S1 E31: Trying to be that person I wished was there when I was learning to code (Rizel / @BlackGirlBytes)

Eddie: 00:00:02

Welcome to episode 30, one of the web joy podcast.

Eddie: 00:00:06

I'm your host Eddie.

Eddie: 00:00:07

And in this podcast, we interview guests about their origin story and

Eddie: 00:00:11

what makes them excited and joyful to be part of the tech community.

Eddie: 00:00:16

I hope you enjoy today's episode.

Eddie: 00:00:18

Trying to be that person I wished was there when I was learning to code.

Eddie: 00:00:22

With results, Scarlet.

Eddie: 00:00:25

Welcome to another episode of Web Joy.

Eddie: 00:00:27

I'm excited to have Raelle with us today.

Eddie: 00:00:30

Raelle, say hi to everyone listening.

Eddie: 00:00:32

Hey

Rizel: 00:00:33

everyone, like you said, my name's Raelle and I'm really excited to be here.

Eddie: 00:00:38

Awesome.

Eddie: 00:00:39

Well, so for those who might not know who you are, just go ahead and mention kind

Eddie: 00:00:44

of what you do, where you work a brief.

Rizel: 00:00:47

Yeah, so my full name's Raelle Scarlet, and I work at

Rizel: 00:00:51

GitHub as a developer advocate.

Rizel: 00:00:53

And what that means, like in a short way, is like I'm empowering developers

Rizel: 00:00:58

through content, code, and community.

Eddie: 00:01:00

I love that though, empowering developers through content.

Eddie: 00:01:04

Code and community.

Eddie: 00:01:06

That was, that was slick.

Eddie: 00:01:07

That's real nice.

Eddie: 00:01:09

Thank you.

Eddie: 00:01:10

What's the short version of your story?

Eddie: 00:01:12

Right?

Eddie: 00:01:12

How did you decide that you wanted to get into programming and that tech was

Eddie: 00:01:16

something that you wanna be involved

Rizel: 00:01:17

in?

Rizel: 00:01:18

Yeah, really great question.

Rizel: 00:01:20

So short version is I was in college study in psychology because I thought like, I

Rizel: 00:01:26

don't know what to study, that it seems cool to maybe know about people's minds.

Rizel: 00:01:30

And then I realized I didn't have enough finances to continue.

Rizel: 00:01:34

And I kept talking to people and they're like, yeah, you're gonna need

Rizel: 00:01:37

to like go to grad school to actually like start working as a psychologist.

Rizel: 00:01:41

So I was like, oh.

Rizel: 00:01:43

They're like, . I'm like, I don't even have money for this semester.

Rizel: 00:01:46

So I, I , I ended up like dropping out and like re.

Rizel: 00:01:51

Thinking about like what my plan was and I was Googling what

Rizel: 00:01:55

jobs make the most money Nice.

Rizel: 00:01:56

And like all these technical jobs kept coming up.

Rizel: 00:01:59

And I was like, okay, I can use the computer.

Rizel: 00:02:01

I'll, I'll try that.

Rizel: 00:02:04

. Um, and then I signed up for a community college study,

Rizel: 00:02:07

computer information system.

Rizel: 00:02:08

Started working as a help desk technician, but I felt like very

Rizel: 00:02:12

quickly that I was, it was fun for me to like, help people face-to-face.

Rizel: 00:02:16

I really enjoyed that, but I felt very quickly that it wasn't challenging for me.

Rizel: 00:02:21

Like, I'm like within six months to a year, I feel like I, I know

Rizel: 00:02:24

most of the things, so I wanted to challenge myself a little bit more.

Rizel: 00:02:28

I kept hearing people at a company I was working at, talking about APIs and stuff

Rizel: 00:02:33

like that, and I was like, what is this?

Rizel: 00:02:35

I kind of wanna learn to code.

Rizel: 00:02:37

So I went to a coding bootcamp.

Rizel: 00:02:39

I called Resilient Coders, learn to code.

Rizel: 00:02:41

became a software engineer and at the same time got my degree in

Rizel: 00:02:46

computer science and then after that I switched into developer advocacy.

Rizel: 00:02:50

But yeah, that's the short story,

Rizel: 00:02:52

. Eddie: Wow.

Rizel: 00:02:52

Awesome.

Rizel: 00:02:53

Well that's amazing.

Rizel: 00:02:54

Like you actually did a coding bootcamp and got a degree.

Rizel: 00:02:58

Yeah.

Rizel: 00:02:58

As a career switcher.

