Transcript



Ashley:

What's going on y’all! This is Culture and Code, a podcast brought to you by Render Atlanta. If you're not already familiar with what Render Atlanta is, we are an organization dedicated to increasing the presence of black and brown people in all stages of the tech pipeline. We do so with different events and at experiences focused on not just tech, but also culture and how it brings people together. Our main experience, which I am personally super excited about, is our annual Render Atlanta conference held in Atlanta. Our next conference will be June 1st through fourth in 2022. It is super exciting. We have a ton of great speakers lined up some amazing food, and even an after party music festival, it's going to be incredible. And I absolutely cannot wait for y'all to experience it. You have got to get in on it if you haven't already. To learn more about us and keep up with our events, you can visit our website renderatl.com. You can also follow us on Twitter or Instagram @renderATL and join the conversation on our Discord at renderatl.com/discord.



Hello and welcome. This is an episode of Culture and Code brought to you by Render-Atlanta. My name is Ashley, and today I'm here with Angel, who is a recent college graduate from the University of Georgia and a Full stack developer. So personally, I'm really excited to meet with Angel. She wrote an amazing article on protecting her mental health in the job search, and I have been dying to chat with her about it. So let's go ahead and get into it. How's it going, Angel?



Angel:

It's going great, and I hope all is well with you.



Ashley:

Yes, it is. Thank you. So I just wanted to get started of course with diving a little bit into your background and how you got into tech.



Angel:

Okay. Yeah, well, my name is Angel. I recently graduated from the University of Georgia. So my little backstory and how I got into tech was... It all started when I was four years old and my first computer was a Compaq Presario 2000 and I just remember my little tiny self going up so close to the little desktop, the desktop box. And it was this pretty bright red text, and I'll just never forget it, because I was like, "Oh, this is so cool." And I just remember the days of when AOL was the main internet people had to use, we were given the CDs.



I always was playing little games like Nick Jr. or Reader Rabbit. And over the years eventually evolved into stuff like Neopets, which is a funny thing, a common thing I see among fellow developers, is that we all played Neopets. I played the Millsbury games, IMVU, Club Penguin, and MySpace, which got me into editing my profile, not knowing then what I was doing was coding. But it definitely got my interest into how I've always wanted to just mess around with code. And I loved how what I was writing ended up brought to life, with animations and stuff.



And gaming was a really huge factor and a really huge influence into my love for tech, because it connected me with a lot of people. It connected me with a lot of experiences and stories of other people all around the world, and especially growing up... A little backstory was that I went through a lot personally when I moved to Georgia and dealt with a little bit of bullying and being a new kid on the block. And what helped me a lot was when I couldn't get friends at school, I went and got friends online through technology and finding people that loved me for who I was.



It reminded me that there's more to my little circle, that technology opened up the broader perspective and that's how I got my love for it. And then what really influenced me wanting to go into tech even more so was knowing about individuals like Katherine Johnson, a Black woman in tech, Hidden Figures, and knowing how pivotal their accomplishments were, but we didn't know until much later.



And that is something that really speaks personally to me as a Black woman, especially as being the first Black woman and the first woman engineer overall in my family and there's three current generations. So for me, I'm the start of a huge legacy that's never been introduced before. Most of my family members were nurses or medical field, every other things but engineering. So me being the first woman engineer is really a huge deal for me.



And for me, I've always came with a mindset of always wanting to make a difference, always wanting to make an impact. And I just see myself in tech. Some things I love and how it helped me in my life, being the huge driving factor to be able to accomplish what I want to do.



Ashley:

That's amazing. First of all, congrats. That is a huge accomplishment to really just be the first anything in your family.



Angel:

Thank you.



Ashley:

That's amazing, especially gaming to tech pipeline as you mentioned, is so abundant, especially with those games that you talked about. And I definitely personally relate to your story about moving to Georgia because I had a similar experience moving to Georgia as well, so.



Angel:

Yeah, it's rough.



Ashley:

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for sharing all of that. I appreciate it.



Angel:

Yeah, of course.



Ashley:

Yeah. So talking a little bit, going into that, talking about how difficult it is to navigate the tech industry and I'm sure going through school, especially UGA being predominantly white, I also went to UGA, so I know it's very difficult. It's a tough one. I would just love to know for you personally, as you've navigated these spaces, what are some measures that you've been taking to prioritize your mental health? And then how has that transcended into the job search for you as well?



Angel:

Well, for one thing that has definitely been the biggest wake up call and the biggest way I've been protecting my mental health is not over-extend myself or spend all day, 24/7, as soon as I wake up at 5:00 or 6:00 AM, go ahead and apply to jobs and do it from sun up to sundown. I've definitely stopped doing that and that definitely made a huge difference.



