PODCAST · technology
We Belong Here: Lessons from Unconventional Paths to Tech
by Lauren Lee
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/
Episodes
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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…
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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…
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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 &...
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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…
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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…
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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...
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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…
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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…
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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,...
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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...
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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,...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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…
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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....
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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…
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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...
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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…
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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.…
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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:...
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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.”...
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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...
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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…
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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…
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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…
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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...
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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…
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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...
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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…
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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…
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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...
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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...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
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/
HOSTED BY
Lauren Lee
CATEGORIES
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does We Belong Here: Lessons from Unconventional Paths to Tech have?
We Belong Here: Lessons from Unconventional Paths to Tech currently has 67 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is We Belong Here: Lessons from Unconventional Paths to Tech about?
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...
How often does We Belong Here: Lessons from Unconventional Paths to Tech release new episodes?
We Belong Here: Lessons from Unconventional Paths to Tech has 67 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
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You can listen to We Belong Here: Lessons from Unconventional Paths to Tech on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts We Belong Here: Lessons from Unconventional Paths to Tech?
We Belong Here: Lessons from Unconventional Paths to Tech is created and hosted by Lauren Lee.
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