Rizel: 00:03:00

Like that is definitely unusual for kind of a career switch

Rizel: 00:03:05

. Rizel: Yeah, I think that

Rizel: 00:03:07

I don't think I will recommend it to.

Rizel: 00:03:10

because it was very time consuming.

Rizel: 00:03:12

Yeah.

Rizel: 00:03:12

And financially, well, the bootcamp was free, but college, I was like, Hmm, maybe

Rizel: 00:03:18

I didn't need all of these classes that

Eddie: 00:03:20

I'm doing.

Eddie: 00:03:21

No, that makes sense.

Eddie: 00:03:23

What has the journey been like?

Eddie: 00:03:25

Did you start at GitHub?

Eddie: 00:03:27

Have you been at a couple companies along the way?

Eddie: 00:03:29

What has that journey for you been like once you started programming?

Rizel: 00:03:33

Good question.

Rizel: 00:03:34

So once I started programming, I went to a couple like small companies

Rizel: 00:03:38

in the Boston areas, and then after that I worked at a remote company, I

Rizel: 00:03:42

think it's in Seattle, called Botany.

Rizel: 00:03:44

So I was a software engineer.

Rizel: 00:03:46

Kind of more startupy companies.

Rizel: 00:03:48

It's been almost a year of me working

Eddie: 00:03:50

at GitHub . I definitely kinda had a similar trajectory where it was

Eddie: 00:03:55

like just a bunch of like startups and Noname stuff, and I did one job was

Eddie: 00:04:00

government contracting, but pretty much outside of that it's been pretty much all

Eddie: 00:04:03

startups along the journey until recently.

Eddie: 00:04:06

So yeah, it's, it's nice.

Eddie: 00:04:08

Like, it's funny because when you.

Eddie: 00:04:10

Talking about your journey, you're like, I'm gonna name all these

Eddie: 00:04:12

things that like you probably have no idea what they are, right?

Eddie: 00:04:14

Yeah.

Eddie: 00:04:15

. But I don't know.

Eddie: 00:04:16

It gives you a lot of opportunity, right?

Eddie: 00:04:18

To like do different things.

Eddie: 00:04:19

Like there's so few people.

Eddie: 00:04:21

You have to learn a lot of kind of skills on the job, which I imagine

Eddie: 00:04:24

can probably be intimidating, right?

Eddie: 00:04:26

But, uh, , you walk out with a lot of knowledge.

Eddie: 00:04:29

Yeah, I

Rizel: 00:04:29

agree.

Rizel: 00:04:30

I think we both probably took a lot of transferrable skills from those

Rizel: 00:04:34

roles that helped us to excel in like larger companies because there's less,

Rizel: 00:04:38

less things you have to focus on.

Rizel: 00:04:40

You just have like your one little niche and you're like,

Rizel: 00:04:42

cool, I'll focus on and on that

Rizel: 00:04:44

. Eddie: Exactly.

Rizel: 00:04:45

That is, that is one thing like.

Rizel: 00:04:47

So I started at Glassdoor a little bit around a year ago.

Rizel: 00:04:50

So, um, sounds like we, we changed companies around the same time.

Rizel: 00:04:55

, it was like intimidating because you, you start as big company and

Rizel: 00:04:58

you look around and you're like, all these people are so amazing.

Rizel: 00:05:00

Like, I can't believe.

Rizel: 00:05:01

Yeah.

Rizel: 00:05:02

Like, I'm working with these people.

Rizel: 00:05:03

, but then it's really cool cause you realize like, oh, you feel like you're

Rizel: 00:05:07

not doing enough because you're just doing like one thing and you're like,

Rizel: 00:05:10

shouldn't I be doing like 10 things?

Rizel: 00:05:11

Like

Rizel: 00:05:12

? Rizel: Yeah.

Rizel: 00:05:13

You're like, I'm used to doing this, this, this and this.

Rizel: 00:05:16

Sometimes people are like, wow, you work a lot.

Rizel: 00:05:17

I'm like, I don't know.

Rizel: 00:05:18

I'm used to like the startup life.

Rizel: 00:05:20

So , this feels like working not that much to me.

Rizel: 00:05:25

trying to chill.

Rizel: 00:05:26

Yeah,

Eddie: 00:05:26

exactly.

Eddie: 00:05:27

That's awesome.

Eddie: 00:05:29

Well, what do you think kind.

Eddie: 00:05:31

You have enjoyed most about programming, right?

Eddie: 00:05:33

You kind of went down, you know, this psychology route and

Eddie: 00:05:36

we're like, all right, well this isn't really gonna work out.

