Your Django Story: Meet Naomi Ceder
This is a post in our Your Django Story series where we highlight awesome ladies who work with Django. Read more about it here.
Naomi Ceder is the co-founder of Trans*Code, a hackday and coding education event in the UK focussed on the transgender community. She is also author of the Quick Python Book, 2nd Ed, and has taught and spoken about Python to diverse audiences for many years. She was the originator of the PyCon North America poster session, Education summit, and Intro to Sprinting Workshop. Naomi is currently Lead Architect for RazorOccam/Zoro Tools Europe.
How did your story with code start?
I am a classicist by training, with a PhD in Latin and Ancient Greek. I was teaching in Greece when I started coding on the Apple II series of computers (yes, I am that old). I guess I just have a thing for funny languages, because by the mid 90’s I had switched from teaching Latin to teaching C and Pascal.
What did you do before becoming a programmer?
I taught Latin and Ancient History, occasionally Greek. I was at a small private school, and when it turned out I could also manage computers and write code, I ended up doing that more and more. I ended up teaching coding, writing code, and managing hardware, networks, even the phone system.
What do you love the most about coding?
What I love most is the process of understanding a real-world problem and the systems involved, and then creating and combining elements to create a solution. Each system, each coding language, each environment has it’s own possibilities and limitations, so arriving at a solution involves choosing and fitting together the right bits, and creating the code to make those connections. I find that endlessly fascinating.
Why Django?
Django was appealing for a number of reasons. I first became a regular user when at work I needed to provide a way to edit product information in a MySQL database. The Django admin tool got me most of the way to an acceptable solution very quickly. But I then started a move to port our existing ecommerce site from a proprietary framework to Django, which they still use. Django has such a strong community and such good documentation that it really made sense as a choice for our business.
What cool projects are you working on at the moment/planning on working on in the near future?
In the next months I will be helping to stand up a third new business, from scratch, in five years. That will be more systems and architecture work than coding, but it should be interesting.
What are you the most proud of?
Well, I once wrote a 10 line script that saved our company from shutting down for several days. And I did it with several hours to spare. ;-)
But seriously, what I’m proudest of are the things I’ve done to bring people into coding and the Python community. In 2014 I met three of my former students at PyCon, all in successful software careers. The things I’ve started at PyCon, like the poster session, education summit, and sprints tutorial, which have helped people connect with the community. And most recently, Trans*Code. Those are the things that make me happy.
What are you curious about?
Hmmm… Angular, NodeJS, and clojure. Why we humans think and do the things we do, both personally and in general. How to help people better learn and teach things like Python coding. Different cultures. How just about anything works.
What do you like doing in your free time? What’s your hobby?
At various times I’ve been into running, biking, and training dogs for competitive obedience trials. At the present I’d say my main hobbies are counted cross stitch and knitting. I think it’s a very telling symptom of the misogyny in the world that traditionally feminine crafts like that are not taken very seriously, when in fact they require more sophisticated mental pattern manipulation and concentration than most things.
Do you have any advice/tips for programming beginners?
Keep in mind that NONE of this coding stuff is really obvious. Those of us who now appear to understand it have faced similar struggles and made similar mistakes. Nor do we understand everything as completely as you think we do.
So you can do this, but it may take time, and it won’t always be easy. Stay with it and find as much support as you can, from teachers, mentors, friends, even a rubber duck if you have to.
If you’re not getting something, or if you’re making wrong assumptions, the fault is not yours, but in the way the material is being presented, the sequence, even that something’s missing. If people give you the impression that you are not capable of “getting” coding, the fault is theirs - find different people.
Thanks Naomi! :)
Anna Ossowski
@OssAnna16Your Django Story: Meet Sara Gore
This is a post in our Your Django Story series where we highlight awesome ladies who work with Django. Read more about it here.
Sara is a Python and mainframe developer at the University of Texas at Austin. Although she’s found a home in the field of higher education administration, she’s still a librarian at heart. You can find her on twitter @saradgore.
How did your story with code start?
When I learned about the field of information science, I finally recognized a spot in which my varied interests converge. I started studying Python on my own so that I could be an active participant in this world and find new ways to wrangle information.
What did you do before becoming a programmer?
I studied French literature, taught English as a second language, worked in libraries and worked at Kinko’s for many, many years. Eventually I went back to school for a degree in Information Science.
What do you love the most about coding?
It allows me to express myself creatively. I can build useful things out of words.
Why Django?
Django allows extremely quick development, while still providing a structured environment and hewing closely to best practices. Of course, these advantages exist because of the amazing Django community.
What cool projects are you working on at the moment/planning on working on in the near future?
