analytical, and efficient way. Using his IT, networking, and programming background, he builds beautiful websites for people and businesses – from startups and local restaurants to large corporations and Fortune 500 companies. He believes every problem has a solution and loves the thrill of learning or building something new!
PeterJohn Hunt is 1 of 9 children and was homeschooled throughout his educational career. He was interested in tech but didn’t have access to the tradit…
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Nov 22, 2020
31. Gant Laborde: Making it All Add Up - My Journey to Chief Innovation Officer
In this episode of We Belong Here, Lauren interviews Gant Laborde. They talk about how Gant was, in fact, “really bad” at computers when he was a kid. His light bulb moment was when his neighbor showed him how to make his computer *talk back* to him and say, “Hey Gant,” instead of “Hello World.” Books and learning resources were not available to him. So instead, he had to learn by breaking things. Gant had many limitations working against him: he always had the oldest computer and was pretty bad at math. But he refused to give up on his goals and dreams.
Eventually, he did enroll in a Computer Science program but found it damaging in that it was painfully uninteresting or inspiring. However, he stuck with it and discovered the value in pursuing roles that challenged him to think beyond the basic execution of a problem and actively welcomed his unique perspective to the job.
Lauren and Gant chat about burnout and how the industry can sometimes beat the passion out of you i…
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Sep 27, 2020
30. Kelly Mahoney: How Hackathons Can Unlock a Path to Tech
Kelly Mahoney is both a Digital Artist and Product Manager who got into design through hackathons - of which, she’s attended over 60 so far!
She has her Bachelor of Arts Degree in Religious Studies, in which she focused on cultural appropriation and East Asian religions. And she’s currently a graduate student at Florida International University pursuing an MBA in International Business.
In today’s conversation, Kelly and I dive into her background in nursing and how it has helped her in her role in Product today. We discuss gatekeepers, the power of community, and Kelly shares advice on taking risks and pursuing your dreams.
She’s the creator of SoSplush, a kawaii-themed tech brand, that sells stickers and other swag. She believes that tech is for everyone and that it can be cute and pink. She’s currently accepting commissions and is available for design consulting work. Be sure to check out her Etsy shop today!
*Resources:*
SoSpulsh Etsy Store
Follow Kelly on Twitter @…
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Sep 4, 2020
29. Jayson J. Phillips, Degree of Self Learning, “University of Barnes and Noble”
Today’s guest on We Belong Here, Jayson J. Phillips, got his start in tech only after he dropped majoring in Computer Science and Math. In school, Jayson found the coursework boring, uninteresting, and truly hated Cal 3! But when he was working at Scratch DJ Academy, he began managing their website only to discover that the real-world applications of tech can in fact be super creative and compelling.
He went on to do agency work and continued to learn on the job. He candidly likes to say that he went to the “University of Barnes and Noble” in that he would always dedicate some of his paychecks to new books on the technical topics he was most curious about learning.
Today, he is the Director of Engineering for Bootcamp Academic Platforms at 2U Inc. Our conversation today explores the importance of teaching, giving back, and encouraging others as they embark on their journey of learning to code.
We acknowledge how many coding boot camps there are out there. And so Jayson's advic…
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Jun 28, 2020
28. Tim Benniks: From Music & Nursing to Director of Web Development
Today Lauren chats with Tim Benniks, who is the Director of Web Development at a global digital agency, Valtech.
Growing up, Tim’s passion was music. And he pursued it until deciding to train to become a nurse. Tim is personable and empathetic and felt that nursing was the right fit but eventually dropped out of his nursing program when the healthcare system in The Netherlands dramatically changed. He discovered then that he wanted to be able to do creative things and began tinkering and building websites on the side. Eventually, he decided to join an ad agency, which led him to Paris, where he worked with L’Oreal and helped guide their e-commerce and online brand presence.
In today’s episode, Tim shares his philosophy on the importance of having patience in the workplace and encourages listeners to know what motivates them before seeking their next promotion.
