“Knowing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript feel like they give me the alchemy to essentially create an environment, sort of like a blank commercial or residential space ready to be filled with ideas and more.”
I chose to dive into Front-End Development because I feel there is a great need to change diversity in programming and represent women of color in the technical arena. The pandemic has shifted the way businesses in the construction and architectural industries operate today. I can see a gap in connection for consumers to find contracting and design companies via the internet. I feel like a lane has opened up for me to help bring more visibility to the contractors in need of web services. I love design, concepts, and creating as an artist. This is a technical way to marry my passion for development and my willingness to influence the builder’s community as a woman of color.
Ideally, I’d like to have a fluid transition from interior design and construction to a more remote consulting position. In my experience, contractors build their network from word of mouth. Now that we don’t gather the way we once did, there is a need for me to help liaise both old and new businesses in finding each other. This allows me the freedom of having a finger on the creative pulse.
Something that is fun and stands out about my journey in development is the way my brain has assimilated to the way I look at interior design any time I walk into a room.
Something that is fun and stands out about my journey in development is the way my brain has assimilated to the way I look at interior design any time I walk into a room. I look at all the layers of the time and thought that went into the functionality and pleasure of aesthetics coordinated in perfect harmony or in intentional disarray. I can pick apart the way the interface works in the same way. Knowing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript feel like they give me the alchemy to essentially create an environment, sort of like a blank commercial or residential space ready to be filled with ideas and more. It makes me feel like I have a special talent and a keen eye for perception.
Like most web developers these days, I’m not above wanting to have a comfortable six-figure salary from my work-from-home job while I continue to make art, advocate for black communities and safe-spaces, and conceptualize design. On this path, I aspire to create an online community for black families to find and help each other through information sharing. There’s such a divide and disconnect within my community I’d hope to create an easy way to bring our resources together and make them visible.
Thinking about who I have been watching in admiration these days wasn’t easy to capture in just one person. At the moment I can say it’s the other 14 women of color in this Bootcamp making a way to be a representation of excellence in a place we have been closed out from for far too long. I admire all the skate girls out here being as bada** as any guy on the rails, our Vice-President for being the first female to break into the “ Good Ole Boys” club as a POC, my girlfriend for receiving her Ph.D. in her mission to change education policies, myself for being brave enough to make a bold change in my career path in the middle of a pandemic. Just to name a few.
Hacking Barriers is a remote learning collaboration to decrease barriers of entry into the tech industry by WITPGH in partnership with Team Treehouse + The Center On Interracial Relationships + Neighborhood Allies. The cohort features an entirely remote learning and support program for BIPOC women that employs a multi-pronged approach to the popular bootcamp method of learning programming and design related technical skills. The program includes local networking and work-life balance resiliency workshops with a structured 6 month online technical bootcamp featuring tracks for Python, Front-End Web Development, Full-Stack Development, User Experience, and PHP.