DEV Community: Developer Circle: Mombasa

Using Postman Like a Pro!

c a — Fri, 04 Jun 2021 11:02:06 +0000

Postman is an API testing platform. You can use postman web platform:

or the desktop application for testing your APIs.

Postman can be used to test all API requests: get/put/create/delete

If you are new to postman, I'd suggest you go through their Bootcamp: https://web.postman.co/bootcamp

I will be using the desktop application for the demos, they're no big differences from using the web version of postman.

What this article covers:

Creating collections
Adding requests
Creating environments and Variables

Creating Collections:

In Postman, collections are folders where you put all APIs with similar descriptions or projects together. It is a pretty neat way to organize your APIs for testing.

https://www.postman.com/collection/

Follow the few steps to create an API collection:

Ensure that you are on the collections tab by clicking on the Collections with a folder icon on the top left side menu.

On the right of the Collections notice the "+" icon and on hovering it, a pop up with the message: "Create new Collection" appears.

Click the "+" icon to create a new collection. Notice a new folder is created New Collection and a new tab opened simultaneously.

Right-click on the folder and select rename to give the collection a name of your choosing or double click on the new collection name on the tab to rename.

PSST! I will rename mine to Demo

Adding requests to a Collection:

On hovering over the collection name on the left panel. notice the 3-horizontal-dots, click on it to open a quick menu.

Select Add request and notice a new tab opens:

Let's add an API endpoint and make a request:

https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/users

Paste the URL in the input label with a placeholder text "Enter request URL", ensure the method on the left is set to "GET" and hit 'Send' to make a request.

The response:

Creating environments and Variables

An environment in postman is just a collection of variables to be used in a request or a collection

https://learning.postman.com/docs/sending-requests/managing-environments/

The selected environment status is at the top-right of Postman, the default is "No environment".

Here is how we create a new environment and add our variables:

On the left side of the postman web/app, click on the Environment.

Click on the "+" icon to create a new environment, then give it a name.

To create a variable, manually fill the details on the environment tab:

I will create a variable for the base URL of the API endpoint: https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/

VARIABLE: url
INITIAL VALUE: https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/
CURRENT VALUE: https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/

To use the variable, go to the request tab and replace the https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/ with {{url}}

Then on the top-right, select an environment (select the one you just created from the Dropdown).

After that, make the request to see if everything went well:

That is it, to view the demo use:

NOTE

There are many ways to create a variable, environment or collections in Postman, I just highlighted the common ones. Feel free to hover on the postman docs to learn and practice more:

https://learning.postman.com/docs/getting-started/introduction/

MY BIO

My Developer Profile & Branding

c a — Mon, 12 Apr 2021 06:31:54 +0000

Your Brand is what people out here talk about you, so it's up to you to make it good or bad, or beneficial to your career.

There are a lot of outstanding Developer profiles that we admire and look up to them for guidance and most importantly, our personal growth. There are too many articles and videos on how to market yourself as a developer, creating outstanding Resumes, and become influential on social media platforms.

I have had my share of ups and downs in personal branding, and still making my way up there. TL;DR, I'll highlight some major changes I have made.

Creating a Resume.

My Resumes have grown to become very short and straight to the point. I have a habit of versioning my resume for easy differentiation and also avoid repetition. So far these are the key points I take when updating my resume:

### Make your resume as short as possible:

I learned that recruiters and hiring personnel have a number of resumes to go through for a single vacant position, and they barely have a minute to go through a single resume. So try as much as possible to make your resume short and with the most important details you'd love to share. (It's Not Rocket Science).

### Making your Resume ATS Compliant:

An applicant tracking system — or ATS, for short — is a type of software used by recruiters and employers during the hiring process to collect, sort, scan, and rank the job applications they receive for their open positions.

Big companies have the resumes submitted reviewed under an ATS before a real human goes through them. You may want to up your game to become a start out of this. Check out the following resources:

https://www.topresume.com/career-advice/what-is-an-ats-resume

https://novoresume.com/career-blog/ats-resume

https://www.themuse.com/advice/beat-the-robots-how-to-get-your-resume-past-the-system-into-human-hands

Feel free to Google for more and more resources!

