Sara Calderon

How To Have A Real Discussion About Tech Diversity

November 6, 2020 By Sara Calderon Leave a Comment

Inevitably you’ve had a discussion about racism, sexism, discrimination, diversity, etc., in your workplace with your colleagues that probably started out with the best of intentions. And, most likely this conversation ended when someone shut it down by saying something along the lines of: “I believe that everyone is equal.”

This is not a real conversation about diversity, discrimination, or the things that cause it. Rather, it’s an illustration of the kinds of behavior that contribute to discrimination and a lack of diversity.

Real conversations about anything involve a lot of listening, consideration of others’ points of view, and a legitimate interest in how that information can affect future behavior. You would walk away from a real conversation about diversity thinking, “Wow, I didn’t know that when I did that I could potentially be shutting people out,” for example.

When someone starts to feel uncomfortable, and inserts a knee-jerk blanket comment about how skin color doesn’t matter, it is not an indication not of how non-discriminating that person may be, but rather, how uncomfortable they are with the subject of the conversation. I’m a big proponent of being the change you want to see. In that vein I wanted to provide a brief prescription from my experience that would be beneficial for folks who would like to have a real conversation about diversity.

Listen. Listen as hard as you can, try to really hear what the other person is saying, and see if you can identify with anything from their experience.

Ask. Ask questions that will help you get closer to understanding their experiences. Try really hard not ask a judgmental, leading, or insinuating question — that will only widen the divide you are trying to bridge. The easiest way to ask a good question is simply asking for clarification — Can you expand on that? Why is that? Could you tell me more? I’m not sure I understand. Simpler is better in this case.

Use your imagination. Try to see the world from their eyes. Take some time to try really, really hard to imagine what it would be like to feel their feelings, have their experiences, and reactions.

Empathize. Take a second to ask yourself: How would I feel if that happened to me? How would I react if that were me? What would I have done in that situation?

Say thank you. You might be tempted to share what you think about this situation, but it’s important to recognize that maybe this conversation isn’t about you. Your opinion or feelings about this topic may not be vital to the discussion. Start by saying, “Thank you for sharing,” and know that, oftentimes, just listening to someone can go a long way in bridging gaps.

Most importantly, if you feel the urge to make a blanket statement about how you don’t see color, or that everyone is the same, or that differences don’t matter to you — reconsider. Try listening to whoever is speaking and try to understand their point of view before you say anything, and recognize that “not seeing color” is a meaningless phrase. It’s like saying you really like eating food or that clothes are an important part of your life: it’s a bland, non-specific blanket statement that’s something everyone can agree with. Which is to say, it doesn’t really mean anything or hold any weight at all.

Talking about diversity and the issues around it is going to be difficult. But I hope these tips are useful to someone, as I know in my experience that being able to speak openly and respectfully about these issues goes much further in solving problems than listening to how people feel about diversity without actually ever discussing it.

Tech Comadres: Women Helping Women Grow Professionally in Tech

November 1, 2020 By Sara Calderon Leave a Comment

I didn’t even really want to be there the night I met my tech comadres. I had been looking for a software developer job in Austin for several months already and I was tired and grumpy and I didn’t want to leave the house — but I forced myself, because I figured nothing worse could happen than being by myself at home, unemployed and desperate for a job.

It wasn’t my first tech event in Austin, but it was the first time I had connected with folks on a visceral level. It was February 2015, at the Women Who Code Austin Lightning Talks at the Capital Factory. I was just blown away by all the women coming together to talk about their work — good and bad — and the honesty and openness that accompanied that conversation.

That night changed my life, as I am now a member of a community of intelligent, driven, successful, technical and kind women who work in Austin Tech and are determined to see people like me succeed here. What’s more, I made an awesome group of friends who have proven to be caring, kind, diverse, supportive and genuine that has made all the difference in my life in this city.

That night in February I wanted in, and I told WWCodeATX Founder Holly Gibson as much when I met her — How can I help? I can do social media. — and these months later I find myself co-director of Women Who Code Austin, having successfully doubled our social media presence online, the proud co-organizer of a diversity hackathon, a mentor to women looking to enter Austin Tech, now a happy member of Austin’s tech crowd myself.