Eddie: 00:05:39

So you tried it work and help desk, and that didn't really click right?

Eddie: 00:05:43

That was like, oh, I'm not kind of challenging myself enough.

Eddie: 00:05:47

But you stuck with programming, so what is it that kind of got you to stick with it?

Eddie: 00:05:52

Yeah, I think

Rizel: 00:05:52

the, the constant challenge and the ability to create has

Rizel: 00:05:57

been really awesome for me.

Rizel: 00:05:59

Like I loved it.

Rizel: 00:06:00

Like I will say I loved it cuz I loved like the idea of like helping people.

Rizel: 00:06:03

That's where I was getting my joy from.

Rizel: 00:06:05

But I was like, I wanna do, I wish I could help people in a more proactive

Rizel: 00:06:09

way, cuz with it sometimes it's, People like, oh, I can't open Google Chrome.

Rizel: 00:06:16

And I'm like, did you try double clicking it?

Rizel: 00:06:18

And they're like, wow, that works.

Rizel: 00:06:20

So . Like, I wish I was like, I wish I could do something more proactive

Rizel: 00:06:25

and helping people have better user experiences and stuff like that.

Rizel: 00:06:28

And I feel like I've gotten that from programming and I think even more so

Rizel: 00:06:33

from developer advocacy where I can like talk to other engineers and be

Rizel: 00:06:37

like, Hey, how is it going for you?

Rizel: 00:06:39

Or talk to open source maintainers and figure out.

Rizel: 00:06:41

How we can make the product better for them, what struggles they're

Rizel: 00:06:45

currently having and how I can like make their lives easier.

Rizel: 00:06:48

So I think it's like I just have an intrinsic interest in like helping others

Rizel: 00:06:55

and being like challenged a little bit.

Rizel: 00:06:57

So I think that's that's where

Eddie: 00:06:59

it is.

Eddie: 00:06:59

Yeah.

Eddie: 00:07:00

Yeah.

Eddie: 00:07:00

I definitely noticed as you were just talking, The thing you liked about

Eddie: 00:07:04

Right doing the help desk was that you really liked helping people, and it

Eddie: 00:07:08

instantly, in my mind, I'm like, well, it makes complete sense that you're

Eddie: 00:07:11

a developer advocate then, right?

Eddie: 00:07:12

Like developer relations.

Eddie: 00:07:14

Like it is the blend of programming, technology and helping people

Eddie: 00:07:18

together, so that's awesome.

Eddie: 00:07:20

Exactly.

Eddie: 00:07:22

Have you kind of always been, since you learned a program, have you always

Eddie: 00:07:25

been doing kind of developer relations or is this more of a new thing?

Rizel: 00:07:29

When I hear about like what other people were doing before

Rizel: 00:07:32

developer relations, they're like, yeah, I had a YouTube channel and all

Rizel: 00:07:35

these blog posts and stuff like that.

Rizel: 00:07:37

I didn't have those things, but I did help to start an organization

Rizel: 00:07:42

called G-Code, which I guess could be considered developer

Rizel: 00:07:45

relations like we were introducing.

Rizel: 00:07:47

Women of color and non-binary people of color to web development.

Rizel: 00:07:51

So like I made the curriculum, I created the slide decks, I taught, I even taught

Rizel: 00:07:56

like other volunteer mentors how to teach.

Rizel: 00:07:59

So that in a way was like developer advocacy.

Rizel: 00:08:02

But it wasn't in the more traditional way that people think of it.

Eddie: 00:08:07

Sure.

Eddie: 00:08:07

That's awesome.

Eddie: 00:08:08

Cuz that was on the side, right?

Eddie: 00:08:10

Yeah.

Eddie: 00:08:10

So kind of before you were doing really develop advocacy in your

Eddie: 00:08:13

day job, you started take kind of living that passion out on the side.

Eddie: 00:08:17

Yeah, exactly.

Eddie: 00:08:18

That's awesome.

Eddie: 00:08:19

I love that.

Eddie: 00:08:20

And thank you.

Eddie: 00:08:21

Like you said, trying to Right, expand.

Eddie: 00:08:24

Tech.

Eddie: 00:08:25

Right.

Eddie: 00:08:25

Making it more available and inclusive to people of color.

Eddie: 00:08:28

I love that.

Eddie: 00:08:29

Especially obviously that's something that you have experience with, right?

Eddie: 00:08:33

Yeah.

Eddie: 00:08:33

I feel like a lot of times, you know, you see a lot of good, well-intentioned

Eddie: 00:08:38

organizations, but it's oftentimes set up by people in the establishment.

