Welcome to OkieCoder
Howdy, y’all!
Who am I?
First thing’s first! My name is Rebecca, but you can call me Becca (she/her). After switching careers a few times and completing a bootcamp called Ada Developers Academy in Jan 2021, I’m now a professional software engineer at a large-ish tech company (3K+ employees). Most days I really enjoy my work, but spoiler alert, there are plenty of days where I find the work really challenging and doubt myself. But I’m jumping ahead!
A thing you should know about me early on: I love cats… like, big time. I even have a youtube channel dedicated to archiving shorts of my two tuxedo girls, Lighthouse and Hoodwink. They’re playful sisters with very different personalities; Lighthouse is athletic, daring, and slinky and has a sweet, stuttery purr, while Hoodwink is needy, sassy, and adorably clumsy — and has quite the regal, luxurious tail. They’ll probably make several guest appearances in future OkieCoder posts. ;)
We live in Seattle, where I find the rain is actually very polite (more like mist and rarely overstaying its welcome) and not too gloomy, and where I’m convinced summers can’t get more glorious. There are a lot of techy people, places, and things to do in and around Seattle, but even if you’re not ‘in tech’ in Seattle, you can still probably find what you’re into here. Especially hiking and incredible food.
I’m originally from Shawnee, Oklahoma, where I was born and raised. In the almost 4 years I’ve lived in Seattle, I’ve met 2 people also from Oklahoma — a former apartment neighbor and a cashier at Trader Joes. You never know where you’ll meet an Okie, but when you do, it’s a delight, if I do say so myself. :)
I went to high school in Oklahoma City, college near Kansas City MO, and did one year of grad school in Indiana. You could say most of my life has been land-locked. As much as I like being un-land-locked in Seattle, there are so many things I love about Oklahoma, but the biggest one by far is my family. They are basically all in Oklahoma. I have quite a large family and love to go back to visit for holidays or just whenever I can. The sunsets and sunrises are pretty rad. I miss that feeling when a thunderstorm is a-brewing (tornados, not so much). The food is just so good, not to mention affordable.
What else about me?
Some other likes: audiobooks and local libraries, fancy yogurt, skydiving, dictionaries, the cello, growth mindsets, voting, anything banana flavored, investigative journalism, true crime documentaries, Wordle, animals and plants of all kinds.
Some dislikes: sugary cereal, junk mail, racism, sexism, mosquitoes, sleeping outside, toxic leadership, carbon emissions, bland salads, people-pleasing, mean Airbnb hosts.
Fun fact: on my bucketlist is going to see sea turtles hatchlings emerge from the nest and start the adventure of their lives. Yes, I was obsessed with ‘Finding Nemo’ back in the day. But maybe in my heart of hearts, I’m a li’l turtle still finding her way to the treacherous, wonderful, wide open sea.
Ok, enough about me already!
Who are you?
Besides awesome? ;) I promise to read the comments on all these stories so that I can hopefully get to know you more in time.
For now, my hunch is telling me that you’re interested in learning how to code or learning more about the tech industry in general, maybe both. Perhaps you’ve done some coding before, or perhaps you’ve never started, or maybe you don’t know if coding or working ‘in tech’ might be right for you. You might live in Oklahoma or somewhere where tech opportunities have historically been harder to find. Maybe you already code or work in tech but could use some extra perspective.
No matter where you are or where you’re from, I hope that OkieCoder can be a place where like-minded, growth-oriented folks can learn, converge, and support each other on our journeys to make good things happen in our lives and communities.
What do I hope you get out of OkieCoder?
I hope that OkieCoder can make you feel accepted, energized, supported, and curious to keep going in your learning journey.
It’s not my goal to convince you that working ‘in tech’ is right for you or anyone. It may not be right for you, and that’s more than okay, better than okay even! There are SO many fields and other ways to lead meaningful, fulfilled lives and careers. PLUS, it’s not even a yes/no decision here; you can be interested in coding as a hobby or for personal reasons and nothing more. :) You can always change your mind about any of this and decide that actually you’d rather learn about fungi, dentistry, making snowflakes, saving endangered frogs, food trucks, illustrating children’s books, you name it.
If you decide you want to keep learning about this tech shtuff, I’m here for you. I’ve had countless amazing mentors and teachers behind me, and I hope to pay that forward with this blog. There are a ton of great, free resources out there for learning about tech, and especially software engineering. I’ll definitely share resources that have been helpful to me. Most of all, what I hope you’ll learn here is fun and useful to you while being relatable, accessible, and story-driven.
So, what do y’all want to learn?
Please let me know if you want to hear about anything in particular, and I’ll do my best to speak to that if I can. I’m planning on writing openly about a lot of topics with OkieCoder, including (in no particular order):
- what does being ‘in tech’ mean?
- other kinds of roles at tech companies besides software engineering
- ideas for what you can do with coding skills
- how learning to code has changed my life and helped me grow my self confidence
- real talk around money
- the mentality to cultivate for happy programming (and life??)
- representation in the tech industry
- what an average day of work as a software engineer entails
- the emotions behind the work for a highly sensitive person in tech
- why I think tech is hard to break into (especially if you’re not a cis, white male)
- my bootcamp experience
- how to write a sweet résumé
- how to be a great intern
- tools and tricks I’ve learned
- programming concepts, code snippets, small demos
- short interviews/glimpses of real, awesome people and coworkers I’ve met along my coding journey
- words I like to avoid when talking about technical things
- what I’ve learned about great mentors
- ideas for managing burnout and ‘Imposter Syndrome’
- how to ask for help and advocate for yourself
- tech layoffs of late
- how the industry is changing with AI, etc.
- thoughts about remote work, returning to the office, etc.
I think that’s it for now, but I’m sure I’ll think of more. It’s my intention to write one post every week or two. And with your help, I don’t think I’ll run out of topics anytime soon. :)
Thanks again for being here! Take care, until next time!
-Becca, LH, and HW
P.S. You can access OkieCoder for free on my site here. If you want to support the blog financially, thank you! You can help me plant some trees by heading to my Ecologi profile and selecting ‘Gift more impact’. I appreciate you! ❤