Finding this community of women turned out to be a game changer for me. I now understand the hype around women in tech not so much as an abstract ideal, but a tangible, useful, practical way for women from diverse backgrounds to make up for lost time and connections in tech by consolidating resources. After all, a high tide lifts all boats.

$100,000 is about how much more money the women in the circle have earned since we started helping each other with interviews, resumes, LinkedIn profiles, job referrals coding projects and general encouragement and advice. In less than a year women in Austin Tech have earned more because they’ve had a support system, but we also feel supported, more confident, like we belong — and you can’t put a price on that (especially since we’re almost always the only woman on our respective teams).

Additionally, several of us are working on pet projects together, our social media presences are growing, we’re being headhunted on LinkedIn, several of us will be on a SXSW Interactive panel this year, and while many of us are the only women on our dev team, none of us feel alone because we have a support group where we can ask questions without feeling talked down to, and we can share advice and tips to accelerate our professional development.

In short, serendipity has allowed us to make up for a lack of women I tech by forming a social group that has helped us all grow as professionals.

Imagine the potential for us if there were more diversity in tech to begin with! To any women out there in tech looking for professional growth and not finding it at work, I highly recommend getting out to Meetups, hackathons, tweet chats, and anywhere else you think you might find people like you and introduce yourself — you never know how life changing the people you meet might be.

Why You Need To Go To Your First Hackathon, And How To Get There

November 1, 2020 By Sara Calderon Leave a Comment

This post is dedicated to my friend Tricia, who just killed it at the Lowe’s Hackathon in Austin. Follow her on Twitter @techxastrish.

So you’ve heard of hackathons, maybe you even have friends who have gone, and you’re curious but haven’t taken the plunge yet — why not? I urge you to go as soon as you can, because if you’re interested in technology or a career in this sphere, you can’t afford not to go.

First off, a hackathon isn’t anything illegal and has nothing to do with “hacking” that will get you in trouble. It’s basically a contest or competition in which teams get together and bust their behinds to build a project in a short amount of time, usually over a weekend.

There is often prize money associated with hackathons, but it’s also a great chance to try new things, meet new people, test out some skills and get some more code or experience under your belt for that next job interview.

You need to go to a hackathon because, if you want to work in tech, hackathons are where you get a hands-on view of how tech sausage is made. It’s the extremely abridged version of what it’s like to work in a startup, gives you the chance to perform in several different roles (marketing, designer, coder, user experience, etc.) and whether or not you perform is entirely up to you.

At the end of this experience, you will have learned a lot about yourself, and if nothing else, you’ll know more about what you want to do in tech than you did before. For example, perhaps you think you want to be a coder but have never actually coded — going to a hackathon might help you realize you’re much more interested in design or project management. Maybe you thought coding was too hard for you, but when the judges call your name and you won, you realize that you can actually do this.

Go to a hackathon. Do it.

The face you make when you win 2nd place at a hackathon after only 7 weeks of coding.

How do you find out about hackathons? I personally have Google alerts set up, but I also see them periodically on Twitter or Meetups, there are tons of ways to find out, but you have to put yourself in the pathway of discovering them. Follow people on Twitter that tweet about things like that, set up a Google alert, or ask around.

How do you prepare for a hackathon? Read up on what the rules/guidelines will be, if you can find a team of people you know, maybe organize ahead of time, and if you know what the APIs, tools or frameworks are going to be, brush up on those. If you have a team before you head in, start sketching out the basic idea of what you want to build if that’s allowed.

If you don’t have friends who want to go with you, think of this as an opportunity to enjoy being outside of your comfort zone. I’ve made some really great friends by just taking a chance and asking if they wanted to work together, or sit together, or hang out sometime. Get yourself a nametag, add your skills to it, and start glad-handing. Perhaps you’ll meet a team, or perhaps they’ll find you!