Eddie: 00:08:42

Right?

Eddie: 00:08:42

You might have like Yeah.

Eddie: 00:08:43

White cis men.

Eddie: 00:08:44

Yeah.

Eddie: 00:08:45

And it's like, all right, we're gonna create diversity, and I love.

Eddie: 00:08:48

That that is their goal, right?

Eddie: 00:08:50

Like it, yeah, it's better than them not wanting to do that.

Eddie: 00:08:53

But I also love it when people who actually have that experience,

Eddie: 00:08:57

right, of what it's like to be a person of color in tech.

Eddie: 00:09:01

It's much different, unfortunately.

Eddie: 00:09:04

And so yeah, you're able to really shed light on and and help people, which is.

Rizel: 00:09:09

Yeah, I think that really helped me to run the program well and helped me

Rizel: 00:09:13

to, to get really excited about the idea of empowering engineers because like I

Rizel: 00:09:18

could relate to those students and I was like, oh, I know how it would be for you.

Rizel: 00:09:22

And we, we did a lot of things.

Rizel: 00:09:24

Me and, um, my colleague Bailey, we did stuff like making sure they

Rizel: 00:09:29

had to like Uber each gift cards and stuff like that during class.

Rizel: 00:09:33

, you know, other stuff that would meet their needs rather than

Rizel: 00:09:36

just only thinking about coding.

Eddie: 00:09:38

Yeah.

Eddie: 00:09:39

It has a more holistic approach cuz you wanna kind of understand

Eddie: 00:09:41

the mindset and the circumstances that they might be coming from.

Eddie: 00:09:44

Yeah.

Eddie: 00:09:45

Well, cool.

Eddie: 00:09:46

You know, one of the things we like to talk about on this podcast is

Eddie: 00:09:49

something that brings us joy and so I kind of just wanted to say,

Eddie: 00:09:52

you know, what's something that.

Eddie: 00:09:53

you've been involved with that brings you joy that you'd like to talk about?

Eddie: 00:09:56

Yeah.

Rizel: 00:09:57

Um, G Code is definitely an organization that brings me joy.

Rizel: 00:10:01

I've moved more into an advisory role rather than the director of

Rizel: 00:10:05

programming, which is what I was before, just because it's easier to balance.

Rizel: 00:10:09

But one of the reasons that it brings me joy is that I am trying to.

Rizel: 00:10:15

That person that I wished was there for me when I was learning

Rizel: 00:10:19

to code and like learning to, to navigate the tech industry.

Rizel: 00:10:24

I feel like, like you said, like as a person of color, as a black

Rizel: 00:10:28

person specifically, it's a much different experience that a lot

Rizel: 00:10:32

of people aren't educated on.

Rizel: 00:10:34

I really like being able to help them and I really love when they

Rizel: 00:10:38

come back and they do tell me, like, that was really helpful for me.

Rizel: 00:10:41

I really like, enjoyed the classes, gonna miss you, stuff like that.

Rizel: 00:10:44

Or they come back and tell me they landed a job.

Rizel: 00:10:47

Um, like those are the type of things that I appreciate and get excited about.

Rizel: 00:10:51

What does

Eddie: 00:10:51

the kind of pro program.

Eddie: 00:10:54

What kind of look like and feel like.

Rizel: 00:10:56

It's not a long-term like coding bootcamp, so what we do is like we start

Rizel: 00:11:01

off by, I think we meet on Sundays.

Rizel: 00:11:05

Yeah.

Rizel: 00:11:05

I don't know if they changed it since now I'm in advisory role, but when I was doing

Rizel: 00:11:09

it, we met on Sundays and it would just be like six to 10 Sundays and we did Sundays

Rizel: 00:11:14

because it would be easier for them to.

Rizel: 00:11:17

Like be cutting off their work schedule and stuff like that.

Rizel: 00:11:20

It was more flexible for the students.

Rizel: 00:11:22

So we meet on Sundays and we will go over like H T M L, CSS and

Rizel: 00:11:26

JavaScript and that would be it.

Rizel: 00:11:28

After that, we would move them on to like another longer term program that

Rizel: 00:11:33

we have like partnership with or we know is free, like Code the Dream or launch.

Rizel: 00:11:38

And I think the, the way I structured it really well, like I don't go

Rizel: 00:11:42

faster than they would understand.

Rizel: 00:11:45

So if they're like, Hey, I don't get this, like, we will do another

Rizel: 00:11:48

day of like learning that concept over and in different ways.