*Resources*:
Join us LIVE on Twitch for the next #WeBelongHere interview twitch.tv/LoLoCoding
Valtech’s Tech Girl…
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May 16, 2020
27. Bryan Robinson: From Philosophy to Designer, Developer & Teacher
Today, Bryan shares with Lauren his journey from studying philosophy and working in journalism to becoming a designer, developer, educator, and community advocate.
In college, he fell in love with philosophy, deep thinking, aesthetics, and the nature of beauty and art. He’s passionate about discourse and dialogue and contemplates their intersectionality within tech today.
After college, Bryan worked for a local newspaper as a copy editor. He was deeply ahead of his time with visions of taking the news and engaging with readers online.
He began to teach himself some basic CSS, HTML, and Javascript while working with the Newspaper’s online content. He soon became proficient as a developer and went on to run and manage the development team at a web agency in Memphis, TN.
Today, Bryan runs his startup, Code Contemporary, where he advocates for the technologies he’s most passionate about. He loves education and learning and loves to help people who are new to tech and are curious…
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May 9, 2020
26. Sia Karamalegos: From Semiconductor Process Engineer to Tech Founder and CEO
On today’s episode of #WeBelongHere Lauren interviews Sia Karamalegos. Sia went from studying chemical engineering to being a semiconductor process engineer. She then went on to get her MBA at Harvard and worked in corporate strategy/consulting. She shares how quickly she burnt out from that role and wanted to get involved in public education reform in New Orleans. And only then, after tinkering and learning on the side, Sia won a Start-Up Weekend competition and a discounted coding boot camp tuition as a prize. That was when she decided to take her side hobby seriously and learn to code!
Sia worked as a software engineer, taught at and created curriculum for a coding boot camp, and ultimately recognized the inner #girlboss hustler that she is and went on to become the founder and CEO of Clio + Calliope.
Sia shares lots of advice throughout the episode for those curious to take the leap and learn to code. Be sure to tweet at @LoLoCoding to join the conversation and enter a chance t…
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Apr 25, 2020
25. Angela and Dana Chou: How Learning to Code Made Me a Better Product Manager
On this episode of #WeBelongHere, Lauren interviews sisters Dana and Angela Chou. They host a podcast called, Work in Progress.
They believe that our careers should grow and change as we do: whether it is to find a career that suits us or a field that aligns with our philosophy, or simply to provide more for the family. They want to encourage those seeking change and those feeling stuck to make the transitions they want for themselves.
Angela spent about 10 years working in biotech companies but in Operations roles. She got an MBA to transition to Product Management but shortly after being in Product decided to learn to code in order to transition to Tech!
Today we discuss Angela’s career trajectory from Operations to Product as well as her coding journey along the way. As a Product Manager, she was asking her engineering team to build things and suddenly realized that she didn’t understand how the code work, which was when she decided to learn to code. She understood how import…
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Mar 28, 2020
24. Alexandra Leisse: From Singing Opera to All Things Product
Alexandra Leisse and Lauren today discuss her journey from pursuing music professionally to becoming VP of Product at VIBBIO. Alexandra has her master’s degree in opera and stage performance from the University for Dance and Music in Cologne, Germany. After finishing school, she worked as a soprano at theatres and concert halls all over Germany while also starting up her own little web development agency.
Since then, she’s moved to Norway and has gone on to find roles in user experience design and has spent over a decade in product related roles. Today, she’s the VP of Product at VIBBIO where she rebuilt the engineering team from the ground up, redesigned the application UI, and took full ownership of VIBBIO’s product strategy, in addition to her contributions to building the company itself.
She’s the founder of Rails Girls Oslo and self-identifies as a ‘web rebel’.
Today Lauren and Alexandra discuss the highlights of Alexandra’s musical career. She goes back in time…
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Feb 17, 2020
23. Paula Muldoon: A Professional Violinist's Journey to Learn to Code
Paula Muldoon is a multi-talented violinist, software engineer, and composer based in Cambridge, UK. Currently, she is the concertmaster of the Cambridge Philharmonic Orchestra.
Paula recently started DeskNotes, a YouTube channel with short videos full of tips for orchestral string playing. And soon she will be recording a CD of her own solo violin compositions!
