Jahlela Hasle talked about how to switch to the IT sector at our event on the 26th of July 2018 @BlueLionZurich.

1. Getting into Tech with a
Non-Traditional Background
Jahlela Hasle, 26 July 2018
BlueLion Incubator, Zurich, Switzerland

2. What is a traditional background?
Atheist white male from a wealthy family with a CS degree from Stanford
Does anybody actually have that background?
# Tech Jobs
# Stanford CS Grads

3. #ILookLikeAnEngineer, 2015
Source: The Numbers of the #ILookLikeAnEngineer Ad Campaign (Medium)
Credit: Michelle Glauser, Founder of @TechtonicaOrg, Web dev, #ILookLikeAnEngineer ads, PyLadiesSF lead.

4. My Background
- Grew up in California
- Cognitive neuroscience undergrad
- Startup founder & product manager
- Coding bootcamp
- Employed software engineer

5. Everyone can make an impact in tech
● Female/Non-binary
● People of color
● Studied economics
● Or music or biology
● Left industry or school to raise children
● Spent 15 years in finance
● Work as an executive assistant
● Run a bakery or moonlight as an actress

6. There are non-developer roles in tech
● UX/UI Designer
● Tech Evangelist
● Product/Project Manager
● Systems Analyst
● QA / Testing
● Data Scientist
● Technical Writer
Get your foot in the door

7. So, how do you get into engineering?
● Start with the fundamentals
● Build your own projects - be ambitious
● Ask lots of questions - Google/StackOverflow
● Don’t give up
○ The industry changes constantly
○ Never gets easier - you just get used to constant challenges
○ Everyone is always learning

9. Starting to Code
First Step: Make a Github (github-pages)
Possible Journey: Python -> Javascript -> Haskell/OCaml/F# -> C/C++
Take classes: Codecademy
Build Small Things: website, image editor, merge sort

10. Stay Close to the Metal
● Learn to use the command line! Dream in it!
● Hardware: MacBook/Linux. NO WINDOWS
● Version Control: Use Git from the command line
● Text Editor: Emacs/Vim (very frustrating at first, very worth it)

11. Focus on the fundamentals
● Linear algebra, combinatorics, number theory
● Algorithms and data structures
● Interview questions

12. Build stuff!
Source: Jahlela Hasle, Paleta

13. The computer will tell you you’re wrong
● Constantly
● Listen to what it has to say
● It will be frustrating
Everything is Always Broken
● Constantly
● The better you are, the more broken it will be

14. Attend all the things!
● Study groups
● Hackathons
● University talks
● Industry events
● Conferences
Create a network

15. Be a hacker
● Hacker != breaking into banks
● Art of patching things together to get the job done
● Read Eric Raymond’s How to Become a Hacker
○ catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html
● Use Google

16. Resources
● Codecademy
● MIT OpenCourseware: Algorithms
● InterviewBit
● Interview Cake
● Cracking the Coding Interview
● Pramp
● HackerRank
● Coding Competitions
● jahlela.hasle@gmail.com

17. One more thing...
We’re hiring!
Please send your CV to:
jahlela.hasle@kingfluencers.com

18. Good luck!