ANGELA: This is Women’s Tech Radio.
PAIGE: A show on the Jupiter Broadcasting Network, interviewing interesting women in technology. Exploring their roles and how they’re successful in technology careers. I’m Paige.
ANGELA: And I’m Angela.
PAIGE: Well, Angela, this week we have Sara joining us and she is a new coder out in Austin and she talks us through her journey and just some really awesome stories about how she got here and what’s she’s been through. It’s a great interview.
ANGELA: It is. And before we get into it, I just want to mention that you can support Women’s Tech Radio by going to patreon.com/jupitersignal. That is a general bucket that supports the entire network, but more specifically, because you listen to Women’s Tech Radio, you are supporting us as well. So go to Patreon.com/today.
PAIGE: And we get into our interview today by asking Sara what she’s up to in technology today.
SARA: Essentially, right now, I”m a software developer. I live in Austin, Texas. I was a journalist and i worked in digital media for ten years prior to making that transition, which I did with the help of a code bootcamp in Los Angeles called Sabio, which focuses particularly on women and minorities, trying to diversify the tech scene out there. So currently I’ve been working on UIs, utilizing Angular, Bootstrap, and C#.
PAIGE: How do you wrap the C# into that?
SARA: So, essentially, you’re building the UI out for this device and the back end is being written in Java, so we’re writing a dummy backend or whatever in C# just to be able to test the UI out.
PAIGE: That makes sense. Awesome. So it sounds like you’ve had kind of a fun journey. Did you start in Austin and end up back there? How did that all go around?
SARA: Yeah, sure. It’s kind of a funny story, just because I ended up moving between LA. I ended up back and forth between La and Texas so many times I would literally be in Austin saying hey, I’m going to LA and everyone asked me, didn’t you just move here? And I’be be like yes, but I”m going back. ANd then I’d be back in LA and everyone is like hey didn’t you just move to Texas?
ANGELA: Wow.
SARA: So my family is actually from a town here on the Texas border called Eagle Pass and my dad went to grad school in LA at UCLA. And so, ended up living in LA for part of my childhood. And then moved to San Antonio, finished high school out here. Went to school in California. Worked in Texas. Moved to California. Moved back to Texas. Moved to California. Moved back to Texas. So it was really just something that, I think you know, you become a grown up and you say hey what kind of quality of life is for me and personally I, most of my family is in Texas and the pace is just a little bit more my speed, because being stuck in traffic in LA just wasn’t as fun for me anymore. So, yeah, so Austin is great. I think sometimes it as a little bit of a small town for someone who’s use to something bigger. But what I really like about Austin, what I really appreciate, particularly in the tech scene and a lot of the work I do with Women Who Code, is that it’s really easy to know people and get to know people and network with people. And you can literally meet a CEO somewhere, connect with them on LinkedIn, get coffee with them. It’s really kind of a more intimate community, I think, than like a place where LA where there’s just, first of all, it’s just hard to meet people because you have to go across this huge 60 square mile area just to get anywhere. And then you can’t even just get there, you have to fight traffic. And once you get there everyone is very much interested in who are you, what can you do for me, why would I want to talk to you.
ANGELA: It sounds a lot like Austin is very much like Portland.
SARA: Uh, yeah, you know, I haven’t-
PAIGE: This is a frequent comparison that is made.
SARA: Really?
ANGELA: Is it?
PAIGE: Yeah. It’s why we share the slogan keep it weird.
SARA: Keep it weird.
ANGELA: Yeah. Paige is from Portland, so.
SARA: Oh, that’s cool. My brother went to Reede. He’s a graduate, so that’s really the only time I’ve ever been to Portland. I can’t really speak, but it was really nice when I was there. Just a little bit cold for my taste.
PAIGE: It is. The seasons are a bit, it gets cold. I would rather live in the LA area mostly, but I detest cars and traffic for the most part. If I can avoid using a car I will opt for that every time.
SARA: I feel you girl. I’m right there with you.
PAIGE: What do you think is, besides the, so you’ve kind of outlined why LA is not the scene that Austin is, but what do you think it is that makes Austin the scene it is? Because I’ve been to other small tech cities and they don’t, like even in Portland, I would say you have to kind of work to get to meet a CEO. Like, and we have a fair number of startups, the startup scene, because everybody is migrating north from Silicon Valley and they’re winding up in either Portland or Seattle.
SARA: Oh, okay.
PAIGE: But, you know, we have a pretty good scene. It’s a couple years old now really of kind of getting going, but trying to, networking that is still sort of difficult. So what do you think makes the community in Austin tight?
SARA: I think that, you know, my father is a history professor and so I frequently fall back on things like context and history to kind of think about things like that. So Austin has been traditionally a really small town in Texas. So most recently, I think Austin has experienced, probably the last decade in particular, a lot of growth. Compared to what it was historically, Austin was the smallest major city in Texas. I mean, Dallas/Fort Worth were bigger, Houston was bigger, even El Paso was bigger. San Antonio certainly was bigger. So Austin’s growth has been really recent and so I think that that kind of small town flavor, that small town culture is still very much kind of part and parcel of the community here. And I think that kind of the way that it came about was that, again, Austin is a small town, so then people started moving here from other parts of Texas, and, you know, it’s still a small town so people kind of adapt that culture. And then people start moving here from other part of the country and that’s the culture. And so I think it’s just kind of, I think that that’s due mostly to the fact that historically Austin was a pretty small town and still is compared to a lot of the other major Texas metropolitan areas. And so that being said, I know, I have a lot of–you know, obviously, I spent a good chunk of my life in California. I know people, I know there’s crazy people in Texas, but people are really nice. There is a good part about Texas that, there really is a good genuine friendliness in the culture here, which you may not know if you don’t get past the crazy gun stuff. But, you know, and I think that’s another part of it. It’s just, people are nice here. And to your point about the startups, you know, kind of moving and relocating, I have heard on more than one occasion that startup founders or venture capitalist will say things like, well Austin has a really good work/life balance if that’s what you’re into.