I have a personal project that I built that generates vegan recipes on the fly. I just need to tweak a few things before I release it into the world.
What are you the most proud of?
The Django project that I’m most proud of is a system I created that allows users to build custom Django forms from an abstract, user friendly interface. Front line business users use the interface to manage their own asynchronous processes. It freed up full time developers who were assigned to do custom work for that set of business users.
What are you curious about?
Organizational dynamics, botany, cat psychology, Javascript frameworks, functional programming.
What do you like doing in your free time? What’s your hobby?
Studying languages, reading, writing, riding my bike, cooking, eating. I spend a lot of time evangelizing for the books I love.
Do you have any advice/tips for programming beginners?
Be bold! Beginners have things to contribute to the community too, so let your voice be heard. Contribute to code bases, join meetups, speak at conferences. Admit when you don’t know something and watch the offers of help pour in. Also, learn to listen. The community is one of the things that makes Django great, and the best way to take advantage of that is to be receptive to other voices.
Thanks Sara! :)
Anna Ossowski
@OssAnna16Your Django Story: Meet Andrea Gonzalez
This is a post in our Your Django Story series where we highlight awesome ladies who work with Django. Read more about it here.
Andy is a turtle. She is also a web developer, time traveler, and photography hobbyist. Andy organized Django Girls Tijuana and Django Girls Ensenada. You can follow her on Twitter at @andiosuna.
How did your story with code start?
It started when I got discouraged by my father to pursue a career in science then decided to become a videogame programmer. A terrible programing class in the local community then discouraged me from pursuing that path and I got into 3D animation. Towards the end of the mandatory Associate’s in Graphic Design I then had a class called Intro to Web and I just fell in love with it and changed my major.
What did you do before becoming a programmer?
During and after I finished school, I worked as a Web Designer, Front End Developer, Web Developer and eventually I ended up where I am now, as a Python Developer.
What do you love the most about coding?
I love typing stuff that makes the computer do things. As silly as it sounds, I’ve talked to fellow programmers and this is quite common, apparently.
Why Django?
Because I was tired of PHP and looking for a more versatile language. Python seemed like the most reasonable choice, and well, Django is practically married to it.
What cool projects are you working on at the moment/planning on working on in the near future?
Personally I have two projects in different stages of development, but there aren’t enough hours in the day to make progress on either. In my job I am doing a full fledged administrative system. Lots of learning and hard work.
What are you the most proud of?
Getting a job as a Django developer with about three months of experience in tutorials! Also, feeling confident enough to contribute to open source projects.
What are you curious about?
Python in science.
What do you like doing in your free time? What’s your hobby?
I have many many hobbies! I am a karateka, I like photography, I watch tv series and movies, I play some string instruments, and I also enjoy reading.
Do you have any advice/tips for programming beginners?
It’s okay to feel overwhelmed, but don’t let that discourage you!
Thanks Andy! :)Anna Ossowski
@OssAnna16Your Django Story: Meet Allison Lacker
This is a post in our Your Django Story series where we highlight awesome ladies who work with Django. Read more about it here.
Allison is a software engineer at Eventbrite, where she has worked on everything from responsive CSS to optimizing search algorithms. She graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign with a degree in Computer Science, and then promptly ran away to Cameroon for 2.5 years. She is passionate about making the web usable for everyone.
How did your story with code start?
I started by making my own websites when I was 14. HTML gave way to CSS which was a downward slope towards learning JavaScript and programming more complex things. I started taking traditional programming classes in high school and stuck with it.
What did you do before becoming a programmer?
Depending on whether you consider making websites programming, I’ve been a programmer for a really long time! I took a break after college to join the Peace Corps, where I worked with both teachers and students to teach how to use computers. My secondary passion is making products more usable for everyone, and it was invaluable to experience a new culture and learn how they interacted with technology.
What do you love the most about coding?
That feeling when something works. When you solve a hard bug, or a difficult feature comes together. It might be a little maniacal, but it makes me feel like if I can make a computer do anything, I have the power to accomplish anything. (and then the code breaks again)
Why Django?
I’ve learned Django while working at Eventbrite, but I love the structure it imparts. Having experienced both a legacy codebase, and one with Django, I have to say I’m a huge proponent!
What cool projects are you working on at the moment/planning on working on in the near future?
Search! I’m currently working on making our algorithms surface better results faster. I’m also working on a side project to make implementing search engines a drop in product for developers and non-developers alike.
What are you the most proud of?
Maybe of trying to do the right thing; Make the world a better place, at least in tiny little steps. I’m proud of promoting accessibility everywhere I work.