### Focus on your achievements other than responsibilities:

You may want to specify the impact of your responsibilities in the work experience part of your resume. For example, other than saying:

Front end design

Say:

Creating an Interactive user interface that is 
accessible and up to WCAG standards

Also, it is advisable to quantify your impact statements with actual and realistic data.

### Your Skills

Your skills are what sell your brand. It is important to categorize your skills, either soft skills or technical skills, various categories of technical skills i.e front end...

You should try and be brief and detailed oriented when listing your skills.

A quick review of my current resume:

Your Portfolio

A portfolio showcases what you have done with your mentioned skills. It is like the documentation to your Resume.

On this, I prefer having my own website (Online portfolio). There are no particular standards for making a great portfolio. Here is where you put your imagination into effect. i.e

imagination.initialize(true)

Conclusion

Do not be limited to my opinions or other people's opinions on how you should brand yourself. Be true to yourself and know what you looking for.

Dev Tech Question: What Are These Things?

c a — Thu, 18 Mar 2021 14:59:50 +0000

Every Thursday, I post a question for The Dev Tech Question. This article is for the post on Thu March 18, 2021.

Questions:

The three questions asked were:

What is a DOM?
What is a CORS
What is Big-O-Notation?

Answers:

A great summarized answer commented by one of the community members, Kimatia J Dan:

DOM is the document object model used to manipulate the events without necessarily refreshing the browser.
CORS is cross-origin resource sharing which is a security mechanism that allows trusted requests from trusted apps to communicate with backend services.
Big o notation is a measure of how an algorithm will perform in worst-case scenarios.

What is the DOM?

Answer

The DOM (Document Object Model) is a cross-platform API that treats HTML and XML documents as a tree structure consisting of nodes. These nodes (such as elements and text nodes) are objects that can be programmatically manipulated and any visible changes made to them are reflected live in the document. In a browser, this API is available to JavaScript where DOM nodes can be manipulated to change their styles, contents, placement in the document, or interacted with through event listeners.

What is CORS?

Answer

Cross-Origin Resource Sharing or CORS is a mechanism that uses additional HTTP headers to grant a browser permission to access resources from a server at an origin different from the website origin.

An example of a cross-origin request is a web application served from http://mydomain.com that uses AJAX to make a request for http://yourdomain.com.

For security reasons, browsers restrict cross-origin HTTP requests initiated by JavaScript. XMLHttpRequest and fetch follow the same-origin policy, meaning a web application using those APIs can only request HTTP resources from the same origin the application was accessed, unless the response from the other origin includes the correct CORS headers.

What is Big O Notation?

Answer

Big O notation is used in Computer Science to describe the time complexity of an algorithm. The best algorithms will execute the fastest and have the simplest complexity.

Algorithms don't always perform the same and may vary based on the data they are supplied. While in some cases they will execute quickly, in other cases they will execute slowly, even with the same number of elements to deal with.

In these examples, the base time is 1 element = 1ms.

O(1)

arr[arr.length - 1]

1000 elements = 1ms

Constant time complexity. No matter how many elements the array has, it will theoretically take (excluding real-world variation) the same amount of time to execute.

O(N)

arr.filter(fn)

1000 elements = 1000ms

Linear time complexity. The execution time will increase linearly with the number of elements the array has. If the array has 1000 elements and the function takes 1ms to execute, 7000 elements will take 7ms to execute. This is because the function must iterate through all elements of the array before returning a result.

O([1, N])

arr.some(fn)

1000 elements = 1ms <= x <= 1000ms

The execution time varies depending on the data supplied to the function, it may return very early or very late. The best case here is O(1) and the worst case is O(N).

O(NlogN)

arr.sort(fn)

1000 elements ~= 10000ms

Browsers usually implement the quicksort algorithm for the sort() method and the average time complexity of quicksort is O(NlgN). This is very efficient for large collections.

O(N^2)

for (let i = 0; i < arr.length; i++) {
  for (let j = 0; j < arr.length; j++) {
    // ...
  }
}

1000 elements = 1000000ms

The execution time rises quadratically with the number of elements. Usually the result of nesting loops.

O(N!)

const permutations = arr => {
  if (arr.length <= 2) return arr.length === 2 ? [arr, [arr[1], arr[0]]] : arr
  return arr.reduce(
    (acc, item, i) =>
      acc.concat(
        permutations([...arr.slice(0, i), ...arr.slice(i + 1)]).map(val => [
          item,
          ...val
        ])
      ),
    []
  )
}

1000 elements = Infinity (practically) ms

The execution time rises extremely fast with even just 1 addition to the array.

Nevertheless, she coded: Linah Anyango

Joan Awinja Ingari — Mon, 08 Mar 2021 14:13:35 +0000

Linah is a Biology and Chemistry teacher at Regis School,Runda. In her 12 years of teaching, she has been coming up with innovative ways of improving learning outcomes among marginalized girls in Mombasa.

In her quest to inspire girls to venture in the STEM field, she started the Girls in STEM club in her school, where she trains girls in Digital Literacy, invites mentors to speak to them and also prepares them for various STEM fairs. She has also been running an after school free coding sessions for teens in Ganahola slum, Mombasa.

Linah is a renowned speaker in both local and international EduTech Conferences where she has shared her insights on the role of ICT integration in transforming learning experiences and improving learning outcomes.

As a teacher coach, she has coached over 300 teachers on integrating various digital tools in teaching and learning. When schools were closed due to Covid-19 pandemic, she ensured that learning does not stop by training and coaching her colleagues on remote learning. she has been a Microsoft Innovative Educator Trainer and Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert from 2018.

Linah has received several recognitions for her contribution towards transforming education and was listed among the Top 50 Teachers in world in 2020.

Linah is African region Advisory board member of the BETT MEA show, an annual EduTech event which brings together great minds in education from Africa and Middle east to share on best practice. She is also a board member of Beacon Teachers Africa, An organisation that champions Teachers empowerment and image building as well as child protection.

Moreover, she is also the founder of Kanyadhiang’ Briquettes, a community-based organisation in Homa bay county which seeks to solve the problem of water hyacinth infestation by converting them into clean energy through making water hyacinth briquettes. The CBO has not only been a good source of revenue for the women and youth in who are the members but has also helped to fight climate change through clean energy and reduced the water hyacinth menace in lake Victoria. Her zeal to transform her community has won her scholarship into leadership trainings such as YALI and TechWomen.

Follow her on social media using the following links:
Facebook
Twitter

Nevertheless, She coded: Sharon Telewa

Joan Awinja Ingari — Mon, 08 Mar 2021 13:30:43 +0000

Happy International Women's Day!✨💖👯

My name is just Sharon, I do not have any nicknames(at least that I know of)

Where do you work?

B. Braun Group

What do you do?

I work as an Innovation and Business Development Manager at B. Braun Group, a healthcare company that manufactures medical devices and solutions. My job entails identifying internal and external innovative ideas which we can develop into new products to protect and improve the health of people across the world.

Who or what inspired you to pursue the career you have today?

My high school Physics teacher inspired me to study engineering at the University. Since then, I've had an incredibly supportive network of mentors who have influenced the changes in my career path to what I'm doing today.

What is your favourite music genre?

My playlist has a little bit of everything - from Jazz to traditional Luhya music.

what is your secret talent that no one knows about?

Knitting and Crocheting

My advice for allies to support underrepresented folks who code is...

First, never stop learning. Stay curious and updated in your field.
Second, it is okay to have a non-linear career path. Keep an open mind and always be on the look out for new opportunities.

How do you keep yourself up to date in your field?

I read - a lot!

How would you describe your job to a bunch of 5 year olds

I find new companies which can be friends with my company, and we can all play together and make cool products that help sick people feel better.

What cool thing are you working on right now?

I'm currently supporting the roll out of our new company strategy. It's exciting to see how a company that was founded over 180 years ago is adopting new technology and preparing for the future.

What was your first job?

I was an ICT4D Intern at a Community Knowledge Centre.

What are the toughest challenges you've had at work?

Overcoming Imposter Syndrome and learning to negotiate and advocate for myself.

What upcoming technological innovation will dramatically impact the industry in the next five years?

Artificial Intelligence and Robotics are dramatically changing the Healthcare industry, from enabling early detection to AI-assisted surgeries.

What skill do you think everyone should learn?

Hard to pick one - but I'd say everyone needs to pay as much attention to their soft skills as they do to their technical skills. Emotional intelligence, great communication skills and creative problem solving skills will get you very far.

Have you taken a huge leap of faith at work? Did it pay off?

Yes I have. I quit my job to move to a new country for a 1 year fellowship program that had no guaranteed future after that. It did pay off. I experienced a lot of growth over the one year, and the work that I did during the fellowship built a foundation for a new job with the same company.

How can we follow you?

Follow me on Twitter

Nevertheless, she coded: Sylvia Mukasa

Joan Awinja Ingari — Mon, 08 Mar 2021 13:29:36 +0000

Happy International Women's Day!✨💖👯

My name is Sylvia, Some of my friends call me Sylo.

Where do you work?

GlobalX Investments Ltd/ GlobalX Innovation Labs

What do you do?

I am Founder/CEO of GlobalX Investments/GlobalX Innovation Labs based in Nairobi, Kenya. GlobalX's vision is to drive a more diverse, inclusive and competitive digital economy with a focus on emerging technologies, that opens up equal opportunities for all. Our main purpose is to use technology to provide solutions for businesses and for social impact. GlobalX provides opportunities for children, youth, developers & entrepreneurs/businesses to learn, innovate, and scale up their knowledge in hardware and emerging technologies. In a nutshell, GlobalX feeds into the innovation pipeline by closing the skills, funding and organisational/corporate digital transformation gaps. GlobalX focuses on SDGs 4 (Quality Education);5 (Gender Equality);8 (Decent Work & Economic Growth); 9 (Industry, Innovation & Infrastructure; 10 (Reduced Inequalities) and 17 (Partnerships for the goals).I am also passionate about empowering Women in Tech and contributing to the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Africa and globally.

Who or what inspired you to pursue the career you have today?

I love working in tech because first, I like to make positive impact in society through innovations. Secondly, I get bored easily, so I like to do stuff that keeps me engaged and allows me to try different things, discover and keep learning. Being in tech allows me to do this. I always look forward to creating or being part of teams that create solutions for humanity.

What is your favourite music genre?

I enjoy Classical Music

what is your secret talent that no one knows about?

I am an alto choral singer.

What is the best advice you can give to someone who just started their career?

Believe in yourself and seek all the support you require to succeed, but you must be ready to knock many doors.

How do you keep yourself up to date in your field?

I read widely, speak at and also curate/hold tech events.

How would you describe your job to a bunch of 5 year olds

Have you heard of, seen, built or learnt how to build robots? Coded using scratch? Heard of, seen or built a drone or best still flown one? My work involves helping build or giving guidance/teaching individuals or companies to build or do these type of things. My work also involves helping people who create these things start/run businesses, just like the shopkeeper where you buy bread from runs their shop.

What cool thing are you working on right now?

I am working on an initiative that aims to increase the representation of women in Artificial Intelligence. This was born out of my participation in the ITCILO AI Lab between Aug-Nov 2020.

What was your first job?

I was an operations trainee with Shell/BP.

What are the toughest challenges you've had at work?

Being able to fund/get adequate resources for some initiatives I am passionate about.

What upcoming technological innovation will dramatically impact the industry in the next five years?

Artificial Intelligence (AI)-related innovations are definitely the industry game changer. It is estimated that by 2030, AI will contribute $15.7 Trillion to the global GDP, making it the biggest commercial opportunity in today’s fast changing economy. AI basically refers to the simulation of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to think like humans and mimic their actions. The term may also be applied to any machine that exhibits traits associated with a human mind such as learning and problem-solving. From disease mapping and prediction tools; song or TV show recommendations from Spotify and Netflix; conversational bots for customer support and marketing; to delivery of blood to remote locations that would be typically hard-to-reach, AI has definitely had a major contribution so far and continues to.

What skill do you think everyone should learn?

Public Speaking

Have you taken a huge leap of faith at work? Did it pay off?

Yes I have-getting into entrepreneurship. It has paid off especially in terms of impact, growing my professional brand as well as making me learn about myself.

How can we follow you?

Follow me on Twitter

Nevertheless, she coded: Carol Kariuki

Joan Awinja Ingari — Mon, 08 Mar 2021 13:28:15 +0000

Happy International Women's Day!✨💖👯

My name is just Carol, I do not have any nicknames(at least that I know of)

Where do you work?

Facebook

What do you do?

Developer Operations at Facebook

Who or what inspired you to pursue the career you have today?

My Father-Dr Kariuki

What is your favourite music genre?

Anything danceable, but deep down I am a worshiper of Jesus.

what is your secret talent that no one knows about?

Sharp memory. Is that a talent? 😂

My advice for allies to support underrepresented folks who code is...

Stay curios but define your path. Look for people who will inspire you and then others will emulate that. Do the right thing, at the right time, with the right people. Love and care for those who you may perceive may be struggling with something.

How do you keep yourself up to date in your field?

What did you want to be when you were a young child? Connect that with the current state of the world and find that person with the technology that is available. Use your talents and skills and build relationships. Personally, I take time to think about my actions, and how they will affect the next person and what ripple effect that will have on others, and the entire world.

How would you describe your job to a bunch of 5 year olds

With Jesus in the vessel I can smile at the storm - This was a popular song back in Sunday School and when children are allowed to be creative and curious they grow up to be responsible future leaders of our society.
I hope I nailed this question 😄

What cool thing are you working on right now?

Learning about privacy and data at Facebook and how to use my social skills to bring the world closer together. Personal cool? Since I love singing, I am testing out how music works on Portal which is a new device From Facebook.

What was your first job?

Entrepreneur with a Salon App published on the Nokia Ovi Store back in 2011.

What are the toughest challenges you've had at work?

Work from home during covid times can be difficult. I am slowly mastering the law of Prioritisation.

What upcoming technological innovation will dramatically impact the industry in the next five years?

People First, over Technology. This is something we all have to think about so I am not able to answer this question in its fullest form.

What skill do you think everyone should learn?

Resilience. Consistency. Building relationships with people and keeping God close.

Have you taken a huge leap of faith at work? Did it pay off?

Trusting God with the unknown. Jesus walked on water, and therefore whenever I am in doubt, I just let go and let God. Paying off is never tangible, it's the many lives you get to inspire.

How can we follow you?

Here are my social media links:
Instagram
Twitter
Facebook

Nevertheless, she coded: Shufaa Yakut

Joan Awinja Ingari — Mon, 08 Mar 2021 13:25:53 +0000

Happy International Women's Day!✨💖👯

My name is just Shufaa, but some friends at work call me Shuufs😉

Where do you work?

At Swahilipot Hub.

What do you do?

I upload and delete photos for a living😅. You can call me a digital content creator.
I write creative non-fiction and short stories. I am also a front end web developer.

Who or what inspired you to pursue the career you have today?

Mahmoud Noor. Popularly known as mentor 001.

What is your favourite music genre?

I enjoy Soul, rnb, blues and classic

what is your secret talent that no one knows about?

Wont people know about it if I write it here? haha.Kidding. Secretly, I just do what I want, and when I'm in a circumstance to do it for someone, I make sure I'm going to benefit from it.

What is the best advice you can give to someone who just started their career?

Have goals and work towards them. Even if your current employment is not your passion or talent, make it a journey towards what your profession really is. Also, do not rush into entrepreneurship before doing a good research analysis.

How do you keep yourself up to date in your field?

I have mobile reminders, I journal, I make a to-do lists and most importantly, I have an accountability partner, my husband.

How would you describe your job to a bunch of 5 year olds

I upload and delete photos for a living😅.I tell my ten year old sister that all the billboards she sees, the advertisements on TV, the links she searches on Google, are designed by me.

