Making it in tech: 3 Inspirational Stories of Breaking into Tech

We’re interviewing some of the tech industry’s biggest success stories to help you learn from their experiences, gain valuable wisdom and feel inspired to become stronger in your role. 

Check out the series to learn from the pros about:

• The advantages or disadvantages of coming from a non-traditional background

• What unexpected challenges they’ve faced in their careers

• Advice they’d give their younger selves

• How they carved out space for themselves to be success

• If they’ve ever secretly wanted to quit tech

• And more!

Cassidy Williams is a self-taught coder who now works as the Director of Developer Experience at Netlify. Listen to her story to hear: Why she’s passionate about mechanical keyboards, the one challenge she wasn’t prepared for in her role at Netlify, what advice she’d give to people wanting to break into tech, the advantages and disadvantages of being non-traditional, and more!

Danny Thompson is a software developer working in dev ecosystems. But, before he learned how to code, he was “the chicken guy” who worked at a local gas station frying chicken. Listen to his story to hear: Advice for newbies in tech, a lesson on what “geniuses” actually work like, the advantages of being a non-traditional technologist, skills every developer, traditional or non-traditional, should learn, and more!

April Speight is a Spatial Computing Cloud Advocate at Microsoft who previously worked in the luxury fashion design industry. Listen to her story to hear: How she carved out space for success as a non-traditional technologist, the disadvantages non-traditional technologists have to overcome, her favorite VR games, and more!