National Coding Week: Meet Diana Lee

Every day for National Coding Week, we’ll be sharing a blog about a technical person. Today, we’re featuring Diana Lee who is a full- stack developer and curriculum lead instructor for Code First:Girls.

What does your job involve?

I’m a full-stack developer, a coding instructor and technical mentor with over 5 years total experience in software engineering and data science. My latest venture is in developing tools and mentoring programmes to make software engineering inclusive by default, inspired by progressive movements like Compassionate Coding.

What’s your favourite thing about your job?

I love building things that people are actually using and seeing the positive impact of software that I’ve been involved in creating.

How did you start coding?

When I was a teenager, I had a blog and I wanted to customise it myself. So I learnt JavaScript, CSS & HTML to make changes.

Can you share one practical tip on how to start coding?

A lot of teaching material can be filled with jargon and seemingly obscure concepts on first glance. However, the key thing is to figure out how it fits into the bigger picture and how the different pieces all fit in together. I think of building things with code like lego blocks which I was a huge fan of growing up. It’s not so much about the line of code itself than the figure assembled and how they all come together. Make diagrams, draw, or create your own visualisations. Coding is inherently creative.

How can we contact you?

Follow me on Twitter:
@d1ana

Diana has taken over our Instagram account today — click here to watch her story and find out more about her career.