Another thing I've also stopped to do was just taking anything that came my way and thinking, "Oh, well even if it's bare minimum, it's not great, I just take what I get because I got to be grateful." And thankfully from everyone I met from tech Twitter and Black tech Twitter, I rather soon realized, no, I deserve better than this, especially in the field I'm going for and I should not be taken advantage of. And as a matter of fact, this all started... The funny thing is, I don't know if you remember, but my journey and how I came to this realization came from when I was doing an interview for a company that was four months long.



I did a two-week take home interview, did it all by my own, learning things from scratch, using Python and building the split stack to Django Web App with the JSON, XML, and API implementation and deploying it to Heroku without even knowing what Django Heroku is. Still to this day, I don't know who they are, but I did it. And I have a senior software engineer friend, Donna, who also watched me as I did this and was my accountability partner and saw me go through an accomplishment in record speed.



And I wait two to three weeks for answers after, and went into a group panel of 15 people and it was one woman, 14 men. White men. So that one was nerve racking but I thought, "Oh, it's a good sign." They called me back. They liked what I did. And then I waited another two weeks just to get the rejection and then me posting about it, sharing it on Twitter. It then evolved into me, meaning tech Twitter, people told me this isn't the norm, because I thought it was normal to do four months as software engineers.



And because of that realization, I was able to realize, "Okay, what is happening to me?" I was burning myself out. I was finding myself in tears. I was just so tired to get up. I felt so discouraged and I really had to put boundaries on myself and that was really hard. It was easier said than done, but talking to people and realizing this is a journey, I do not have to speed through it, I can take my time, knowing that I was able to realize, "Okay, I can handle this a lot more." And the way of how you take a big problem and break it down to small problems, I was basically taking on this big task, embedding the job and breaking into small pieces where maybe I should connect more, make spaces.



Actually genuinely make friends, talk to people, and get jobs through that way. And I find that approach a lot more humane than just logging on to LinkedIn and just applying to whatever job fits the position I'm looking for.



Ashley:

Absolutely. Yeah. And that approach definitely... I think I've seen with the connections that you've made too, it's just a lot more gratifying because you truly have people in your corner that are willing to give you that advice and I'm really happy to hear that you were able to get that advice early on in your career because I know a lot of early career developers that unfortunately, they just feel like they need to settle for the first job offer you get, or the first thing that comes your way because it is so tough out there.



It's just a ridiculous... like you said, four months for a process, and I wish that was the only story I've heard about stuff like that. It's not, and that's devastating.



Angel:

It really is. And it really does bed the question of what are we working towards? What are we doing to improve it? Because as I've been going through that journey, I've been a hard advocate about improving the process, especially the ones that I see affected the most are marginalized people, people of color like us.



And that really means a lot to me to see us go through, because we all have similar stories of our upbringings, how our parents may be immigrants, how they raise us up for a better life. They believed in the so-called American Dream, and us knowing the reality of the American Dream not really being an American Dream, still working our way to tough through it. And especially those of us coming in tech, it's really hurtful and discouraging there's so many barriers it and people say, "Oh, well, you just got to deal with it, and just got to get through it."



But the interesting conversation I've just had just moments ago about the survivorship bias, how people who got in without these barriers, they're now saying, "Well, you have to go through these barriers that we ourselves never went through to get to where we're at." And it doesn't make sense, it's not fair.



Ashley:

Yeah, exactly.



Ashley:

What's going on y'all? If you're loving this episode so far, we'd love to invite you to join the conversation about it by hopping into our Discord at renderatl.com/discord. We'd also love to have you at our upcoming conference this year, June 1st through 4th in Atlanta, you can visit renderatl.com for more information. You can also find us on our updates on Instagram and Twitter @renderATL.



So going into you mentioned obviously, you went through that horrific interview experience that was obviously 10 times longer than it should've been, so with that, what are some things that you feel like you're looking out for now or tactics that you try to apply while interacting with companies to prevent that exploitation from happening again?



Angel:

That's a good question. I have to think about that for a moment. The way I've been approaching the things is I have a checklist, questions I ask the company because the thing that I like is how there's a two-way conversation, where as they ask you questions, you ask them questions.



And usually I ask them, "Do they have a culture of blameless analysis? What is the structure? Is their documentation? How is the onboarding process like? Do they have support for not only entry level, but do they have support for their mid level and senior levels?" And there's just a lot of things that as I'm in an interview and as I'm talking to companies, I wait to find the right certain words that they say or find the right keywords that I'm looking for, like the green flags, and they're not generic words.



