Two months ago I would’ve never imagined I’d be here writing about my journey into tech.
Two months ago was not the first time I thought about getting into tech. However, 45 days ago was the first time I saw an opportunity and decided to take it. Once I took the opportunity I thought “Crap. What did I get myself into?”
I’ll explain why I’ve been hesitant, why I started and how it’s going.
Full-time Hustle
I’m a Latin 27-year-old first-time mom who works for a tech insurance company, Asurion, who also pursues a passion in beauty when available (a side hustle, if you will).
I have a full-time job in project management/corporate governance (Monday-Friday, 9 to 5). After work, I come home to a family of 3 to mainly enjoy time with my one-year-old son and admire how he discovers the world. and on some weekends, I make a little time to decompress by doing makeup.
My guess, is that you’re probably already wondering where I find the time for all of this and the short answer is “I don’t know”, but I have my partner and our parents to thank for keeping me sane.
How it all Began
It’s another regular day in the office in downtown Nashville when in one of our communication channels I ran into a post about an internal Developer Advocacy Program.
Once I read what it was about I thought wow these are all things I’m interested in but I am not a developer. With the push of a good friend who is a UX Designer, I decided to apply for the program. I figured I either don’t get it and don’t have to do extra work or I get it and will learn at least one thing.
I had my interview with the Developer Relations Senior Manager, @bradstondev, who was leading the program and I was surprised at how our conversation carried. I went into the meeting thinking I’ll be turned down and told I need to have at least SOME experience (imposter syndrome is real by the way). But contrary to my belief, my conversation with the manager lead to a great awakening of inspiration.
He was not shy to set expectations of how much extra work I’d have to put in to have an understanding of this new world. I immediately thought it won’t be possible because so much of my time is already taken away by everything else. I got to thinking and figured “if not now then when?”. I then considered everything and decided to go for it because similar to before, when submitting my application, my options were either I try and learn something or succeed and learn more than I imagined.
The Reason Why I Do It
After weighing out my options, I concluded why I actually wanted to get into tech in the first place; I want to break barriers, be an influencer, and be evidence of what can happen when you want to do something that seems unattainable. I’ve wanted to get into tech for some time but was always intimidated on where and how to start. I haven’t run into many people in tech that look like me or have shared the same challenges.
Naturally, I started doing research and found out that only 27% of women take up these positions in tech and only 2% of them are women who identify as Hispanic or Latino.
Those numbers saddened me and motivated me even more.
It motivated me to hopefully inspire other minorities to stop being underrepresented and aim to be part of the solution this world needs by sharing what works and what doesn’t for me. I want to prove that if I can do it, then you definitely can do it too, no matter if you are a parent, an immigrant, or the one thinking it’s too late.
It’s never too late because with awareness you are already part of the change to equality. There’s so much technology out there that was developed without the consideration of children, minorities, or women.
Did you know that seatbelts were originally designed for men?
As a woman, It’s very apparent that that might be the case because of how uncomfortable seatbelts feel over your chest or your baby bump.
Have you tried changing a child’s diaper on the plane?
If you have then you’d know there’s no dedicated space to lay your baby, set your diaper bag, or have enough room to comfortably make the process easier for a parent and their baby.
This is why they need me and why they need YOU.
But Where to Start?
Here’s the thing, I have no experience in programming. The last time I did coding was in 2011 updating my Tumblr profile and the first time I did coding was in 2006 changing the layout on MySpace. I don’t even remember what I did or how I even found out! The thought sparked up, if I can do it at 12 and 14 years old I certainly can do it in my 20s.
So I decided to start watching a few TikToks, videos on Youtube, and even shadowed a real developer. While having the opportunity to shadow a software engineer at work for the first time, it felt like, while looking at the code, I was reading hieroglyphics. I am not exaggerating when I say it looked like someone meant to start typing a sentence but decided mid-sentence to slam the keyboard across their knee and call it “coding”.
I was shocked that people out there know how to do this and enjoy it. I was so lost and I once again was discouraged and thought to myself, “How in the hell will I ever understand this and why did this make sense to me in 7th grade?” Even hearing people talk about code seems like a different language.
I wanted to connect the dots so badly but instead it felt like staring into a starry night and being told to look at a specific constellation but you just don’t see it.
Well, it’s all about perspective and how you learn.
I’ll tell you that the first time I knew that it wasn’t that bad was when I wanted to learn how to add a gif to this very blog you are reading. The blog you’re reading is on a platform for developers and I’M NOT A DEVELOPER, so it’s not like I can just paste the image as if I’m in Microsoft Word. I had to code just to make this word bold.
To be honest, I was already I was fed up with this mess until I asked for help. All of a sudden I started to see my first constellation. The big dipper if you will. It took a few tries and I had to keep going back and testing to see if I was adding the patterns and URLs correctly, but the second I saw that gif working, it felt like I had solved the world’s hardest math problem.
I’m pretty sure this is how Katherine Johnson felt once she finished her equation to get man finally on the moon.
Actual representation of me trying to understand code.
Beginning of the Next Chapter
This is just the beginning of my story of how I’m learning tech.
Truth be told, my dream as of now is not to become a software engineer. My goal is to see if I can do it and, most importantly, if I like it. There’s a good chance I may be motivated by the wrong things and end up hating the whole process or even worse I could think I’m creating a website and end up hacking into FBI headquarters, breaking the internet, and finding a way to forgive everyone’s student loans.
Oh wait, maybe I wasn’t only adding a gif.
Regardless of where this takes me, I know it’s exactly where I’m supposed to be and I’m going to make the best of it. The way I see it is that I’ll either find a hidden passion for programming or I’ll find out what else is out there in tech that is a better suit for me. I’m enjoying learning the basic functions of the web and hope you leave wanting to know more about how you can get started too.
Cheers to breaking the internet… literally.