In 2017 she retrained at Makers Academy as a computer programmer and now combines violin performance with her career as a software engineer at Cambridge Cognition, where she writes code that is used for worldwide clinical trials.
In this episode, Paula and I discuss her transition from a professional musician to software development and her experiences in both worlds.
*Resources:*
DeskNotes
Paula’s website
Twitter @FiddlersCode
Facebook Fiddlers Code
*We Belong Here Podcast: *
Follow Lauren on Twitter @LoLoCoding
WeBelongPodcast.com website
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts
Subscribe on Spotify
LoLoCoding.com
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Dec 28, 2019
22. PJ Hagerty and His Journey to DevRel
PJ Hagerty is the founder of Devrelate.io and a board member of Open Sourcing Mental Illness. He’s a developer, writer, speaker, conference organizer, musician, and Community Advocate. He’s known to travel the world speaking about programming and the way people think and interact while wearing many hats 🎩.
As someone who was a part of the industry from the beginning, PJ defines DevRel for us to kick off our conversation. PJ worked at a deaf school and as a musician for many years before transitioning full time to tech. The lessons he learned prior to that transition have proven to be pivotal in his DevRel career in comparison to what his formal CS degree provided. He worked as a software engineer for many years and says he was “tricked into doing DevRel” when he gave a spontaneous lightning talk that ultimately turned into many many more talks! He went on to form a community team, continued to travel the world giving talks, and helped define and shape the DevRel space itsel…
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Oct 27, 2019
21. Elyse Segebart: Conquering Life's Obstacles and Following Your Dreams
Elyse Segebart is an artist by nature but took the plunge into tech at 27. She's a mobile application developer finishing her degree at Capella University where she is studying software development, is graduating September of 2020. She aspires to work fully remote in the future. She lives in the heartland with her boyfriend and is a role model for his 8-year-old daughter.
*Content Warning*
Elyse advocates for women in traumatic and abusive situations having overcome these situations herself. Our conversation today covers topics on addiction, domestic abuse, and issues of mental health. She brings her whole self to our conversation and shares both encouragement and advice to those facing abuse and trauma. She speaks of how she overcame the obstacles that stood in her way and encourages those who similarly hope to follow their dreams of succeeding in the tech industry. She wants to help other women who have been in similar situations to know that there is a way out. She is your cheerle…
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Oct 4, 2019
20. Becca Lee: Lessons from Marketing Applied to Code
Becca is a Front End Developer at Assemble Inc. who fell in love with the tech industry while working as the Marketing Manager for a JavaScript consultancy. She believes that user-centric development, collaboration, and strong communication help make better software. Since making the transition to software development, she has worked primarily in the JavaScript ecosystem and is particularly fond of React and CSS. Becca also helps organize the Seattle chapter of Write/Speak/Code and enjoys speaking at meetups and conferences, most recently participating as a panelist at Chain React 2019.
Today Becca and I chat about our experiences in our first engineering roles after attending coding boot camps and how we somehow managed to survive. Becca tells the story of how she powered through the recovery process of the norovirus to complete her portfolio and application to land her current role.
Becca explains how helpful the lessons she learned while working with people and in marketing before…
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Sep 29, 2019
19. Kristen Spencer: How Sampling ALL of the Careers Led Her to Software Engineering
Kristen Spencer likes to say that she was a professional career sampler. She has worked in many random industries and has been able to successfully incorporate the plethora of lessons she learned into her role today as a Senior Developer at a digital consultancy agency, TWG in Toronto.
After having her first baby, Kristen started a Cool Mom blog on WordPress when she ultimately discovered her interest in design and code. She then took a few day-long workshops on how to make small changes in the browser only to discover a 9-week long boot camp called Canada Learning Code- the first of its kind in Canada.
She went on to teach at HackerYou and credits working as an educator to finding the role she has today as a Senior-level developer.
Today, Kristen and I dive deep into topics such as imposter syndrome, the importance of negotiation, and the art of framing your narrative. This episode is packed with tips and advice for those entering the tech space via an unconventional route.
It is…
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Aug 17, 2019
18. Aisha Blake: A Community Minded App Developer in Detroit
Aisha Blake arrived in Detroit in 2013 to serve as a Jesuit Volunteer. She then began working at Grand Circus and has taught web development to people of all ages in bootcamps, workshops, and online courses. She helped create their bootcamp program and craft their JavaScript curriculum. She eventually decided to pursue a full-time engineering role and today is an Application Developer for Detroit Labs.
Aisha has a deep love for the tech community in Detroit. She’s passionate about community organizing and helps organize self.conference and <title of conf>. She has traveled all across the US to speak on web accessibility, diversity & inclusion in tech, and how to give feedback fearlessly.
This episode of #WeBelongHere is packed full of thoughtful dialogue spanning topics from race and gender to self-advocacy and the power of song and community. Aisha shares advice on how to teach yourself the skills to survive and thrive in the tech industry.
*Resources: *
Aisha’s Blog Aisha.Cod…
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Aug 4, 2019
17. Tiffany Pena: Balancing Life as a Mom and Learning to Code
Tiffany Pena is a homeschooling mom of 3 girls from Texas. She’s also a Software & Web Developer student at Capella University, where she will graduate in December with a Bachelor's Degree! She has a vast background in Business and Finance and is an advocate for women in difficult situations. In her spare time, she enjoys photography, hiking, coffee & her 3 Cardigan Welsh Corgis.
Back in 2016, she knew she wanted to go back to school to complete her Bachelor’s Degree and was considering becoming a CPA but began exploring web design and discovered the world of web development.
In today’s episode, we chat about Capella’s diverse curriculum, the neat projects she’s worked on using Java and PHP, and how she has figured out a way to balance her career goals and love of being a stay at home mom. We discuss how the skills from her time in business and finance have set her apart from her classmates but also how the lessons she’s learned from motherhood and home-schooling has help…
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Jul 27, 2019
16. Bekah Hawrot Weigel: The Parallels Between Teaching English Literature & Code
Bekah Hawrot Weigel is a mom to four adorable young kids and has spent the past ten years of her life teaching literature, writing screenplays, pilots, a memoir. She started off studying English at university and then worked as a community organizer for an environmental nonprofit. She then got her masters in English and taught a variety of classes as an adjunct instructor. After having her fourth child, she faced a great deal of trauma when her two of her internal organs ruptured and left her to face a year of her life in which her body was in a state of recovery, leaving her unable to do the normal things she had before. Bekah shares how her mental health was impacted by that experience in that she had depression, panic attacks, and PTSD.
Despite everything that was on her plate at that time, her husband encouraged her to try and learn to code. She resisted at first but eventually gave in and dove into FreeCodeCamp’s JavaScript course. Learning that new skill allowed her to breathe…
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Jul 7, 2019
15. Michelle Brenner: How She Became a Sr. Backend Engineer
Michelle Brenner and I chat today about the transferable skills she learned while studying art and working as a support engineer in the film industry that help her today as a Senior Backend Engineer at ChowNow.
In art school, she learned to accept and listen to critiques which has proven to be incredibly helpful during code reviews as an engineer today.
Early in her career, as a support engineer in visual effects at Sony Picture Imageworks, she was encouraged to automate parts of her job and thus taught herself Python.
Michelle works tirelessly to promote diversity and inclusion in tech by organizing events, mentoring, and conference speaking. She also runs an interview format tech podcast called From the Source to answer the question of what tech jobs are really like- be sure to go check it out!
*Resources:*
From the Source podcast
Write Speak Code
Tech By Choice
Find Michelle on Twitter: @MichelleLynneB
*We Belong Here Podcast: *
Follow Lauren on Twitter @LoLoCoding
WeBelo…
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Jun 19, 2019
14. Chris Evans: Lessons from 30 Years in the Biz
Today, Chris and I chat about his path to becoming an Architect at Microsoft.
After graduating from college with a degree in communications, Chris tried his hat at pioneering podcasts and shares the challenges of trying to circulate content without the internet in the ’80s.
He eventually learned to program while working in IT. And although his first company believed that a requirement to be an engineer was to have a CS degree, he soon found a company that was excited for him to join their team as a software developer. There they didn’t care about his degree, but rather what he capable of building and creating. And build he did. He went on to* *develop one of the first ever Java integrated development environments, he released his first iOS app to the app store the day it originally opened, and he has dozens of patents in the field of user experience and digital photography.
Chris believes that software engineering is a team sport and that there’s great importance in building a…
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Jun 5, 2019
13. Lauren Granger: From Social Services to Software Engineering & the Power of Doing Good
Lauren Granger began their career working with adults experiencing homelessness in Seattle.
Lauren’s path to social work began on the night of Barack Obama’s inauguration when during his speech, he encouraged every person to get involved and volunteer. And that they did; Lauren dedicated the next decade of their life to giving back to their community. They managed low-income houses and did incredible work for individuals facing homelessness in Seattle's community.
Pivoting from work in social service work, Lauren then attended Ada Developers Academy to learn to code and is a Software Development Engineer today at Amazon. They work on the Freetime team, which works to offer peace of mind for parents of young children.
Lauren and I dive deep into the power of volunteerism and giving back to our communities. We discuss the importance of finding your people, active allyship, and how to use the professional skills we bring with us to the table from prior life/work experiences to succe…
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May 27, 2019
12. Jessica Dene Earley-Cha: Community & Developer Advocacy at Google
Today, Jessica and I chat about the path she took to become a Developer Advocate at Google. After studying Sociology and Education in college, Jessica dedicated herself to working for both Girls Inc. and Girl Scouts. After five years of doing that, she transitioned her focus onto mental health advocacy work. After facing some extremely difficult tragedies in that role and receiving encouragement from friends and family, she decided to take a class at her local college to learn C++ in hopes of transitioning yet again. That was the moment she fell in love with programming and the rest is history!
She attended Hackbright Academy and even went on to teach there for a few years afterwards. Today, she is a Developer Advocate at Google, where she creates content in innovative ways to help other developers build with Google Assistant.
We speak about the power of community and the importance of relationships in this industry. Jessica shares incredible advice on how to leverage those relations…
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May 19, 2019
11. Becca Rosenthal: How to Find your People and Pull Each Other Up Together
Becca Rosenthal is a Middle East Studies major turned software engineer. After college, she spent a few years working at a Jewish non-profit in Jackson, MS. And when she moved back home to Oakland, she realized quickly that tech would be her ticket to stay in her beloved city. Thus, she decided to learn to code by attending Hackbright Academy. After graduation, she quickly landed an engineering job at Reddit. Today, Becca and I dive deep into how she did just that.
A year into her tech career, she attributes her successes to her ability to slay at office karaoke, her intense curiosity, and her absolute refusal to eat a meal at her desk. Her day to day life at Reddit is filled with puns and banter and if you’re ever searching for someone to write or perform a nerdy song for your tech company, Becca is the person for the job!
Our conversation ranges from silly topics such as what the lyrics to Reddit the Musical would be to the power of eliminating the word “Sorry” from your voca…
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May 12, 2019
10. Jessica Owens: The Parallels Between Knitting & Coding
My guest today is a Software Engineer at Snapchat.
She was a child actor on Bill Nye the Science Guy, studied architecture in college, and went on to work in a fiber arts store for over a decade in Seattle before attending a coding bootcamp to learn to code.
Jessica and I chat about how both knitting and weaving compliment the process of learning to code in such a remarkable way. In fact, little did I know that we owe computers to the jacquard loom! She tells the story of her weaving store adapting and evolving as the city of Seattle has grown and changed over time. And we dive into the importance of sharing and passing down institutional knowledge.
This episode is not one to miss!
*Resources*:
Find Jessica online: http://lifelikethis.com/
*We Belong Here Podcast: *
Follow Lauren on Twitter @LoLoCoding
WeBelongPodcast.com website
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts
Subscribe on Spotify
LoLoCoding.com
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Apr 28, 2019
9. Abby Tiffany: From Sign Language to Coding Language
My guest today is a Software Engineer who was an Interpretive Sign Language Translator prior to learning to code. In 2018, she completed a Full Stack Web Development program at The Lambda School and is now an IOS mobile app developer in Seattle.