PAIGE: Yeah, I totally get that.
SARA: And so we’re a bad thing, right, to not be working all the time. KInd of to that point, there’s just so many, Austin is a really social networky town. I mean, you can literally be drinking every night of the week here, meeting people, if you wanted to do that. I’ve definitely had weeks where I’d go to two or three events, and you know, so those are my thoughts.
PAIGE: That’s a really good way to put that. I think Portland has some of that heritage, but it’s been a little, a little longer.
SARA: Uh-huh.
PAIGE: And I think the influx is a little bit higher. The gentrification in Portland is starting to pick up pretty bad. I think we had like a 30 percent rent increase in the past year.
ANGELA: Wow.
PAIGE: Yeah. It’s pretty unreal.
ANGELA: Yeah, house values are going up here in Seattle, like a lot.
SARA: A lot.
PAIGE: Yeah, like a lot. It’s is literally like Silicon Valley is just spreading.
SARA: Wow.
PAIGE: So it will be interesting to see. I like the history as well, so it will be interesting to see the numbers come in in the next couple of years of how things change and why.
SARA: Yeah. Similar things are happening in Austin and everyone kind of has different feelings about it, but you can’t really stop demographic shifts, right.
PAIGE: Yeah, we just have to try to, i think, be conscious of them.
SARA: Absolutely.
PAIGE: We can’t stop them, but we can do it intentionally.
SARA: Absolutely. I agree.
PAIGE: So you started out in journalism?
SARA: Yes, so that’s, I get that question sometimes when people hear about my background. I went to school and actually thought I was going to go to law school. I took the LSAT and all that. And I was just thinking, hey I’m going to do this journalism thing for a year before I apply to law school. Well, once it came time to apply to law school I thought, oh my god, I do not want to go to law school. So I ended up making a career out of journalism and I loved it and I was really good at it and I did it in two languages. And, unfortunately, I came into journalism right at that turning point where the web was starting to overtake media in a really kind of forceful way. I’ve literally sat in meetings where people were saying, you know, we actually have more hits on our website than we have subscribers.
PAIGE: Yeah.
SARA: And then the recession hit and media companies, so I tell people sometimes, I’ve been laid off like three times. And they look at me with these, you know, horror in their eyes. I’m like, oh it’s no big deal, it just working in the media. And that’s unfortunate, but that’s the reality is, you know, every quarter you’ve got to have profits, because it’s a publically traded company and the first ones to go.
ANGELA: Yeah.
SARA: So, yeah, so I worked in newspapers here in Texas. I worked in Brownsville, Austin, and San Antonio. So I actually lived here in Austin about 10 years ago, first time. And i loved it and was great at it and unfortunately it didn’t work out for me. And then I thought, okay, hey I’m going to be responsible, I’m going to change careers and I started a master’s in community counseling. Because through my work as a journalist people are always telling me all their problems anyways and I’m a real good listener. And I thought this will be really great, because I’m bilingual. You need more bilingual health workers, right, in Texas. And then I got pulled into a startup and I loved it. And so I started doing digital media. I worked in an industry publication called Inside Facebook, kind of covering the Facebook platform right around the time that Facebook was really deep into monetization, rolling out the pages product and things like that. So I have some pretty detailed memories, excruciatingly detailed memories about Facebook’s development as a monetized platform. But, yeah, and then I started this other startup. It was called News Taco and it was like a digital English language publication for Latinos. And then I worked at another digital startup when I moved to LA called Mitu, Mitu Network and it’s was a YouTube network. I think now it’s kind of more newfangled, new media company. So kind of through all of that I, you know, I see it as kind of like a steady progression of what media is, essentially these days. Anybody can write. Anybody can take pictures. Anyone can do video. So media really is more about medium, right, the medium is the message, right?
ANGELA: Yep.
SARA: So, and that medium is technology. My last position, I really kind of started to dig deep into some more technical things and YouTube’s backend stuff and I thought, hey I can handle technical stuff. I learned all this stuff. And it’s something I’d been wanting to do a while so I decided that I was just going to get a job, marketing job or content management, whatever I could get, and I was going to figure out how to learn to code. So, I”m doing this. I literally have these jobs I’m going to apply to. I had moved back to Austin. I was kind of freelancing. And, like, I’m fixing to apply to these jobs, like the next day, and my friend Liana (unintelligible) from LA, who I met when I was working in LA–we were actually in a room, we were in a Girls in Tech LA event and we were both like, where are the other Latinas. We kind of made a B-line for each other because there were literally on four of us there. That’s how I met her. She calls me up, she says Sara, she’s a cofounder of Sabio, this bootcamp that i mentioned. She says Sara, we have a spot for you. And I”m just like, wow, this is almost like faitful, you know.
PAIGE: Sometimes things just line up like that.
SARA: This really lined up. So I kind of said hey, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. It’s literally knocking down my door, so I kind of dropped my plans to apply to these jobs. I started Code School, Codecademy, JavaScript, all this stuff. What’s Bootstrap? What’s Responsive Design? C#, SQL. So that’s what i did. And then I went to Sabio last year and then I moved back in December and I had an excruciating job search. I tell people, don’t look for a job in December and January. Especially as a newbie, it was hard. I mean, I wrote a story about it on my–I have a platform for Latinos in technology and STEM, it’s called MasWired and I had like 40 interviews between phone calls with recruiters and phone calls online and in-person interviews and technical interviews over the phone. And those kind of like shared develope, I mean, it was just, I counted them, right? And it took me months and I finally, when I did get a job offer I got two.
PAIGE: When it rains it pours.
SARA: Where were you guys all this time, you know. Why are you doing this to me. So, yeah, so since April, so it’s been about, going on seven months, I’ve been working as a software developer and it’s a little bit overwhelming, I’d say. LIke journalism. Journalism and writing and digital media stuff, I just got so good at it that i could do it with my eyes closed. And certainly that’s not something that you ever feel working in technology. So it’s been an interesting adjustment. But, yeah, so that’s kind of how I made that transition.
