Participant Story: Zaire
Zaire is one of the participants of our six-month software engineering program! You can support her journey at techtonica.org/donate.
The term “unicorn” is one of Silicon Valley’s favorite phrases, and it can mean everything from a profitable startup to designers with cross-functional skills. San Francisco native Zaire is well-positioned to become an engineering unicorn by combining her existing visual design skill set with a passion for user experience and code development.
After graduating with an art degree from UCLA, Zaire was part of an art collective that put on art shows in LA with a focus on making the experience more inclusive for younger groups. And while she loves her creative side, she realized that a career in art wasn’t what she wanted.
Zaire started taking classes at a community college to explore other career options, and a course on Illustrator sparked her interest.
“As I was creating a mockup of a music website, I remember wanting to build the site instead of just designing it,” she said. “It felt like I was only getting one side of the story.”
Branching out to learn how to build websites instead of only designing mockups felt natural to her.
“I like to try different things and wear different hats. I like to have the whole story, even if I’m not good at everything,” she said.
Zaire started taking classes in web development, but quickly felt out of place because of her uncommon art history background and as a black woman.
“I constantly worried about asking stupid questions, and when I did muster up the courage, I felt like I often got an impatient or complicated response,” she said of her class experience. “I felt like if I asked a question, it proved I didn’t belong there. As an African American and a woman, It felt like everything I did was under a lens.”
She stopped taking the classes, but her mom, who knew she was still interested in learning, told her about a flyer she saw at Starbucks about Techtonica.
“When I found out about Techtonica, I felt like I was given a second chance to prove to myself that I can succeed,” she said, adding that she can now see the value of her unique background and that she just needed support and to see people more like her in her coding classes, which she now has. “Being part of Techtonica’s supportive environment makes me believe that a career as a software engineer is a real possibility for me.”
If you or your company might be interested in supporting program participants like Zaire, please donate at techtonica.org/donate or look attechtonica.org/sponsor.
To read about our other participants, please click on their names below:
