I began coding because...
I wasn't sure what to do after college. I was working as an office assistant at a university, but I felt I should gain some hands-on skills of some kind. I had always been interested in art & design and had always loved computer class—I'd had an amazing (female!) computer teacher in elementary and middle school (hi, Mrs. Lewis!)—so I thought, "Maybe I should figure out how to make websites..." Once I learned the foundational basics of HTML, CSS, and JS from a class at the university where I worked, I was able to Google for the rest. I eventually transitioned into product design, but still spend a good amount of time polishing up the CSS for devs on various projects. Coding still feels so magical to me, and I love the instant gratification of building UI.
I'm currently hacking on...
Designing a platform for a health insurance company working to provide better preventative care to Medicare and Medicaid patients.
I'm excited about...
Making enterprise software more human. Many people only exposed to consumer-level products probably think enterprise is boring; but I find the problems on the enterprise side so much more interesting. I love the challenge of making incredibly complex systems as simple, intuitive, and efficient as possible; automating the basic processing that computers are good at, and leveraging people where human intuition and analysis can't be replaced by machines.
My advice for other women who code is...
Imposter Syndrome is real but do your best not to listen to it. You are far more talented and capable than you think you are.
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