What cool thing are you working on right now?

It's a secret😄. But yoh! Virtual Reality story telling. It will not be up until the next year, watch this space.

What was your first job?

A nursery school teacher

What are the toughest challenges you've had at work?

Clients never paying on time for a service they are already using. Dealing with a community of people from different backgrounds is always a challenge.

What upcoming technological innovation will dramatically impact the industry in the next five years?

Internet of things is growing very fast, soon enough we will be driving electric cars.

What skill do you think everyone should learn?

The Reading culture, and some coding

Have you taken a huge leap of faith at work? Did it pay off?

Yes i have, and yes it did. With patient and more work.

How can we follow you?

Here are my social media links:
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
My Website

Nevertheless, she coded: Rachael Mwatela

Joan Awinja Ingari — Mon, 08 Mar 2021 13:25:01 +0000

Happy International Women's Day!✨💖👯

My name is Rachael, but my friends call me Raycee.

Where do you work?

Ona Limited

What do you do?

I am a Software Engineer.

Who or what inspired you to pursue the career you have today?

A guy named Arthur Kennedy is the who introduced me to coding and opened up my mind about technology. His patience and brilliance made me want to be more like him. I am really grateful to him for that and the amazing ladies from Rails Girls Mombasa and Nairobi who we not only gave each other hope in our coding journey but took up the challenge to teach and inspire others.

What is your favourite music genre?

Currently, I listen to a lot of amapiano and worship music.

what is your secret talent that no one knows about?

I make soap and sell them using my instagram page Nile Soaps n scents.
https://www.instagram.com/nilesoapsnscents/

My advice for allies to support underrepresented folks who code is...

Don't be afraid, allow yourself to make mistakes that is how you learn, ask the dumb questions and be very patient with yourself.

How do you keep yourself up to date in your field?

I try to read tech blogs, follow tech blogs on twitter, I recently started picking coding challenges on exercism and hackerrank.

How would you describe your job to a bunch of 5 year olds

See the apps you use on the internet? I build those😎.

What cool thing are you working on right now?

I recently worked on implementing a feature that allows you to link your your forms from ona to Tableau for visualization.

What was your first job?

Does an intern count? I am currently at my first job.

What are the toughest challenges you've had at work?

When I started out as an intern, I had to learn a new language within the three months. It was also my first time working on code that goes to production. It was the toughest yet the best experience ever.

What upcoming technological innovation will dramatically impact the industry in the next five years?

I believe machine learning and robotics is something people will embrace even more. 2020 has made us realize we don't really need to be at the same place to get things done therefore dependence on machines will increase as we move forward.

What skill do you think everyone should learn?

critical thinking. You might be a good developer but if you can't think how to implement your code, you will stay at the same place. As my mentor says, coding is easy as long as you know what you are coding.

Have you taken a huge leap of faith at work? Did it pay off?

I think pick up features or new technologies at work is always a leap of faith for me. Sometimes I might take longer to even deliver but my end goal is not to just complete but to come out better and with knowledge.

How can we follow you?

Here are my social media links:
Instagram
Facebook
twitter

Nevertheless, she coded: Dalia Abu Ghoush

Joan Awinja Ingari — Mon, 08 Mar 2021 13:22:26 +0000

Happy International Women's Day!✨💖👯

My name is Dalia, I do not have any nicknames(at least that I know of)

Where do you work?

Jordan, Amman

What do you do?

I am a Senior Frontend Developer.

Who or what inspired you to pursue the career you have today?

Unfortunately, during collage everyone I met was telling me that you're too spoiled to study or work in tech field so I challenged them and challenged myself to be where I am today

What is your favourite music genre?

I enjoy Pop, Rock, Classic Rock and Metal

what is your secret talent that no one knows about?

ummm I do read people sometimes hahaha

What is the best advice you can give to someone who just started their career?

Don’t take your career too seriously, because you may end up in a career you don't really love. Every person you meet is a potential door to a new opportunity. Be as social as you can

How do you keep yourself up to date in your field?

