Our 2023 H1 software engineers are ready for placements!
The 2023 H1 cohort of Techtonica’s full-time software engineering program has worked hard to learn as much as possible and build excellent projects. We are so proud of them and know they’ll go on to do great things!
You’re welcome to show your support by joining their graduation on June 23rd.
Anneice (she/her)
Bio: Anneice, a San Francisco native and mother of three, discovered her passion for computers and technology while tinkering with HTML and CSS to customize MySpace pages for her classmates. After realizing that she wanted to pursue a career in software engineering, she applied to Techtonica to gain the skills and knowledge necessary to make her dream a reality. Anneice is most excited to learn more about the PERN stack and to work with mentors and industry speakers, with the ultimate goal of using her skills to bridge the gap between the tech world and underrepresented communities. Her dream project is to build an app or website that will give smaller organizations and individuals the tech and social media power of big companies.
Project name: Mooview
Project description: Mooview is the ultimate movie review app that makes informed decisions easy for neurodiverse people
APIs used: The Movie Database, Auth0
Hardest part of building your project: Deciding which data I wanted to call from the API and which I didn’t — being given so many different query choices leads to unlimited possibilities. Although it was hard to choose, it was also fun.
Favorite part of building your project: Watching the flow of data between frontend and backend, from component to component. I also enjoyed making reviews and seeing the reviews that my friends and family helped with.
Anneice was placed at Sony PlayStation.
Camille (she/they)
Bio: After having led adult learners as a teacher with Teach For America, Camille is a proud participant of the Techtonica program, and excited to have the opportunity to learn again after having been out of school for many years. She is based in Philadelphia, but grew up in South Florida, where she fostered a love of singing and building community. About two years into the pandemic, Camille began craving an opportunity to learn new skills, and grow in a new field. They began learning how to code via freeCodeCamp and Skillcrush, before applying to Techtonica and learning how to build full stack applications. She is hopeful about the future and confident in her abilities to go far in this new field.
Project name: Ready
Project description: Ready is a vacation management app
Hardest part of building your project: The hardest part of this project was honestly missing a few days at the start — it set me back mentally. But I was able to get on track and gain some momentum by coming up with a clear game plan and specific goals for my application.
Favorite part of building your project: My favorite parts of this project were thinking through and implementing the many queries and database interactions required and using the OpenAI API.
Camille was placed at Sony PlayStation.
Dana (she/her)
Bio: Dana’s experience as an accounts receivable claims analyst first sparked her curiosity in automated software systems and how they can streamline tasks, such as standardizing and validating data. She started to develop an interest in software engineering, and the more she learned about it, the more it grew into a passion. Dana decided to take the full leap into tech by joining Techtonica, where she has been a leader and mentor of her cohort for the past 5 months. Through the program, she has realized her enthusiasm for backend engineering, and is excited to make a meaningful impact with her work.
Project name: CodeBook
Project description: CodeBook is a software engineering interview prep accountability tool
APIs used: Auth0 Authentication, Auth0 Management, Codewars, Gmail
Hardest part of building your project: Accounting for all possible ways that users can misuse routes and deviate from the app’s intended use, such as ordering operations improperly, providing invalid arguments, and not following instructions.
Favorite part of building your project: Interweaving many different, moving parts and seeing how they come together to form a functional and dynamic application.
Dana was placed at Soda Health.
Gisselle (she/her)
Bio: Gisselle was born and raised in Los Angeles County, where she loves being outdoors and hiking with friends. After completing her degree in Sociology and English at UCSB, Gisselle became curious about data analytics and decided to explore this newfound interest through a program called COOP Careers, where she discovered an interest in coding. This led her to join Techtonica where she has enjoyed learning about the PERN stack and expanding her skillset. Gisselle is passionate about learning and promoting growth, and enthusiastic about being part of an industry known for innovation and constant evolution. She is eager to continue her journey wherever the next opportunity may take her.
Project name: Mindful Milestones
Project description: Mindful Milestones is a vision board app that helps turn goals into actionable steps
API used: Pexels API
Hardest part of building your project: It was challenging to keep track of the logic in each component. It helped me to write out my thoughts whenever I felt stuck.