PAIGE: That is an awesome story.
ANGELA: Uh-huh.
SARA: Than you.
PAIGE: That’s very cool.
ANGELA: Lots of moving.
SARA: Yeah. I definitely, I’m just like, ugh, I’m actually buying nice things now so, like, I’m only going to move one or twice more.
ANGELA: It sounds like you’re staying.
PAIGE: Yeah, that’s when you know you’ve settled. I’m still not doing that.
ANGELA: Yeah, keeping the boxes broken down in the garage.
PAIGE: Yeah. Yeah, pretty much.
SARA: Yeah.
PAIGE: But, you know, I”m nomadic, so it works that way.
SARA: Oh yeah, I had my nomadic years.
PAIGE: I don’t think I”ll give them up. My dad said to me one time, he’s like, Paige, I’m pretty sure there’s not gypsy blood in the family. I’m like, dad I think you’re wrong. I have so many questions out of your story. I guess the first one is, do you feel like being at a bootcamp that was focused on diversity made a difference in the way that you learned or how you networked afterwards or the support that you got afterwards? Like any of that stuff?
SARA: Sure. So, I can’t really speak, because I’ve never been to any other bootcamps. That being said, I have been around other bootcamps, you know, here in Austin, certainly. And I’ve heard thing from–I’ve had friends who have gone through MakerSquare or General Assembly or whatever other ones, right. We have some Austin Code School or Austin Code Club or something. I would say, I think for me personally, you know, and journalism is also a very male dominated profession, so I wasn’t so freaked out around being around men, but the–I went to Stanford as an undergrad and I just remember being put off by those tech people. And so I was scared about that. And so, I think for me, going to Sabio was really kind of, much more warm and inviting and made me feel like technology was for me. And so that made a huge difference. I think, you know, there were other women there. There were other Latinos there. You know, um, you know, there was African Americans there. It was just kind of an environment that I felt comfortable in while learning this difficult material, right, in a very stressful environment. So, I think as far as the recruiting goes, you know, LA’s tech market, I think my job search would have gone a lot easier had I been in LA, because it’s just a bigger market. I think part of the trouble that I had in Austin finding a job, or why it took me so much longer than it should of is it’s just a smaller market and people here or the companies here seem to really be waiting for those unicorns to come along. You know, the–I saw a meme the other day. It’s like, we’re looking for someone in their 20s with 30 years experience.
ANGELA: Oh, yes, I’ve seen that one before.
PAIGE: Yeah, exactly.
SARA: And so-
PAIGE: Entry-level, seven years experience.
ANGELA: Right.
SARA: Exactly. And that’s kind of what I kept running into, is we want a junior developer for this position who is really, really, really, really, good. I’m like, okay. You know. So, yeah, what I think that I do appreciate about Sabio, and this is my experience, is they’re very focused on creating a community and a network. I think, because of this type of students the they’re focusing on, they understand that hey, you probably don’t have a network in tech, otherwise you would have a network in tech and you wouldn’t need to come to a code school. So there is a really, kind of, active alumni network that I go to all the time. Hey, what about this? Anybody know about this? Hey, you know, and like is this normal, what should I be asking, what should I do. And for me that’s been, that’s probably been one of the best things about my Sabio experience.
PAIGE: What tool do you guys use to do that?
SARA: We have previously used Yammer and now we’re on Slack.
PAIGE: Seems like everybody is on Slack doing this these days.
SARA: Uh-huh.
PAIGE: It’s a great tool for it.
SARA: Absolutely, yeah. So, and then if you’re in LA they have Professional Development Seminars. They have recruiting events. It’s just really great if you’re in LA and you’re going to work in LA to have this tangible and virtual community. That being said, my mother still lives in LA so I”m going down there for Thanksgiving and there’s going to be a Sabio happy hour and I may get to visit with everybody. I think that’s amazing. A year after I haven’t seen these people, we’re going to get together and have drinks and it will be fun.
ANGELA: That is awesome.
PAIGE: How big was your class?
SARA: So we had eight folks.
PAIGE: Eight.
SARA: There was eight of us.
PAIGE: That’s nice. That’s a good size. So how, did you feel like your journalism skills, like did you find a way to kind of translate them? I think being bilingual should have given you some, there is some similarity between learning a foreign language and learning to code, because you are essentially just learning to talk to a computer. Do you feel like that influenced your learning process and/or did being a journalist who is used to kind of seeking out answers to questions, do you think that influenced it for you?
SARA: Yeah, that’s a good question. I think that one of the first–I think that anything that you have to learn changes you to a certain extent, and I would say probably one the ways that journalism changed me the most was just really not having any feelings about asking questions, which makes for some little awkward situations sometimes, because I end up like interrogating people about their personal lives without really meaning to. Just because I’m curious, but I think that served me really, really well in software. Okay, so you want this data on front end. What is it going to do once it gets there. How is this going to be used. Is this anywhere else? Just really drilling down deep into questions so that I can fully understand the task at hand. That has been really helpful. And I think my metaphor for writing code or creating an application, and certainly I”m not as proficient as I would like to be at this point, but kind of my goal is, there’s a really–so, for me, because I’ve been writing for so long as a profession, as a science almost, it’s very formulaic at the end of the day. I know some people, I know a lot of people struggle with writing, but once you’ve written like thousands of things it’s pretty much the same thing over and over again. It’s very formulaic, just like a function, right?
PAIGE: Yep.
SARA: Just like anything you’re going to write in software. It’s like, hey here is the beginning. Here’s a few details about the thing. Here’s how they all tie together. The end. I mean, it’s pretty formulaic for me. I could write anything in a variety of ways, but at its core, that’s what you’re doing. That being said, there’s a verbose way to do that and there’s a succinct way to do that and there’s a romantic way to do that, and there’s a funny way to do that. And that’s kind of how I look at software development, is like you can write the same thing multiple ways, right. So I kind of look at being software developer, my development as a software developer as looking at it like being a writer. I want to be an efficient, interesting, but very pointed writer. Nobody wants to waste words, especially in the digital age when if it’s not 140 characters who cares. I think code is kind of the same thing. Yeah, you can have, nobody reads the source code of Angular. I mean, it’s just too long and it’s too crazy. But people will love a code snippet, right. So how do you ingest all of this stuff and output the most elegant, quick, easy to understand solution. To kind of address your question, I see software development as–I see writing as a metaphor for software development in that it’s very painful to learn how to do it well, but once you get there it’s totally worth it.
PAIGE: I really like that idea. That’s really cool. Like the idea of your code having your voice behind it.
ANGELA: Uh-huh. Yeah.
PAIGE: And I definitely notice that. I think, I can usually tell who on a team has written something by the way it’s written.
SARA: Oh, that’s interesting. That makes sense, yeah.
PAIGE: I mean, unless you have like super song’s file guides someplace too.
SARA: Yeah.
PAIGE: Especially in some of the more relaxed languages like JavaScript or Ruby or Python.
SARA: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense, actually, now that you say that. I can tell too.
PAIGE: Yeah.
SARA: Huh, that’s cool.
PAIGE: If you like the idea of software having a voice and being really readable, Ruby is a fantastic language for that. It’s actually one of the core foundations of the community. It actually kind of over the years shifted to the idea that even comments are not, shouldn’t be necessary. LIke your code should be human readable enough that you shouldn’t need comments.
SARA: Yeah.
PAIGE: Which, I really like that idea.
SARA: Yeah, that’s, I like that too.
PAIGE: So you mentioned that you had 40 job applications. So I have two questions in that.
SARA: Uh-huh.
PAIGE: How long did that take in a town like Austin and what did you do while you were doing those to kind of keep yourself sharp or, you know, maybe you had to have a job or whatever. And if you had to have a job, like how did you find the time. I have a lot of, in my Women Who Code network we have a lot of bootcamp graduates who are really struggling with that process.
SARA: Sure. I totally lucked out in the sense that I was able to, you know, I’ve always kind of tried to have a side gig going, just to be able to save up money. And so by the time I moved out to Austin I was freelancing. I wasn’t making a whole bunch of money but I was sustaining myself. So I had all this savings, all this money that I had saved up so I was able to go to the bootcamp and work one contract, so it was actually, I was just colleague over lunch, I am way too old to go to bootcamp ever again. It was a great experience. I don’t ever want to do that again. It was like-
ANGELA: What is too old? What makes you too old?
SARA: I just, I just mean that I was going to bootcamp 10 to 12 hours a day.
ANGELA: Oh.
SARA: And then I was going home and I was working.
ANGELA: I see. Yes.
SARA: I was working one to two hours and then I was trying to make my lunch and it was just-
PAIGE: Yeah, like sleep and eat?
SARA: It was just, so tired. It was just so exhausting and I was stretched so thin. You know, when you’re 24, 25 you can do that.
ANGELA: Yeah.
SARA: Because it’s, you know, and I”m not. So i’m just, it was just so intense and so hard and so-
PAIGE: I”m going to ask that personal question.
SARA: Yes.
PAIGE: How old are you?
SARA: Oh, I”m 32.
ANGELA: Yeah.
PAIGE: Yeah, that’s kind of when it changes.
SARA: Yea, exactly. I say I’m an old lady, everyone’s like, you’re not an old lady Sara. And I’m like, I know, but compared to you I’m an old lady. I’m not 24.
ANGELA: Yeah.
PAIGE: In tech we feel old.
SARA: Yeah, seriously. So, you know, that was kind of my thing. I was able to kind of do that. So the four month, it took me four months. I think. I came back in December, like a few days before Christmas. And I was still grump so I kind of ruined Christmas, but i forgive myself. But, yeah, so i came back December 19th and I found a job the third week in April. Almost towards the end of April. I started on April 27th. So it took a while and I think that part of it is, I think I mentioned earlier, in Austin, for whatever reason, all these startups think that they’re going to get senior devs. They’re all, I mean, it’s a limited pool. Again, Austin is like maybe, what, a million people. I don’t know what the population of Austin is, but it’s not huge. It’s not six million like LA or, you know, eight million like New York or whatever. Yeah, Austin is less than a million people. So, but they keep thinking that they’re going to, you know, everyone is holding out for that senior dev and so I’ve seen job postings–like I applied, check this out, I applied to, I saw a job that I applied to earlier this year when I was looking and they’re still looking for this person. So it’s going on a year that they’ve been looking for this person . And you just kind of have to ask yourself, maybe you’re not going to find that person dude.
ANGELA: Yeah, it’s a unicorn. Pretty much. You have to redefine it or something.
SARA: Exactly, something’s got to give. You know, it was really difficult. So, just kind of address your issue; so yeah, I had savings and I was working different contracts and stuff. So I wasn’t making money, but at a certain point I wasn’t losing a whole bunch of money. That being said, the balance still was going down instead of up.
ANGELA: Sure.
SARA: And I got, I mean, I, so I put, I told them this story. I literally got to the point where I said, okay, well, I can’t find a software job. I’ve tried, you know. I tried my best. It’s not going to happen for me. But I’m not going to give up. I just need to get a day job and I’m going to support my software habit, you know, and I’m going to see how, I’m going to still do this. And so I literally, again, I didn’t give up in a really sad, dramatic way, but I had just practically speaking said hey I need income, so I started applying to these content marketing, digital marketing jobs and, girl, like wildfire people would be calling me back. People were dying to hire me, because I’m so good at that stuff and I have ten years experience doing that.
PAIGE: You’re a unicorn.
SARA: Yeah, exactly. I am the unicorn. So I was literally, the day I got my first job offer I was going to have job interviews for these content jobs, and then I had to cancel them because I had got the offers. And so that was kind of where I was at. I thought, hey, you know what, I’m not going to give up on this dream, but I have to be realistic about these parameters. And so there is that. You know, like I said, I was getting a little bit nervous about the balance of my savings so, and then I think as far as the emotional stuff, I’m not going to lie. I mean, I gained weight during the bootcamp because I was working out regularly and I just had to sit there for like, you know, 14, 15 hours a day I was just sitting.
ANGELA: Yep.
SARA: The closest, the best I could do is go for a walk around the block. And so I gained weight. And I was like, great, so I’ve gained weight, I don’t have a job, nobody hires me, nobody likes me.
ANGELA: Your savings is going down.
SARA: My savings is going down. It was depressing. It sucked.
ANGELA: Yeah.
SARA: And that’s, you know, I think what I, you know, I was telling my friends recently, you know, I’ve gotten to that point in my life where I know myself as a well rounded person, the good and the bad things. And I said one thing that I really like about myself, and I don’t think that this is because I’m an extraordinary person, it’s just the way that I am, is i bounce back. Sometimes it takes me a few years after whatever, the ups and downs of life, but I always bounce back eventually. And so, you know, I kind of knew that. Even when I was having bad days. And like, Sara, you’re going to get there, you always do. And I think the other thing is, I have worked in environments that were like sexist. I just was like, I am not going to let these bastards get me down.
PAIGE: Right on. That’s the attitude you’ve got to have about anything, really.
SARA: Like hell no. So that was another thing. So, yeah, and then that’s actually kind of where the Women Who Code came into the picture. I was sitting at home feeling all like, oh nobody likes me. I’ll never be a software developer. All feeling sorry for myself and pathetic. And I thought, you know what Sara, you need to get out of this house and you need to go talk to some other human beings, because I was working from home. I said, you need to go out and you need to meet people, because you can’t keep hanging out with yourself only anymore.
ANGELA: Hanging out with yourself.
SARA: So I went to my first Women Who Code event. It was a Tech Talk and it was okay. I wasn’t like super impressed by it. But then I went to another one and that’s when I met some cool people, I heard some great stories, I met Holly the founder of Women Who Code Austin and Trisha the other co-director of Women Who Code Austin. I felt good being there, because I thought, hey, you know, other people had struggles. I’m struggling. It’s not me. You know, I talked to Holly. I said hey this is great. I would love to be involved. Like, I mean, just off the top of my head I didn’t know how I was going to help, but I can tweet. I do digital marketing. I can help you with that. Can I help you with that? She’s like great. So that same day, that same night I got on, hopped on the Women Who Code Austin Twitter and I started living tweeting the lighting talks and after that I said, hey I’m looking for a job, like I’d love any help you can give me. Also, let me know how I can help. That was in February. And so, you know, kind of what happened from there was I really kind of started focusing on the Twitter account and really kind of stepped up the Women Who Code Austin messaging on Twitter and really cool stuff started happening. We started getting more sponsors. We started getting more members in the Women Who Code meetup. We started being able to have panels. We had a panel about women in technology. It’s been really great. And then I had this idea. I said, hey, you know, we have all of these women who are coming who want to work in technology but they don’t have portfolio. We should have, like a portfolio hackathon. And we should say, we’re going to focus on women and we’re going to focus on diversity, because nobody else in this town is focusing on diversity. We’re the ones. We are going to be the change that we seek, right. So it was a great idea and then randomly started having conversations with some of the ladies that work over at Capital Factory, which is an accelerator here in town. And they said, hey we would love to host you for your hackathon. And we can find you a happy hour sponsor. And I said, sure, great, let me know the dates. They’re like in three weeks. So we had a quick pow-wow with the Women Who Code ladies and we said you guys want to do this in three weeks. So we did. In three weeks, you know, we all kind of, we got sponsorship moneys. We got the messaging out. We had people help us invite their members. And we had, what, some person said it at their happy hour it was like the most diverse group of tech people they’d ever seen in Austin. And we had like 90 people show up to participate-
PAIGE: Wow.
SARA: -in the hackathon. We had a Ruby workshop. She had an IBM Bluemix workshop. I mean, i think next year we definitely want to try to have more workshops for beginners, but it was just such a cool event. I literally, girl, I showed up Saturday morning, because Friday night we had the happy hour, so I was all stressed out and tired. We got on TV, was interviewed by the local ABC affiliate, which is super cool.
PAIGE: Oh, that’s super cool.
SARA: And so by the time I got home I was just wiped out. So I wake up Saturday morning at like 8:00 and I’m like why is this happening to me. But I get to the Capital Factory and I’m just barely awake and I look and I”m like what are all these people doing here? I was really shocked that so many people showed up that early on a Saturday and it was great. So, after that, you know, Holly spoke to the Women Who Code organization and Trisha and myself became co-directors of Women Who Code Austin and so it’s just been, that’s something that I would say to folks who are kind of looking for that next job. You know, trying to get their break, catch their break. Go to a Women Who Code event. Start your own event. I mean, I’ve been so impressed. And I’m not like a super new agey person or anything, but we have a nice little group. The Women Who Code organizers and co-directors and volunteers and in the last few months two of them have gotten new jobs making a bunch of money and they’ve been helping the rest of us find jobs, get bigger paychecks. I mean, when we’re all together, we’re so much more powerful than we are when we’re on our own.
PAIGE: That’s exactly the point.
SARA: Yeah, and I’m a true believer. I’m not saying this because, I’m like, girl power, just for the sense of saying it, but, you know-
PAIGE: It’s not even just girl power. It’s any group that comes together with a purpose, with common experience, that’s where you find power. That’s why the majority has power, because they’re already together with a common experience. We can do the same thing.
SARA: Yeah, and it’s been really powerful moment in my life to be–you know, we have a, we call it, what is it called, ladies coding brunch, on Sundays and we get together. A lot of Women Who Code stuff gets done over brunch on Sundays. But, you know, hey I’m working on this project does anybody know Angular, da, da, da. Hey, I”m working on this job application, can you look at my resume, okay let’s go over your LInkedIn profile. It’s just tremendous. We can pull all of our resources together so we have this big pile of resources as opposed to each one of us out there trying to make it happen. And so I have to say, I wasn’t feeling so good about myself. You know, I didn’t have a job, money was going out, I was like overweight, I was just like woe is me. I’m so sad. And then I got these job offers and, it was just the Women Who Code community or whatever really kind of helped me. Like, it was something I could lean on before, while I got to where I wanted to go. So, and Holly started Women Who Code Austin when she was in a bootcamp, when she was here at Makersquare. I mean, she had moved from LA, didn’t know anybody in Austin. She had some health issues and she said, hey, you know what, I need a community. So she started one. And so that’s what I would say. If you don’t have a Women Who Code, you know, check out meetups. You know, I started a JavaScript study group just amongst the people that I know because we’re all trying to better our skills, for example, right? So create a community. Don’t do it by yourself, because that sucks.
ANGELA: Thank you for listening to this episode of Women’s Tech Radio. Remember, you can check out the show notes which includes a full transcription over at JupiterBroadcasting.com. Just click on Women’s Tech Radio and scroll down.
PAIGE: You can also hit us up on Twitter, @heywtr, or send us an email at WTR@JupiterBroadcasting.com Thanks so much.

ANGELA: This is Women’s Tech Radio.
PAIGE: A show on the Jupiter Broadcasting Network, interviewing interesting women in technology. Exploring their roles and how they’re successful in technology careers. I’m Paige.
ANGELA: And I’m Angela.
PAIGE: So Angela, today we’re joined by Jami. She’s a technical writer with a company in Boston. She does a lot of interesting work trying to translate developers and in her position for developers. So we talk a little bit about that and we get into what it means to be a technical write and kind of dig into that whole career path.
ANGELA: And before we get into this interview, I would just like to say that you can support the network and the ongoingness of this show, Women’s Tech Radio, by going to pateron.com/today. And that is where you will find that we put out a podcast specifically to thank the patrons that are supporting the network. It’s Tech Talk Today. It’s a quick show that we do four days a week of the top headlines. And it’s just a thank you. It’s something that we’re able to launch because we are getting funding that way. So, again, you can support Women’s Tech Radio through patreon.com/jupitersignal.
PAIGE: And to get started, we asked Jami what she’s doing in technology today.
JAMI: I’m currently a tech writer. I work for Agency Port Software in Boston. We are a technology company that offers web-based software and tools to P&C insurance companies, and I’m pretty much responsible for creating and maintaining all of their product documentation and as well as the developer documentation site where all that documentation lives. So mostly my responsibilities are related to actual documentation. So I document any updates to the products and the release notes whenever releases go out. And then the other half is I’m actually dealing with the technical aspects of the site. So we make sure everything is up and running, everything is displaying properly, the styles look good, the features looks good. I”m working mostly in a tool called MadCap Flare. It’s an authoring tool. But I also work heavily in CSS and a little bit of Javascript and now learning a little bit more about Bootstrap.
PAIGE: So are you working in MadCap Flare? Is that like your internal program and then you’re also starting to author some of the stuff for the web and that’s why you’re diving into CSS and HTML and stuff?
JAMI: Yeah. So, MadCap Flare, it’s an external software component that you can use to actually build documentation sites. So you kind of organize everything and it builds HTML files that then compile out that you can build an actual site with. But we wanted something a little bit more modern and that we can customize a lot more than what’s built into the product. So that’s why we kind of bring in the CSS and the Javascript and the Bootstrap so that we can make it a little bit more modern and trendy to kind of meet our company’s branding.
PAIGE: So is this something — technical writing is actually — we haven’t had a technical writer on the show yet.
ANGELA: Uh-uh.
PAIGE: So this is kind of fun. What does it mean to do technical writing? I think you kind of grazed over it, but what do you do as a technical writer, like in the nitty gritty?
JAMI: Well, in my position now you’re working with the developers. You’re working with the engineers to find out exactly what is done on a project as related to a product. So whenever they make changes, we have to make sure that we’re relaying that information to whoever the audience is. So in my current case, our audience is actual developers who are customizing our software for clients. So they need to learn how to customize everything. So those updates go in for the content and we also relay the updates as for release notes. So we’re constantly keeping communication to our clients to what we’re being, what’s being done into the product.
PAIGE: So you’re kind of translating developers, and in your position, for developers?
JAMI: Yes. In prior positions where I’ve worked as a tech writer it was kind of the opposite. Where I was interpreting developers notes and trying to decipher it into a language that any man could understand, like they have no technical background but they need to understand. But in my current case it’s, I’m actually relaying developer information for another developer, if that makes sense.
ANGELA: Yeah.
PAIGE: Totally. So are you super technical? Are you a developer yourself? How does that work for you to kind of translate like that?
JAMI: I’m not really a developer per say. I mean, I’m starting to learn a lot more, especially in the past year or so. But I’m more of the content side of it. So I can understand it, but if you give me something to code completely in Javascript, i don’t know how to do that just yet, but I could at least read it and understand what’s going on.
PAIGE: Well, that’s actually a lot farther than some developers I know. So you’re doing really well.
JAMI: Thanks.
PAIGE: Is that something you went to school for? To be — either to understand Javascript or to be a technical writer?
JAMI: Actually, no. I actually don’t have really any formal training as far as even technical writing. My degree was actually in creative writing and journalism and I started working for a small IT company right out of college kind of helping with their help desk and I just gradually made my way up. And now today, I — since working with developers and having to actually look at code, it’s kind of forced me to learn, but also — I’m mean it’s not like a forcing, but — so it’s interesting to finally learn how to do some of this stuff. And then actually to learn more. I’ve been taking classes on Code School and Codecademy and trying to actually dig into code and try to figure it out so that I can understand what they’re talking about.
PAIGE: Very cool. So you’re self-teaching yourself so you can have more understanding at work?
JAMI: Right. Exactly.
PAIGE: And do cool things. Very cool.
JAMI: Right.