I don't like to usually say the words I look for out loud, so it's not too known, but there's certain things they ask and word it in a certain way that based on how they answer, I will know, do I find myself a good fit for the company or not? And it's something that I've been finding each time I've been going to each interview, but every time that I've done it, I've usually got hit right on the nail on, yeah, this company may be a good fit, or this company may not be a good fit, or this one is just... It's absolutely perfect, but they just showed a huge, critical flaw that may make it hard for me to work with if I was onboarded.



Ashley:

That's awesome. That's a really good strategy, especially I feel like a lot of people get nervous with the part where you ask the interviewer questions, and that your chance to interview them right back,so that makes me happy to hear. Thank you so much again, I did want to ask you one final question before we start wrapping up. Switch it up a little bit, make it a little more Render. I wanted to know, what reminds you the most of home?



Angel:

Oh. All right. So one food that reminds me the most is Pikliz and griot with diri ak pwa, that is red beans and rice with griot. I'm Haitian, so to all my Haitians out there, sak pase? I grew up with that a lot and I always love Pikliz, because I just love the spiciness, and because my parents are from Haiti, even though I was born in America, my roots are in Haiti. And I always have the mindset of, "I am Haitian first before American," even though I never stepped foot in Haiti. That is my culture. I am very proud of my culture and I really love our food because our food is good.



Ashley:

Thank you for sharing that. Actually, I don't think I've ever had Haitian food, but lately-



Angel:

Oh my God!



Ashley:

... I've been hearing a lot more about it, so I feel like I need to get in on it.



Angel:

So I will say, I feel like the best places to get Haitian food is either in Florida or New Jersey or in New York, especially New Jersey. I know the best one in New Jersey that I loved whenever we go there. I haven't seen many good ones here, some have been hit or miss, but I'm biased towards the New Jersey Haitian food because that's where I grew up, and I was born in New Jersey. So, yeah.



Ashley:

But yeah, so thank you so much seriously for coming on and taking the time to chat. I really appreciate it. And like I said, this conversation really touched me. Your article really touched me, so I think-



Angel:

Thank you.



Ashley:

... there's a lot to be said about being vulnerable, being open, being candid. And you are doing that every single day, online and offline. So really happy to see what you do next and where you end up career-wise. And I did want to give you some time, of course, to plug yourself or anything else you want, so feel free to drop that in here.



Angel:

Yeah. Well first, I want to say thank you for that. Honestly, that blog post going viral honestly surprised me, because I think I was talking to Angie and a few others. I literally wrote that when I was super upset. I was just so fed up, and somebody told me, "Why don't you just write it in a blog?" And I'm like, "Oh, right. You know what? I'm going to spend three hours," which is how long I took writing that only 15-minute read. And I just let all out like a diary. I was like, "Dear diary, I hate this. The [inaudible 00:14:42]." I'm just kidding.



I'm really surprised that me just saying, "You know what? I'm just going to write what's on my mind," I did not edit out anything. I just put it all out there and it just got so well-received. So it really, really touched on me and it made me realize this needs to be said more and more people need to have that ability to talk about it.



Second of all, people are free to follow me on Twitter @AlioFonzy43, A-L-I-O-F-O-N-Z-Y43.



I have a vision board, where by this year, I plan to land my first job in tech and by 2053, I do want to set up generational financial security for my future children, so they don't ever have to think about money. I want to make sure they're that set for life.



And also 2032, I want to devote scholarships for underrepresented groups. And in 2043, I hope to continue developing and creating software that makes an impact. So I definitely have plans for far out in the future, and if people definitely want to follow me just to see me for who I am, my tech and non-tech side, and me being just vocal about causes, social causes too, they are free to do that.



But I am pro-Black, pro-LGBT, pro-people of color, pro-everything for marginalized people because this stuff matters. And it also matters in tech in the software we develop, so that is something that I just put out there because I'm not ashamed to talk about it. I'm not ashamed to make it known. These are people whose lives get affected, who are fighting for rights every single day and it deserves the recognition. So, yeah.



Ashley:

Thank you so much for that plug. I can confirm, following Angel on Twitter is amazing. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us and thank you everyone for tuning into this episode of Culture and Code. We will y'all next time. And in the meantime, don't forget to stay looped in on all things Render by following us @RenderATL on Twitter. And you can also join the conversation at RenderATL.com/Discord. And you can also follow me on Twitter @Ashley_in_tech. Thanks so much, y'all. See you next time.