Story

🧱 Pre-2014: Foundations

My journey started on my family computer. One day I found myself in a rabbit hole of creating websites that became fansites and digital journals on Piczo, Freewebs, and Xanga.

Despite this interest, I dropped Computer Science after feeling like an outsider in my GCSE Computing class and opted for healthcare.

🎢 2014 - 2018: The pivotal years

Unfortunately, I failed to get into my first choice of medicine, so I enrolled in a three-year Biomedical Sciences course at The University of Sheffield. After my first year, I realised I didn't want to work in the medical field.

2015: Given my first shot in tech

#GivaLiva was a campaign that encouraged organ donation. This was part of a collaborative module with a local agency.

The campaign was a simple carousel website with my hand-drawn sketches and social media campaign. This caught the agency's attention, and I was offered an internship.

I built WordPress themes and email templates for their clients during spring break.

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2015-16: Finding my community

I joined Code First Girls' coding course, which I enjoyed so much that I ended up teaching two classes for six hours weekly for three years.

I taught "Introduction to web development" and "Advanced Python" Code First Girls courses and built a community around it that became known as "#shefcodefirst".

By the time I left, I had taught 200~ students.

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2016-17: Placement Year

I secured a 12-month placement in the social sciences faculty at The University of Sheffield, working in Communications and External Engagement.

Alongside my placement year, I spent my spare time teaching students how to code with Code First Girls and exploring opportunities in the tech space.

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2017-18: Doubling down

When I returned to studies, I had more clarity on the direction I wanted to go in, and that was in tech. I double down on everything that could get me there!

Alongside my studies, I worked remotely as a web developer, grew the #shefcodefirst community and attended and spoke at tech events.

I also worked at a university start-up facility (USE), where I supported students with their entrepreneurial ideas.

Read blog post

2015: Given my first shot in tech
#GivaLiva was a campaign that encouraged organ donation. This was part of a collaborative module with a local agency.

The campaign was a simple carousel website with my hand-drawn sketches and social media campaign. This caught the agency's attention, and I was offered an internship.

I built WordPress themes and email templates for their clients during spring break.
Read blog post
2015-16: Finding my community
I joined Code First Girls' coding course, which I enjoyed so much that I ended up teaching two classes for six hours weekly for three years.

I taught "Introduction to web development" and "Advanced Python" Code First Girls courses and built a community around it that became known as "#shefcodefirst".

By the time I left, I had taught 200~ students.

Read blog post
2016-17: Placement Year
I secured a 12-month placement in the social sciences faculty at The University of Sheffield, working in Communications and External Engagement.

Alongside my placement year, I spent my spare time teaching students how to code with Code First Girls and exploring opportunities in the tech space.
Read blog post
2017-18: Doubling down
When I returned to studies, I had more clarity on the direction I wanted to go in, and that was in tech. I double down on everything that could get me there!

Alongside my studies, I worked remotely as a web developer, grew the #shefcodefirst community and attended and spoke at tech events.

I also worked at a university start-up facility (USE), where I supported students with their entrepreneurial ideas.
Read blog post

🤘 2018 - 2021: Becoming an Engineer

After graduating, I joined BT’s Digital Engineering graduate program, where I spent two years learning as much as possible.

I joined four teams: architecture, software engineering, platform engineering, and site reliability engineering (SRE)

Outside the day-to-day, I was active in several initiatives in the company (see everything) and continued to get involved in the UK tech scene while documenting my learnings on my blog.

At the end of the program, I joined the SRE team and then moved to Flutter (Sky Bet) in platform engineering a few months later.

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💫 2021 - present: Leading communities

Whilst I enjoyed engineering, I was eager to consolidate all my interests in tech, community building and education.

When I asked the tech community what this was, they pointed me to developer advocacy, relations and the people leading developer communities.

In July 2021, I pivoted to my dream role of building communities and creating content full-time.

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