Rizel: 00:11:52

I make sure that like we're not just learn focused on one learning style.

Rizel: 00:11:57

, I believe that people learn from like repetition, so I'll do it in like visuals.

Rizel: 00:12:02

I'll do it by them doing hands on and I'll do it by them like hearing

Rizel: 00:12:07

it so they'll get all like all three or all the possible options.

Rizel: 00:12:12

And then of course we try to make sure there is like holistic approach

Rizel: 00:12:16

as well and we'll have like game nights and stuff like that for them

Rizel: 00:12:19

to get connect with each other.

Rizel: 00:12:20

That's, that's kind of how it is.

Eddie: 00:12:21

Awesome.

Eddie: 00:12:22

No, that sounds great and I love.

Eddie: 00:12:24

You're not trying to tackle everything, right?

Eddie: 00:12:25

You're no doing a strategic starting point, and then you've built

Eddie: 00:12:29

partnerships to say, Hey, like this can kind of help carry you through.

Eddie: 00:12:33

That's really well, well thought out.

Eddie: 00:12:36

I guess.

Eddie: 00:12:36

What challenges do you feel like exist, right?

Eddie: 00:12:39

When people are getting into tech, right?

Eddie: 00:12:41

You got into tech, you're helping all these people get into tech.

Eddie: 00:12:44

What kind of things kind of have you.

Eddie: 00:12:48

Encountered or have you seen people encounter that make it difficult?

Eddie: 00:12:51

Yeah,

Rizel: 00:12:52

there's a lot.

Rizel: 00:12:52

I think one of the things is like quote unquote imposter syndrome.

Rizel: 00:12:57

I say the quotes because a lot of times it's not really that the person has

Rizel: 00:13:01

imposter syndrome, or maybe they have a little bit, but a lot of times it's

Rizel: 00:13:05

like other people telling them things.

Rizel: 00:13:09

Like that's what I experienced at least, and I've talked to.

Rizel: 00:13:12

Underrepresented minorities, and they said like, yes, they agree.

Rizel: 00:13:16

Like a lot of times you'll be like, at least I went in and I was

Rizel: 00:13:20

like, okay, maybe I don't know any everything, and I'm a little bit

Rizel: 00:13:23

nervous, but I'm willing to learn.

Rizel: 00:13:25

But then you may meet with some in tech.

Rizel: 00:13:29

Sometimes we wanna seem like we know it all.

Rizel: 00:13:31

So you might have coworkers who they may speak to you in a more

Rizel: 00:13:35

condescending tone or say things like, oh, I would've expected you would

Rizel: 00:13:39

know this, or something like that.

Rizel: 00:13:41

And I think that kind of stuff starts to create imposter syndrome in somebody else.

Rizel: 00:13:47

Or they might even tell you, oh, you just have imposter syndrome, and

Rizel: 00:13:50

I'm just like, no, you are making that person feel bad and you're not

Rizel: 00:13:54

creating inclusive environment for them to feel confident with learning.

Rizel: 00:13:59

So I think that's like a big issue that does happen.

Eddie: 00:14:01

Yeah.

Eddie: 00:14:02

I love that call out because I think for plenty of people, like imposter syndrome

Eddie: 00:14:06

is real, but it has to be separated from the actual act of someone making someone

Eddie: 00:14:12

feel unwelcome and feel like an imposter.

Eddie: 00:14:16

And I think that is dangerous, right?

Eddie: 00:14:18

If we just always kind of cloak it as, oh, that's imposter syndrome,

Eddie: 00:14:21

you're just feeling like an imposter.

Eddie: 00:14:22

Like, well, no, there's an environment that's making you

Eddie: 00:14:25

feel that way and exactly.

Eddie: 00:14:27

You can self-talk all you want, but if someone keeps saying

Eddie: 00:14:31

You don't know that, then like you're never gonna get over that.

Eddie: 00:14:35

Like you have to change.

Eddie: 00:14:36

Yeah.

Eddie: 00:14:36

The environment has to change and be more welcoming and inclusive to allow

Eddie: 00:14:41

that self-talk, to be able to kind of put it to the sides, you know?

Eddie: 00:14:45

Yeah.

Eddie: 00:14:45

You said it

Rizel: 00:14:46

really, really perfectly.

Rizel: 00:14:47

Aw

Rizel: 00:14:48

. Eddie: Thanks.

Rizel: 00:14:49

That's really great.

Rizel: 00:14:50

I think that's one thing.