Today she & I dive deep into topics such as gatekeeping, toxic companies, nerd culture, tips to technical interviewing and how important representation is in this industry. She’s a massive advocate for career changers and supports her community as a mentor for individuals with nontraditional backgrounds.*
*She shares the two questions that she asks herself when setting goals: “Am I where I need to be and am I where I want to be?”
Abby is such a powerhouse and is someone who is only going to continue killing it in this industry.
Her interview is NOT one to miss!
*Resources: *
The Lambda School
Science Fiction Prototyping
NYT Magazine article The Secret History of Women in Coding by Clive Thompson
Natasha the Robot
Ray Wenderlich
Bac…
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Apr 21, 2019
8. Nora Peters: From Americorps to Amazon
Nora is nonprofit fundraising professional turned coder.
Today, she & I chat about her journey to tech after dedicating her career and education to mission-driven companies and how she used to perceive corporate Americas as the “dark-side.” She shares that it was in fact her therapist, who told her about Ada Developers Academy and encouraged her to pursue software development.
She’s so thankful for that advice, as she has now discovered a way to blend her passion for tech with her love for helping people and does so today as a Software Development Engineer on a Kindle team at Amazon.
We chat about the parallels between the fundraising and technical marketing industries and how many of the skills are transferrable from one to the other.
This episode is not one to miss and Nora wants you to know that you have the right AND the ability to learn anything!
*Resources*:
Ada Developers Academy
You are a Badass
@NTPetes
Nora's LinkedIn
*We Belong Here Podcast: *
Follow Lauren on…
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Apr 7, 2019
7. Jamie Pilgrim: From Bootcamp Instructor to Software Engineer
Jamie & Lauren talk today about her path to attending a coding bootcamp after feeling frustrated with the traditional 4-year college path that so many are encouraged to take. She calls for a rethinking of the way we push that route onto young adults as the expected route and encourages us all to consider exploring our interests and passions to help discover what we will be good at but more importantly, what will bring us joy.
In 2014, Jamie attended a program called Dev Bootcamp and went on to be an educator and instructor at many different bootcamp and coding programs such as the Flatiron School, the Latin High School in Chicago, General Assembly, Kode with Klossy, and even was Lauren’s instructor at Ada Developers Academy here in Seattle!
Because this podcast is dedicated to interviewing those who for example, have graduated from programs such as these, we thought it would be fun to chat with someone from the perspective of the person teaching these programs and understand her ow…
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Mar 30, 2019
6. Kate Spitzer: From Fashion Design to Software Engineering
Today, Kate and Lauren talk about her time as a fashion designer and her eventual desire to find a career that surprisingly or not, demanded even more creativity: software engineering. We chat about her decision-making process behind choosing backend over frontend development and the magic that it holds. She explains the many overlapping parallels between fashion design and engineering and we discuss vocational training programs versus more formal four-year programs.
Kate implores listeners to do their research on the ethics of machine learning and artificial intelligence as she predicts what will be most important in the upcoming years in this ever-morphing and changing industry.
This episode is not one to miss!
*Resources*:
Indeed.com
Reddit programming challenges
Find Kate Spitzer on all things social: @K8Spitzer
*We Belong Here Podcast: *
Follow Lauren on Twitter @LoLoCoding
WeBelongPodcast.com website
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts
Subscribe on Spotify
LoLoCoding.com
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Mar 28, 2019
5. Megan Slater: From French Horn to Full Stack
Today Megan and Lauren talk about her upbringing in Montana, her education and pursuit of playing the french horn professionally, how she wound up working full time in finance before ultimately finding a career counselor and seeking advice on how to apply all of her interests and skills towards a new career. She discovered tech and decided to take a leap of faith to attend Code Fellows in 2015. She now works for a really neat consulting firm in Seattle called GenUI as a Full Stack Web Developer.
Megan shares how she was never encouraged to explore a career in STEM while growing up and opens up about the sexist and misogynistic behaviors of her classmates in high school Science classes that then discouraged her from pursuing a more technical educational path. Megan has since found her place in the tech industry and is fighting the patriarchy day in and day out.