Favorite part of building your project: I really enjoyed creating the image form using the Pexels API. It was exciting to see the API images rendered onto each checkbox!
Gisselle was placed at Sony PlayStation.
Mifrah (she/her)
Bio: Mifrah was born and raised in Queens, New York, and she embraced curiosity from an early age exploring various activities like knitting, beauty tutorials, cooking, and crafts. Despite financial hardships, she graduated from The University of Connecticut with a Bachelor’s Degree in Finance, then witnessed firsthand during her business intelligence work at Aetna how analytics software can replace hours of manual work into seconds. After transitioning to investing and venture capital, which was more aligned with her undergraduate pursuits), Mifrah realized her true passion was leveraging technology to enhance efficiency. Through deep introspection during the pandemic, Mifrah recognized the alignment between her career interests and the field of software engineering, leading her to apply to Techtonica. Eager to apply the skills she has acquired throughout her career and with strong interpersonal abilities, Mifrah is determined to create efficient and impactful solutions for companies.
Project name: Raw Stories
Project description: Raw Stories is a captivating career blog
API used: Adzuna Job Ads
Hardest part of building your project: The planning phase presented the greatest challenge in my project as I aimed to maintain a process improvement mindset. I had to envision project elements for which I hadn’t yet mastered the coding aspect. This experience highlighted the significance of thorough planning, allowing me to define the desired outcomes for each component and page, resulting in cleaner code.
Favorite part of building your project: My favorite aspect of building this project was the opportunity to recreate my career blog from scratch using code. It was not only a proud moment for me, but also a chance to reflect on the tremendous amount of knowledge I gained over the past few months.
Pandora (they/them)
Bio: Pandora, a tech enthusiast with an extraordinary journey, was born and raised amidst the vibrant streets of Oakland, California and have called the captivating city of Boston their home since 2018. Their fascination with technology first blossomed when they participated in the life-changing program called TechBridge, designed to empower underprivileged girls. Having overcome challenges and navigating the foster care system, Pandora’s determination and resilience have shaped their aspirations. With an unwavering commitment to giving back to the foster care community, they harness their tech skills as a catalyst for positive change. Drawing upon their personal experiences, they strive to develop innovative solutions that address the unique needs of foster youth while advocating for their rights and well-being.
Project name: Groupies
Project description: Groupies is a group-based social media site where users can gather to create community
Hardest part of building your project: The trickiest part I’d have to say was dealing with multiple data tables. Working on small ones, you only have to deal with one or two tables but for a full-stack project, it’s that times 10.
Favorite part of building your project: Building the database and creating the layout of how my site will look.
Rahma (she/her)
Bio: Rahma is a San Francisco Bay Area native and undergraduate at UC Berkeley where she serves as Regent’s & Chancellor’s Scholar. Her initial introduction to coding was as a Research Apprentice, where she honed her analytical prowess in utilizing Python libraries for mixed-method data analysis. After an internship for an NGO in East Africa, she was inspired to build web application solutions tackling critical issues such as telemedicine care in rural Kenya. As a software engineer, Rahma is committed to building transformative products that inspire innovation and reach diverse communities worldwide.
Project name: Sante
Project description: Sante generates personalized Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) for over 20 essential vitamins & minerals values based on age & sex
APIs used: Auth0, NIH DSLD REST API
Hardest part of building your project: Learning my way around the National Institutes of Health API data with my database, and how best to leverage public APIs to develop a seamless user search experience.
Favorite part of building your project (code-related): The most satisfying part was extracting the relevant data from the NIH API.
Raquel (she/her)
Bio: Raquel was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles with a degree in sociology. Her interest in the intersection of tech and social justice was sparked in a digital humanities class where she led her team through conducting a data analysis project. This experience inspired her to pursue a career in software engineering, which ultimately led her to apply to Techtonica. Raquel’s goal is to gain the technical skills necessary to make an impact in her community by creating websites and apps that are easily accessible and user-friendly for minority populations. Additionally, she hopes to break the glass ceiling for Latina women in the tech industry and become a mentor for others in the future.