Rizel: 00:14:52

I really have appreciated about tech Twitter lately, although

Rizel: 00:14:55

there's definitely areas of tech Twitter that can go off the rails.

Rizel: 00:14:59

Environments can be what they can be.

Rizel: 00:15:00

Yeah.

Rizel: 00:15:01

But I know when I really got into tech, like no one was really willing

Rizel: 00:15:04

to share what kind of issues they ran into or what challenges they ran into.

Rizel: 00:15:10

And so I do think as.

Rizel: 00:15:13

Unfortunately, people in this industry who are going to kind of talk down and

Rizel: 00:15:17

kind of gate keep, you know, and try to keep it be like an elite class of

Rizel: 00:15:22

like programmers or whatever, whatever nonsense they're trying to pedal, at

Rizel: 00:15:27

least like in the community and like Twitter and different things like that.

Rizel: 00:15:30

We do have a number of people who.

Rizel: 00:15:33

Can kind of shed light on that.

Rizel: 00:15:34

Right.

Rizel: 00:15:34

And we have, yeah.

Rizel: 00:15:35

Communities like the G Code House that can help prepare and say, Hey listen,

Rizel: 00:15:40

here's some things you're gonna run into and find people who build you up.

Rizel: 00:15:44

Find people who invest in you rather than just tear you down.

Rizel: 00:15:47

Yes, I

Rizel: 00:15:48

love tech Twitter for that reason.

Rizel: 00:15:50

When I was having a tough time in tech, it was definitely.

Rizel: 00:15:53

My, my go-to and I've found that like similar to what you said about

Rizel: 00:15:57

communities, I've found that finding community helps to like reduce

Rizel: 00:16:03

those feelings of imposter syndrome.

Rizel: 00:16:05

Cuz like that's, that's the main thing behind imposter syndrome

Rizel: 00:16:08

is that you feel like you are the only one and you don't belong.

Rizel: 00:16:11

So once you find those, those communities, whether it be online, You,

Rizel: 00:16:15

you have a group of people in person.

Rizel: 00:16:17

I really do feel like that can help to reduce the The negative experience.

Eddie: 00:16:22

Absolutely.

Eddie: 00:16:23

Right.

Eddie: 00:16:23

Especially cuz like when people are actively hearing like those statements

Eddie: 00:16:28

and then you log on Twitter and you see people at prominent companies, right?

Eddie: 00:16:32

Like I follow someone who works at Netflix, right?

Eddie: 00:16:35

And then of course, yeah, you work at GitHub and like when people at these

Eddie: 00:16:38

more well-known companies are willing to.

Eddie: 00:16:41

Open and transparent and say, Hey, here's what people have told me.

Eddie: 00:16:44

And like people are actively, like they'll tweet things and

Eddie: 00:16:48

then they'll be like, oh, okay.

Eddie: 00:16:49

Everyone's coming out and saying, I don't know how to do this.

Eddie: 00:16:51

Like, I think I know how to do it.

Eddie: 00:16:52

I work at Netflix.

Eddie: 00:16:53

You know?

Eddie: 00:16:54

And it's like, yeah, showing that even when someone is successful, like

Eddie: 00:16:57

people are still gonna kind of try to.

Eddie: 00:16:59

Gate, keep them like

Eddie: 00:17:01

. Rizel: Yeah.

Eddie: 00:17:01

You brought up a good point,

Eddie: 00:17:03

. Eddie: So I guess what other things

Eddie: 00:17:08

in tech that you found challenging?

Eddie: 00:17:10

I mean,

Rizel: 00:17:10

in addition to maybe companies or coworkers not being as welcoming.

Rizel: 00:17:14

I think sometimes hustle culture.

Rizel: 00:17:17

Can make it challenging too because you never know or you, you're not

Rizel: 00:17:21

sure like, am I doing enough work or you're feeling pressured to do more?

Rizel: 00:17:25

And that that like leads to burnout and that leads to people wanting to quit.

Rizel: 00:17:29

So yeah, that's been another main issue that I've seen pop up.

Rizel: 00:17:34

That

Eddie: 00:17:34

makes sense for sure.

Eddie: 00:17:36

Yeah, I think it's interesting cuz that's kind of tied in with like how

Eddie: 00:17:39

people do performance reviews, right?

Eddie: 00:17:41

And like how their manager engages with them and it's like, okay, oftentimes

Eddie: 00:17:45

managers can kind of be hands off and just let you do what you do.

Eddie: 00:17:50

And so you're constantly kind of wondering like, where do I stand with this person?

Eddie: 00:17:53

And it's like, yeah, finally once a year, right?