Today she shares the skills and lessons that she learned from music and her time in the financial industry and how those skil…
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Mar 28, 2019
4. Kate Pond: From Alaskan Park Ranger to Programmer at Alaska Airlines
Kate recently graduated from Ada Developers Academy and is a Developer Apprentice at Alaska Airlines. She has an infectious laugh and such a zest for life that it’s hard not to smile while listening to her talk about her journey today. Although she eventually transitioned to tech, she studied to become a park ranger from a very early age and has her Masters in Environmental Education. Today she shares with me her obsession with nature and her love for storytelling, all Meetups, and geocaching. She’s passionate about promoting diversity in tech and helps organize for the Tech Ladies chapter in Seattle and lives life by the mantra: Every day is a school day.
Kate and I have an honest conversation about how grueling the tech industry can be and she opens up about her personal relationship with depression. We discuss the power of therapy and she acknowledges that although it may be difficult, it’s so important to seek help if you think you might also be struggling with depression yo…
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Mar 22, 2019
3. Stephanie Wilkinson: Blending a Love for Education with Tech
Stephanie and Lauren have a shared passion for education and technology and she talks today about how fun it is to have found a role that balances those two worlds. As the Director of Systems Architecture for the National Association of Independent Schools, Stephanie thrives as she manages, innovates, and inspires her distributed team each day.
She tells the story of facing a gatekeeper in college and the reasons behind not pursuing a more traditional educational path to tech. She's manifesting her dreams and has demonstrated what it looks like to make whatever situation you’re in work for you and to help you achieve your goals.
She tells the story of feeling like an outsider the first time she presented at a tech conference and she and I dive deep into the power of feeling comfortable in your own skin. She’s an expert in her field and is killing it in the tech industry- this is not an episode to miss!
*Resources*:
Stephanie’s app that links Goodreads w/ your Overdrive accoun…
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Mar 19, 2019
2. Severin Wiggenhorn: From Congress to Code
Severin and I talk today about all things ballet dancing, law school, and her passion for logic problems and patterns! We discuss our shared experience as students at Ada Developers Academy, our mutual feelings of imposter syndrome, celebrate the fact that we’ve both cried in front of our managers, and unfortunately discover that neither one of us were ever encouraged to explore a career in tech when we were young.
Severin dives deep on the importance of internships, asking questions, and the value in balancing your soft skills with your technical ones as a career changer. She’s a firm advocate of pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone and finding a great manager and team that you feel safe enough to fail in front of. She believes that writing code is an emotional process and lives for the excitement and thrills that is the roller coaster of being a developer. Her passion and enthusiasm alike are contagious -- this is not an episode to miss!
*Resources: *
MightyAI
BaseCS…
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Mar 18, 2019
1. Ben Greenberg: From Rabbi to Developer Advocate
Today Ben & I talk about the lessons he learned from his time as a community organizer and Rabbi and how he applies them in his role today as a Developer Advocate at Nexmo, the Vonage API platform.
He shares the story of his brave decision to pursue his dreams and learn to code by attending the Flatiron School.
He and I discuss the value of embracing the qualities that make us different in addition to the importance of diverse perspectives and backgrounds on a technical team.
His passion for community organizing and storytelling is contagious and this episode is not one to miss!
*Resources*:
Follow Ben* **@RabbiGreenberg*
Check out his talk about technical interviews & liberal arts students here
RubyConf Opportunity Scholarship
An article I wrote about the experiences @ RubyConf 2017 (where Ben & I first met!)
*We Belong Here Podcast: *
Follow Lauren on Twitter @LoLoCoding
WeBelongPodcast.com website
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts
Subscribe on Spotify
LoLoCoding.com
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Mar 10, 2019
0. Introducing: We Belong Here
Introduction to the new podcast, We Belong Here: Lessons from Unconventional Paths to Tech
Sharing stories about the different routes people have taken to enter the industry and chatting about the skills they learned in their prior jobs, schooling, or life experiences & how they apply them to their current roles in tech.
New episodes every Tuesday!
*We Belong Here Podcast: *
Follow Lauren on Twitter @LoLoCoding
WeBelongPodcast.com website
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts
Subscribe on Spotify
LoLoCoding.com
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