Project name: Happy.Co Ecommerce Store
Project description: Happy.Co is a user-friendly web application that allows visitors to browse through our selection of products as soon as they land on our site
APIs used: fakeStoreApi, Auth0
Hardest part of building your project: The hardest part was implementing Auth0 because I was not familiar with this technology previously, as well as creating the logic for the favorite functionality.
Favorite part of building your project: My favorite part about this project was just the continuous learning I experienced while building out a full-stack web application. A full-stack application contains a lot of different moving parts, so piecing the different processes together and trying to make sense of it reminded me of solving a puzzle!
Roshanell (she/her)
Bio: Roshanell is an inspiring educator-turned-software engineer, bringing a unique blend of skills to the tech industry. Her fascination with leveraging software tools to enrich classroom learning and streamline lesson-planning led her to Techtonica, an organization dedicated to nurturing diversity in tech. During her time at Techtonica, Roshanell developed an innovative AI-powered application to revolutionize educational practices, further blending her passion for technology and education. With her newly-minted coding skills and deep educational insights, Roshanell stands poised to make significant contributions to any tech team, bringing a fresh and impactful perspective to software development.
Project name: Memowise
Project description: Meet Memowise — a revolutionary study aid application
APIs used: Pixabay, OpenAI, Merriam Webster, Auth0
Hardest part of building your project: The most difficult part of this project was the time constraints and being able to scale the project down to the MVP. I have so many ideas and features I’d love to implement however, time waits for no one!
Favorite part of building your project: My favorite part of the project was working to get the application to dynamically work with AI and watching the project grow from a single component to an actual application. I enjoyed having the opportunity to work with cutting-edge technology and learning so much.
Ruby (she/her)
Bio: Ruby acquired a strong interest in problem-solving and technology from a young age, which led her to obtaining an AAS. in mathematics and later attending UCSD’s Jacobs School of Engineering with the goal of receiving a Computer Science BS degree. Although the program was too expensive for her to stay, she remained determined and found an alternative way into the tech industry through Techtonica. During her time at Techtonica, Ruby demonstrated leadership by offering project help, hosting weekly office hours, and conducting one-on-one sessions with cohort members. Ruby has experience in both front-end and back-end development, and is particularly interested in full-stack development. She remains committed to expanding her knowledge and applying new skills in her work, and hopes to give back to her community.
Project name: Money On My Mind
Project description: Money On My Mind is a budgeting application
APIs used: Auth0 Authentication API, Auth0 Management API, Google Calendar API, YouTube API, OpenAI GPT-3 API
Hardest part of building your project: The hardest part of building my project would definitely have to be deciding which APIs to use. It took a lot of experimenting, research, trial and error to come to my decision, but I learned so much along the way!
Favorite part of building your project: My favorite part of my project was being able to see my front-end and back-end work seamlessly together to generate my charts and tables in the dashboard. I also had a lot of fun refactoring my code and seeing how and where I could combine components, functions, etc.
Ruby was placed at Sony PlayStation.
Ruthie (they/them)
Bio: Ruthie graduated in the 2022-H2 cohort and joined the Techtonica team as the technical assistant in January. The assistant role has deeply enriched their understanding of the PERN stack and ongoing learning element of software development, while also providing an avenue to practice teaching, debugging alongside participants, and other soft skills associated with thriving in a collaborative work environment. Everything from their previous career in tech support and time in a high school classroom prepared them to embrace this career path with enthusiasm.
Project name: Techtonica Mock Interview Question Randomizer
Project description: Techtonica Mock Interview Question Randomizer randomly generates and checks off code challenges from a database of dozens
API used: CodeSandbox
Hardest part of building your project: I wanted a deeper understanding of how to use JavaScript to generate and alter database tables, and learning how to implement Sequelize for that purpose definitely challenged me. Super valuable experience seeing how something I thought would take days really took a week to iron out.
Favorite part of building your project: Learning how to implement Sequelize and mimicking Techtonica.org in style gave me a chance to dig into skills I hadn’t spent much quality time with. I understand much more about these topics and feel like a better engineer.