PAIGE: That’s actually how I got started.
JAMI: Very nice.
PAIGE: I always like to ask this sort of question, but how does it flip around? Do you feel like you have this creative writing and journalism background and you’re trying to learn code. Do you feel like any of the developers are actually trying to learn how to write more like humans?
JAMI: In some cases, yes. Yes.
PAIGE: Awesome.
JAMI: Or maybe we wish that they did, I guess.
PAIGE: Maybe somebody should write a Codecademy for technical writing so that we could learn how to write better documentation.
JAMI: That would be nice.
PAIGE: Yeah. I think they’re based out of Boston or New York. I think they’re in New York.
JAMI: I’m not sure. Yeah.
PAIGE: They’re very close. How did you get where you are? It sounds like you started out of college and you had the college degree. Have you always had an interest in tech or was it just kind of that random happenstance?
JAMI: Well, I mean, I’ve always been into computers and tech, and I’m really tech savvy. So just kind of, I kind of fit in right away in the department and I just — I love it. I mean, I’m always learning something new. It’s always evolving. So, I just — I’ve kind of found that happy medium where I’m writing, but I’m also getting the chance to actually work in tech.
PAIGE: I think it’s interesting how the tech — like if we look at it from a broad perspective. It really is a very deep field. It takes a lot of disciplines. You know, we’ve had so many different people on the show; artist, developers, designers, and writers now and there’s really — there’s room for all of us in this field to do good things.
JAMI: Right.
PAIGE: So why tech? You said you’re tech savvy. What does that mean to you and is it — what kind of stokes your fire in the tech end of things?
JAMI: Well, I think it’s kind of — because I have this personality where I like to kind of be a detective and try to figure things out. So I think in tech I kind of get that opportunity. Where it’s like, oh I don’t know why this page isn’t showing up right. Let me see why. Let me try to fix this. Okay, that’s not working. Let me try this. And just trying to find the answer. If it’s either online or talking to people. And it’s like you kind of get the opportunity to see what you did right away.
PAIGE: Yeah. We actually had an interview, a couple of weeks ago by now, where we talked to somebody about failing. And I think that willingness to explore and to fail forward, like oh does this worK? And to break it and then fix it is — that’s that mindset for me. It’s super important.
JAMI: Absolutely. Yeah, and it helps you learn because I mean for me I’m more of a hands on person, so actually digging in and trying to do things is how I’m going to figure out how to do it.
ANGELA: Is there anything tech related that you do outside of work, like hobby wise? Like blogging or?
JAMI: I did for a while. I was — I did blog for a while. I did some side freelance work for Bot.com for a while, for like two years. So I had to maintain their — maintain my — I had my own personal site and I had to do all that stuff. I was into photography for a while. So I was editing photos a lot. Right now I just really — I honestly haven’t had a whole lot of spare time to do a lot of outside tech related stuff, but I mean I’ve been using a computer for the past probably 20 years or so.
ANGELA: Yeah.
J; So it’s like attached to me. It’s just a part of our lives now. Tech is always around me.
PAIGE: Yeah, totally. You can’t get away from it anymore.
JAMI: No. It’s like a — it’s literally attached to you hip.
PAIGE: I guess you could move to Amish country in Pennsylvania.
JAMI: Yeah.
PAIGE: That’s about it.
ANGELA: I heard there’s a really good buffet.
PAIGE: Really?
ANGELA: Yeah, really.
PAIGE: I don’t know. I mean, are they offended-
ANGELA: My mom went to it and so did one of my friends.
PAIGE: I’ve had some of the best pancakes ever in Amish country, so maybe it’s relevant. I don’t know. Very fun. So you’re in the Boston community. How is the — kind of the tech community out there?
JAMI: It’s really booming right now, it seems. I mean, I’ve been here a little over a year, but especially in the area we’re in, we’re kind of near South Boston and just companies are moving in, startups and just everything. It’s very tech heavy right now.
PAIGE: I’m from the Boston area, I will admit.
JAMI: Uh-huh.
PAIGE: What is kind of your favorite thing about — I know you just moved up there. What’s kind of your favorite Boston thing so far?
JAMI: I’d say just being in the city to me is just exhilarating. Because I’m kind of from — I grew up in a small Florida town and kind of moved around Florida a lot where we didn’t really have that metropolitan feel. And of course the weather here. And summer/spring is very nice. Winter is a little bit challenging. But I love public transportation so getting on the train everyday to me is exciting.
PAIGE: Boston public transit, I had no idea how spoiled i was until I moved away from Boston, but it’s pretty much, once you get out of the Boston, New York, DC corridor, once you get out of there the rest of the country does not have the kind of public transport that the northeast has, and I had no idea.
JAMI: No. Yeah.
PAIGE: But I’m surprised you say summer. Well, I guess you’re from Florida. Honestly the worst part of New England weather to me is the hot, sticky summers, but Florida definitely takes the cake on that one.
ANGELA: Yeah.
JAMI: Right. Right. Yeah, it’s not that — I mean it’s been high 80s but it’s not that bad.
PAIGE: We also ask a couple of things that people do. So what else do you do with your free time?
JAMI: Well, I have a little dog named Penny so I like to spend time a lot with her. I like to research old train stations, which is kind of silly, but it’s kind of like a new thing since I’ve moved up here to New England. There’s a lot of — obviously a lot of history, a lot of hold history. But a lot of old train stations that have either been renovated into other things or they’re just kind of missing and you just kind of see pieces of them and you want to know why. Like why, what happened? And things like that.
PAIGE: That’s really fascinating. You should blog about that.
JAMI: It’s such a random thing. I don’t know why I’m so obsessed with it.
ANGELA: Yeah, no, seriously. Yeah, if you started a blog I bet you could get-
PAIGE: I would follow that.
ANGELA: Click revenue, because trains and stuff like that is really a popular thing.
JAMI: Probably.
PAIGE: Even if you’re in a for a casual ride, the Rail to Trail project that has happened through most of New England is fascinating.