Reading, reading reading new articles

How would you describe your job to a bunch of 5 year olds

Computer does not understand human languages, it understands its own special language for instance, we have Javascript. It is a collection of simple English words like console, loop, object. We type these words using keyboard in Javascript to tell the computer what to do.

What cool thing are you working on right now?

React and React Native, they're awesome

What was your first job?

Drupal developer

What are the toughest challenges you've had at work?

When working with a guy who doesn't accept me "Female" as his boss.

What upcoming technological innovation will dramatically impact the industry in the next five years?

For sure the AI

What skill do you think everyone should learn?

Basics of coding

Have you taken a huge leap of faith at work? Did it pay off?

Yes of course I love what I'm doing but not always it pays off

How can we follow you?

Here is my social media links:
Instagram

Nevertheless, she coded: Celine Surai

Joan Awinja Ingari — Mon, 08 Mar 2021 13:17:19 +0000

Happy International Women's Day!✨💖👯

My name is just Celine, I do not have any nicknames(at least that I know of)

Where do you work?

I am an incoming software engineer at Slack. Will be working on the front-end.

What do you do?

I am a software engineer. I am also a you-tuber and make tech content specifically. I also write about technology, most especially software engineering.

Who or what inspired you to pursue the career you have today?

I have always been fascinated by tech ever since I was a kid. I particularly chose to pursue a software engineering career because I loved how it gave me the opportunity to solve problems as well as create things that are important for humanity. I also love how versatile my career is, especially because I am that person who enjoys exploring new things, hence as a software engineer, I am able to do a lot of different things.

What is your favourite music genre?

I love Afro beats, I listen to bongo a lot. Lately started listening to 'Amapiano'. We can say that I listen to a lot of African music

what is your secret talent that no one knows about?

I sing!

My advice for allies to support underrepresented folks who code is...

Be open to learning. Learning is something that is never ending in life and being open to it will for sure open a lot of opportunities for you.

How do you keep yourself up to date in your field?

Google is my best friend. I am always looking out for what is new in the field and learning it.

What cool thing are you working on right now?

Right now I am excited about finally launching a program that I have always wanted to start. It will be a mentor-ship program for women in stem. I have always wanted to empower other women and it means a lot to me that I am finally going to be able to do that.

What was your first job?

Worked as a student library assistant

What skill do you think everyone should learn?

I think learning how to code is fundamental, especially with how the world is quickly become technologically oriented

How can we follow you?

Here are my social media links:
Facebook
Twitter
You can also catch up with me on youtube at Decode Girl.

Nevertheless, she coded: Hannah Masila

Joan Awinja Ingari — Mon, 08 Mar 2021 12:23:51 +0000

Happy International Women's Day!✨💖👯

My name is just Hannah, but my friends call me Maslah.

Where do you work?

I am currently a freelance developer

Who or what inspired you to pursue the career you have today?

Love. I studied computer science in pursuit of love, and when love didn't work out, I started programming to spend time with my best friend who was a geek

What is your favourite music genre?

I enjoy Reggae and Bongo Flavour

What is your secret talent that no one knows about?

I can code in Perl

My advice for allies to support underrepresented folks who code is...

Practice. Join a community, learn. Get an accountability partner and practice some more

How do you keep yourself up to date in your field?

By Working. Freelancing keeps me on toes because I'm competing with thousands of talented individuals from all over the world

How would you describe your job to a bunch of 5 year olds

I tell computers what to do.

What cool thing are you working on right now?

I am currently web scrapping for UK project planning

What was your first job?

Software Developer at Andela

What are the toughest challenges you've had at work?

Context switching between languages or technologies

What upcoming technological innovation will dramatically impact the industry in the next five years?

It's already impacting .. blockchain, smart contracts etc

What skill do you think everyone should learn?

Skill - Programming
Language - Python

Have you taken a huge leap of faith at work? Did it pay off?

Yes. I had a Perl web scraper that I needed to update. It was old, ugly, messy. It used xml and wsdl, which I hadn't worked with before. But it really helped me understand a lot and learn a new language

How can we follow you?

On instagram, my handle is hanmaslah.