Sarah (she/her)
Bio: Sarah is a Colorado native with a love for sunshine and passion for technology. Her background in physiology and sleep research equipped her with critical thinking and problem-solving skills. These skills, and discovering the positive impact technology can have, are what led her to transition into tech. Sarah’s goal is making a tangible difference in the world by using her skills and expertise to help underserved and underrepresented individuals. She finds the transition to a career in tech to be both rewarding and challenging, and is excited to continue learning and growing in the field.
Project name: Forget Me Not
Project description: Forget Me Not is the ultimate app for never forgetting important details about your loved ones
API used: DiceBear
Hardest part of building your project: The hardest part of building my project was deciding exactly how I want my project to function and look. I had so many different ideas, and I am really happy I decided to go with something that reflects my values of gratitude and thoughtfulness in relationships, as well as an API concept that hadn’t been used previously.
Favorite part of building your project: My favorite part of my project was turning my unique idea into reality. It was really fun coming up with a creative idea of using avatars that no previous cohort member had done before. When I presented my project pitch, it was great to see all the positive feedback on my idea from other cohort members and staff. It has been really exciting seeing my project come to life.
Tanya (they/them)
Bio: A life-long learner, Tanya is passionate about the intersection between tech and humans. Prior to joining Techtonica, they served as a library assistant where they used their skills acquired from their anthropology degree to coordinate various community events and programs. Their curiosity in tech grew as they led digital literacy classes and began to immerse themselves in the HTML, CSS, and the world of tech. They are excited to integrate their previous skills with those learned at Techtonica in order to create inclusive tech spaces by and for underrepresented communities.
Project name: Guess-a-mon
Project description: Guess-a-mon tests Pokémon knowledge and collects digital cards of wins
APIs used: PokéApi, Auth0 Authentication
Hardest part of building your project: Despite my computer crashing on the first day of my final project, I was able to use my resources and support system around me in order to obtain a computer for the time being and got to work on setting up my environment. While it was definitely a hurdle, I managed to surpass it and got my system up and running in just two days and began to have fun with my project!
Favorite part of building your project: Being able to create something that I wouldn’t have known how to six months ago is extremely satisfying. It has been great seeing how we have all evolved during our time at Techtonica!
Yazmin (she/her)
Bio: Yazmin is a San Francisco Bay Area native who coded for her first time in her junior year of college as an extracurricular course. She graduated from Santa Clara University in 2020 with a B.S. in Biochemistry and went on to work as a Research Assistant at Genentech. During this time, she also worked on a personal blog called Latinxs In STEM. These experiences exposed her to the world of programming and showed her how many more doors would open if she understood how to program. She left Genentech in May 2022 to pursue a career in programming and has been focusing heavily on full-stack JavaScript.
Project name: YouMove
Project description: YouMove allows users to create customized workouts
APIs used: YouTube API, Auth0
Hardest part of building your project: The hardest part of my project was managing state that many components needed access to. I ended up learning about the useContext hook and I’m hoping this makes managing global state much easier!
Favorite part of building your project: My favorite part of building my project was seeing everything come together and learning more about TailwindCSS!
Yazmin was placed at Sony PlayStation.
Yolis (she/her)
Bio: Yolis is a first-generation Latina, born and raised in California. Coming from a low-income background, she was the translator and the one who guided her parents through everything, while being the older sibling and trying to figure out life on her own. Besides the financial hardships, high expectations, and obstacles she faced, Yolis continued with her education and received her AA degree in Medical Office Administration. However, she quickly realized the medical field was not for her and knew she wanted to get more involved in tech and be able to grow within the industry.
Project name: Lend A Paw
Project description: Lend A Paw supports animals through adoption, volunteering, donating, fostering, and more
APIs used: Petfinder
Hardest part of building your project: One of the hardest parts of building this project was learning to create branches for specific sections of my code, and trying to keep both my local and GitHub code updated.
Favorite part of building your project (code-related): My absolute favorite part is actually getting a component working. It’s those little “it worked!” moments that give one a sense of accomplishment. And of course, working on CSS to make my project more presentable.
Techtonica relies on donations, volunteering, and hiring partnerships to provide our services to our participants. We welcome your individual donations, volunteering, as well as you involving your company as a sponsor. Thank you so much for your support!