Eddie: 00:17:55

They like give you.

Eddie: 00:17:57

Satisfactory label and you're like, oh, few I made it another year.

Eddie: 00:18:00

Right?

Eddie: 00:18:01

Like . Yeah.

Rizel: 00:18:03

That is how it can be , I feel like on both sides, like the company and

Rizel: 00:18:08

the, the worker or the employee, I don't know what to call them, but the developer.

Rizel: 00:18:12

Yeah.

Rizel: 00:18:12

Um, , I think there can be improvements made.

Rizel: 00:18:15

I think we need to.

Rizel: 00:18:18

Change how we're doing mentorship.

Rizel: 00:18:20

I feel like tons of times that people have been like, oh, this is your mentor.

Rizel: 00:18:24

And then like I've, I've never talked to them beyond like one time

Rizel: 00:18:28

like, oh, hey, you're my mentor.

Rizel: 00:18:30

And then they just like don't, I don't know, like when you

Rizel: 00:18:32

have like an onboarding buddy at GitHub, that hasn't happened.

Rizel: 00:18:35

But at like past companies, it's been like, oh, this is your onboarding bunny.

Rizel: 00:18:38

And then they.

Rizel: 00:18:39

never do anything, or I reach out and ask a question, no

Rizel: 00:18:41

answer questions are answered.

Rizel: 00:18:43

And I think, uh, that's not like, uh, only me situation.

Rizel: 00:18:47

So like, yeah, revamping how we're doing mentorship and like how

Rizel: 00:18:50

you said where you may not know, where you stand with your manager.

Rizel: 00:18:53

Figuring out like a communication plan of like how does your manager want to best

Rizel: 00:18:58

be communicated with, and then versus like, how do you wanna be communicated

Rizel: 00:19:01

with, it's just there's a lot.

Rizel: 00:19:04

Things that I think we can do better, especially for either like junior

Rizel: 00:19:08

engineers or people from underrepresented backgrounds, cuz I think those are, at

Rizel: 00:19:14

least for me, those are the people that I've spoken to that often leave the

Rizel: 00:19:17

industry, whereas they were initially excited and then they get discouraged.

Eddie: 00:19:22

Yeah, because I think right when you are encountering more an additional

Eddie: 00:19:27

blockers, right, like the industry is, is hard enough to kind of break into, right?

Eddie: 00:19:32

And even if you fit the mold, and I am in the fortunate place that

Eddie: 00:19:37

no one's ever looked at me and said, oh, you don't know that.

Eddie: 00:19:39

And it's probably just because of assumptions, right?

Eddie: 00:19:41

The biases and assumptions.

Eddie: 00:19:43

Someone looks at me and I've got glasses and.

Eddie: 00:19:45

I'm white and I'm a dude, and you know, like I kind of fit, like, someone's

Eddie: 00:19:49

like, oh yeah, there's a nerd.

Eddie: 00:19:50

All right.

Eddie: 00:19:51

Like he knows how to program, you know, like . Yeah.

Eddie: 00:19:54

I can say gibberish and like unfortunately that bias works in my favor.

Eddie: 00:19:59

Right?

Eddie: 00:20:00

But, and yet even in that where like I have this systemic kind

Eddie: 00:20:04

of help and support, I still have run into blockers myself, right?

Eddie: 00:20:09

Like, yeah.

Eddie: 00:20:09

And so it's like, Even people who have a pretty smooth path can run into blockers.

Eddie: 00:20:15

Like that's just gonna pile up right on.

Eddie: 00:20:18

People who have kind of systemic issues pushing against them and making

Eddie: 00:20:22

it harder with biases and stuff.

Eddie: 00:20:25

And so I definitely can see how that would lead to faster burnout, right?

Eddie: 00:20:29

Because it's like if you have that feeling of you shouldn't belong,

Eddie: 00:20:33

you're gonna work harder hours, right?

Eddie: 00:20:34

Because you're gonna feel like you're behind everyone else and.

Eddie: 00:20:37

If you don't feel steady in your job, you might not feel as confident to.

Eddie: 00:20:43

Push back to your manager, right.

Eddie: 00:20:44

And ask.

Eddie: 00:20:45

Yeah.

Eddie: 00:20:45

And like really probe.

Eddie: 00:20:47

And so I think in that way it's, if you're listening and you're in that situation,

Eddie: 00:20:51

like kind of like we talked about, right?

Eddie: 00:20:52

Find community, find people who can say, Hey, here's what

Eddie: 00:20:55

I said, here's what I did.

Eddie: 00:20:57

Um, to kind of encourage you like how you can push back and how you can

Eddie: 00:21:00

kind of take control of the situation, even if say your manager isn't, yeah.

Eddie: 00:21:04

So that's, that's definitely good.

Eddie: 00:21:06

And yeah, and hopefully.

Eddie: 00:21:08

As we continue to, to push and change right?

Eddie: 00:21:11

Our companies and like we get my more diversity in our companies.

Eddie: 00:21:15

Like we'll have managers who have gone these paths and understood right, these

Eddie: 00:21:20

roadblocks and people, right, like me, who are on the journey to learning roadblocks,

Eddie: 00:21:25

everyone is encountering, like hopefully we can continue to make changes inside

Eddie: 00:21:30

that, um, make things more welcoming.

Rizel: 00:21:32

I definitely see us taking that, that path we're getting.

Rizel: 00:21:36

So I don't want it to seem all negative, but I like to be transparent about

Rizel: 00:21:39

this so that if there's other people who are, like you said, like not sure

Rizel: 00:21:44

if they should stay in tech, I want them to know like if this is a common

Rizel: 00:21:48

occurrence or experience and there's ways

Eddie: 00:21:50

around it.

Eddie: 00:21:51

Yeah.

Eddie: 00:21:51

You're.

Eddie: 00:21:51

You're not alone.

Eddie: 00:21:53

Reach out to people.

Eddie: 00:21:53

Twitter is a great place.

Eddie: 00:21:55

But, um, there's also, you know, all sorts of communities.

Eddie: 00:21:57

There's actually been a lot of different communities that have

Eddie: 00:22:00

been mentioned on previous episodes.

Eddie: 00:22:01

So like you can go back through our archives and listen, I'm trying to

Eddie: 00:22:05

get together a website that will actually like list all the cool

Eddie: 00:22:08

communities and different things that people have experienced.

Eddie: 00:22:11

So you can look at the, the podcast website and when you're listening to

Eddie: 00:22:15

this, see if I've actually released it or.

Eddie: 00:22:17

Hopefully by the time this gets released, I've, I've updated the website, , . But

Eddie: 00:22:22

yeah, find there's all sorts of, uh, communities, so kinda look back and,

Eddie: 00:22:26

and find different communities people have recommended and yeah, get plugged

Eddie: 00:22:29

in where people can encourage you and, and help you know which way to go.

Eddie: 00:22:32

So Raelle is there, I guess if someone wanted to get involved in the

Eddie: 00:22:36

G Code house, what should they do?

Rizel: 00:22:38

Yeah, you can go ahead and follow G Code House on Twitter at G Code House

Rizel: 00:22:43

and then on, um, you can check out their website at the g code house.com.

Rizel: 00:22:48

. There is an option where it says like, join us or get

Rizel: 00:22:52

involved, or something like that.

Rizel: 00:22:53

I don't remember, but that's where you would go if you wanted to volunteer

Rizel: 00:22:56

and if you wanted to be a student, there's like an apply section.

Eddie: 00:22:59

Well, that sounds great.

Eddie: 00:23:01

Raelle, thank you so much for joining us today.

Eddie: 00:23:03

It's been just a pleasure of chatting, getting to know you and your story

Eddie: 00:23:06

and just hearing about how you.

Eddie: 00:23:08

I like to encourage people to just keep pushing through when the times get

Rizel: 00:23:12

tough.

Rizel: 00:23:12

Thanks.

Rizel: 00:23:13

It was great talking to you as well.

Rizel: 00:23:14

I really enjoyed this conversation.

Rizel: 00:23:16

Awesome.

Eddie: 00:23:17

Thank you for joining us for episode 31.

Eddie: 00:23:20

Trying to be that person I wished was there.

Eddie: 00:23:23

When I was learning to code with Rozelle Scarlet, you can find out more about

Eddie: 00:23:27

resil on her Twitter at black girl bites.

Eddie: 00:23:31

You can find links to everything we talked about in this episode, as well as a link

Eddie: 00:23:35

to results Twitter in the show notes.

Eddie: 00:23:37

And if you enjoyed this episode, help others discover it as well.

Eddie: 00:23:41

Give us a shout out on your favorite social media platform and tag a friend or

Eddie: 00:23:45

coworker that you think would enjoy it.

Eddie: 00:23:48

Don't forget to follow us wherever you hang out online or subscribe to

Eddie: 00:23:52

our newsletter to stay up to date.

Eddie: 00:23:55

Thank you for listening and have a great day.