Most importantly, though, ask yourself why you’re going to this hackathon:

Do you want to meet people?

Do you want to win?

Do you want to flex your code muscles?

Do you want to make some money?

Do you need code samples for that job you’re applying to?

Do you want to network with a sponsor or showcase a particular framework or technology in a project?

If you can define a few of these goals for yourself ahead of time, you’re practically guaranteed to have a successful experience at a hackathon. You’ll always learn something and grow from a hackathon — but not if you don’t get started and attend your first one.

Good luck!

My 1 Year Coding Anniversary: From Video Tutorials to Software Engineer

July 4, 2016 By Sara Calderon 1 Comment

written by Sara Inés Calderón

A year ago I landed at the Ontario airport (outside LA) equipped with exactly two suitcases, one computer backpack and about a truckload of hope. I looked at the mountains, took a deep breath, and said to myself “Let’s do this.”

I had just dropped everything, put my life on hold and flown in from Austin to begin the the Sabio coding bootcamp, hoping that the JavaScript tutorials I had been taking online the past few months, plus my boundless enthusiasm and Sabio’s secret sauce would open the door for me to enter the tech world as a software developer.

I’ll ruin the suspense for you: it worked. I’m currently a software engineer in Austin, Texas working primarily with Angular and C# — both of which I learned through Sabio.

But let me tell you a little bit about how I got there.

One of my favorite sayings is, “La vida es dura, pero es bella,” which means life is hard — but beautiful. So it goes with my coding journey. Some folks’ brains are set up to receive the idea of code better than others, it’s almost a natural fit. To be truthful, I don’t feel like I fit into this category. Nonetheless, I did it, and am doing it, and it gets a little easier every day.

I had just been living in Austin for a few months before I went back to LA, lucked out and found a place to stay with a friend, and began a daily commute to Sabio’s class in Culver City. The days were long: after 8 to 11 hours of coding, I’d go home and put in a few hours of work work, make my lunch for the next day and pass out. On the weekends I’d try to visit with friends and family, and code, and work and try to sleep in a little bit, and maybe do something fun. It was exhausting.

From September to December of 2014 I worked the hardest I’d worked and pushed myself that hardest I’d pushed probably since I was an undergrad at Stanford University. But it was worth it.

Sabio had us coding on day one, and I would be lying if I said it didn’t produce a lot of anxiety because I literally had no idea what I was doing. And yet, I did it.

All throughout Sabio’s training — when I was struggling to understand classes and methods in C#, when I was fighting with the Google Maps API, when I was getting very little sleep at my first hackathon, when I started studying for my tech interviews — I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing, yet, when I had two job offers on my plate earlier this year I finally felt like, perhaps, I did know a little.

As I mentioned, I wouldn’t describe the process of switching careers to tech as “easy,” but I would said it was well worth every bit of frustration, nervousness, disappointment and anxiety.

Sabio changed my life by teaching me how to code.

My starting salary was the same as the highest salary I ever earned in media. And after four months I received a raise — so I’m now making the most money in my life — and that’s not even to mention the bonuses I get at my job.

Life is good, tech is good, and Sabio was the doorway to this life.

The funny thing is, although I wrote in detail about the 40 interviews and four months it took me to find my first tech job, I don’t even remember what that stress felt like because I’m enjoying the life I have now so much. I remember the good times, I remember things Gregorio (Rojas, the co-founder and primary instructor) and my cohort taught me, I remember the fun times we had joking in class, I remember the joy I felt when we won our first hackathon — good things. The bad things have faded away over time.

So, a year into my Sabio journey, I have organized a successful diversity hackathon as co-director of Women Who Code Austin (with 90 participants, most of them women, and a majority of winners who were coding newbies), started JavaScript and C# study groups with my friends and co-workers, am working towards certifications and am actively meeting people in Austin’s tech community. I have a new life, a great life, and one that I know will continue to provide financial security for my family and me for years to come.

So when I look back on my year of Sabio, and that first day at the airport, it makes me glad. Not only did I do it, but I’m still doing it, and don’t plan on stopping anytime soon.