JAMI: Yes.
PAIGE: And you get to go by a lot of those old train stations and things.
JAMI: Yes, we have one that actually runs right by our house. We haven’t been since fall, but we take the dog and it’s very interesting. Some of the old signals are even still there. And the old crossover bridges. It’s very cool.
PAIGE: New England is a really fascinating place for history. Definitely. Highly recommend. So you’re teaching yourself right now. What are some of the things that are hardest for you, even just learning like — is it jus getting your head around the logic of it? Like understanding terms? Like what is a variable? What is a function? Like what’s your sticking points and how are you getting over them or how are you not?
JAMI: I think it’s more the logic, because I’m kind of still in the midst of doing some of the online courses for Javascript. And it’s just — I don’t know if it’s the math portion or it’s just kind of all of it at once, like the, you know, if L statements and things like that. Sometimes it kind of throws me around. It’s just trying to figure it out. They give you a sample. Okay. Here’s some code, now try to fix it. Or you’ve got to write this yourself. here’s your variables and write it. So it’s just digging in and trying to figure it out is the best way how I get through it.
PAIGE: I like that. I also usually encourage people who are new to programming to write it out in plain English first.
JAMI: Uh-huh.
PAIGE: And then try to make it into code.
JAMI: Right.
PAIGE: Because if you write the logic in a way that you understand it and then translate, it can kind of help that step. Are you just doing stuff online? Are you going to meetups or anything?
JAMI: I haven’t gone to any meetups yet. I know there are a lot in the Boston area. I know there are couple of, especially for women they’re actually creating — there’s a lot of groups that are actually for women that want to code and you could actually get involved in these groups and they do meetups. And basically at any level you could just want to learn and you could get into the groups and start working with them and learn more. And that’s something I’d love to do. I just haven’t had the chance right now, unfortunately.
PAIGE: I definitely encourage you to check that out. I’m actually the director for Women Who Code Portland and I know that we have a Boston chapter.
JAMI: NIce.
PAIGE: And I think Girl Develop It is out there if you want something more workshoppy.
JAMI: Right.
PAIGE: I highly recommend both of those.
ANGELA: Do you have, at your job, are you the only technical writer or is there somebody else that you — that also does that?
JAMI: No, I am the sole technical writer. I was actually hired on last year to help their documentation section. They were using and old Drupal platform and they wanted something more robust and more modern that could actually kind of help users navigate it through better. So that’s kind of where I came along. I’ve had a little over six years’ experience as a tech writer so I kind of brought my expertise in and helped them find the MadCap Flare tool to build their documentation set. So I’m the sole person on that — in that full team right now.
ANGELA: Job security.
JAMI: Yes.
ANGELA: Have you ever met another technical writer? Like with either a partnering company or a client that has a technical writer?
JAMI: Yes.
ANGELA: Yeah? Is that-
JAMI: Yes.
ANGELA: Are you guys able to like share hidden jokes and — I don’t know.
JAMI: Sometimes. Yeah, so my last job before this one I was actually on a technical writing team. We had — I think at one time we had about five writers and a supervisor that we’d all been — you know, we were all tech writers. So we all knew the jokes, whether it be about a specific programmer or just the logic of things. Of, oh like, oh your authoring tool is doing something weird again. Oh no. You know, things like that. It’s mostly just weird little quirks.
ANGELA: Uh-huh.
PAIGE: Did you ever put easter eggs inside technical documentation like we do with programs?
JAMI: Uh, no I haven’t.
PAIGE: You should consider it.
ANGELA: Yeah. You work on that. We’ll check back with you in six months.
JAMI: Okay. Yeah.
ANGELA: No, just kidding.
PAIGE: So, if someone was listening to the show and is a writer currently, they’re freelance or whatever they’re doing, or maybe they’re finishing a degree or something and they wanted to get into technical writing, what kind of advice would you give them?
JAMI: I would just say to get out there and read as much as you can about it. I mean, from my perspective, I didn’t have an actual formal tech writing training. I didn’t go to school for it. So you kind of have to be tech savvy in some sense, and you have to be willing to learn. You have to be open minded that things are going to change and that you have to kind of be up and current and to — you know, whether it be the current authoring tools platforms that are available or the other kinds of ways that you can make your documentation better. And it’s just to get out there and try to create something. Take online courses or tutorials and just do what you can. Because this is just how you can learn.
PAIGE: Do you have any courses you might recommend for technical writing?
ANGELA: Maybe not yet. I think you’re probably in the early stages of figuring out what it is that would have been helpful?
JAMI: Yeah. And I mean, back when I was starting to learn six years ago there wasn’t — I don’t think there was a whole lot free online, you know, tutorials like there are now. But there are books out there that you could look in technical writing. I believe there’s a site called technicalwriting.com, if that’s still available. I”m not sure. BUt I think that’s a community so you can share ideas and things like that.
PAIGE: We’ve had some people give the advice before of people who are even just looking to get into development to — if they wanted to kind of dip their toes in open source that actually doing documentation work for open source projects is valuable. Do you think that would be valuable for a technical writer as well?
JAMI: Yes, definitely. If you really want to just get your experience, get your foot in the door, and if you’re willing to either volunteer your time or something like that, it definitely — definitely find — or a startup. Or something like that, that really could use some documentation help. ANd if you’re open to learning along the way with them.
PAIGE: So just like development, just get your feet in and do the work and it will pay off.
JAMI: Correct.
ANGELA: Thank you for listening to this episode of Women’s Tech Radio. Don’t forget you can find the full transcription either in the YouTube description or on JupiterBroadcasting.com. Find the Women’s Tech Radio dropdown and you can also listen to our back catalogs. We have a lot of amazing shows on there.
PAIGE: So many great women have been on this show. You can also find us on iTunes. If you have a moment, leave us a review. We’d love to hear what you think. You can also contact us by dropping us a line at WTR@JupiterBroadcasting.com or followng us on Twitter, @heywtr. Thanks so much for listening.