What are you curious about?
What motivates people. Am I getting too far away from coding? I’m curious about data pipelines and machine learning and security and accessibility and performance. If I spent a few more minutes I could add more.
What do you like doing in your free time? What’s your hobby?
Hacking on code, but also gardening and baking and working on my motorcycle. I just got back from a 2 week long motorcycle camping adventure which was some of the most fun I’ve had in my life.
Do you have any advice/tips for programming beginners?
Don’t give up. No one knows everything, even if it seems like it sometimes. Fight through the days when you can’t get anything working for those moments of epiphany. Ask for help if you need it. Work on something that is interesting to you. Write in short sentences (just kidding).
Thanks Allison! :)Anna Ossowski
@OssAnna16Welcome Kasia and Geoffrey to Django Girls Core team!
5 months ago we welcomed Ania and Baptiste, when we expanded the Django Girls Core team for the first time. At the time, we weren’t sure what was gonna happen next. Today we know it was the best decision we’ve made so far: Ania and Baptiste brought so much energy, humour, fun to our team, and made such a huge impact on everything we do.
With a huge excitement, today we are extremaly happy to welcome two more people to this small team: Kasia Kamińska and Geoffrey Sechter. I can’t wait to start working alongside them, and see the new and sparkly things we’re gonna build together.
Wanna meet them? I know you want to:
Kasia Kamińska
We met Kasia two years ago, when she volunteered to help us during DjangoCon Europe 2013 in Warsaw. Ever since, she has been the most positive, always smiling and inspiring person we got a chance to meet. Kasia is currently working on her PhD in bioinformatics and she uses Python to find a new drug against the flu. After hours, she also codes websites in Django. She helped run Makerland and organized two Django Girls events in Warsaw, one of them in a world breaking record of just one month. Kasia is an amazing friend & the most enthusiastic and energetic person we know. We couldn’t be happier to have her on board. ⚡️
Geoffrey Sechter
When Geoffrey volunteered to organize Django Girls in New York City, we weren’t sure if just one guy is enough to make it happen. He exceeded our wildest expectations, delivering the biggest and one of the very best workshops in Django Girls history. He is a person we know we can always rely on, and his work on Django Girls is always incredibly impressive. You may not know this about him, but Geoff is also incredibly good with words. Every time he says something, we all think: hey, this is exactly what I wanted to say, but you put it so well. Geoffrey works as a freelancer in New York City, where he also organizes a weekly Django hack night. He is already a perfect example of a person who embodies Django Girls spirit, and we can’t wait to see his influence on what we’re gonna do next. ✨
Wow. Still can’t believe how fortunate we are to be able to surround ourselves with people like that.
Hugs, ☀️ and 🌈,
Ola, Ania, Ola and Baptiste.
Your Django Story: Meet Barbara Shaurette
This is a post in our Your Django Story series where we highlight awesome ladies who work with Django. Read more about it here.
Barbara is an open source veteran, with over fifteen years of experience as a professional developer, much of that as an active participant in the Python and Django communities. She founded PyLadies Austin, and teaches and mentors through organizations such as PyLadies, Girl Develop It and Code Scouts. Currently, she works as a Python developer for Cox Media Group.
How did your story with code start?
My code story started long before my Django story. In the mid-to-late 90’s, back when AOL was a popular thing, I was so curious about how the internet worked. One night I slipped and accidentally right-clicked on a page, saw ‘View Source’ for the first time, and something clicked in my brain. I started teaching myself HTML, and not long after got my first coding job at Berkeley Systems. They were just moving out of their 'Flying Toaster’ and 'You Don’t Know Jack’ CD phase and moving all of their games online, so with the help of some great mentors I got exposure to other languages (ColdFusion, Java), as well as the basics of game and web development. Before I left that company 3 years later, I was creating and publishing my own games for them.
What did you do before becoming a programmer?
My degree is in education, but my teaching career only lasted for a few years after college - it was heartbreaking to discover, after all that work, that it was so hard to make a living doing what I loved. Luckily the internet revolution came along in time to give me a new thing to love and a new opportunity. (I did work as a secretary for a few short years in between.)
What do you love the most about coding?
It’s a creative challenge. Building an app or a web site or a game or whatever you like is not so different from the process I use to design a new costume or a new piece of jewelry. You have a problem to solve, so you decide on an approach, then you implement it and watch it run. It’s an art, or at least shares many qualities with the artistic process. And there are always new directions to turn in, new skills to learn - it never stops being fascinating.
Why Django?
I was introduced to Django while working with an online advertising company almost 10 years ago. I dove into it, and have stayed with it all these years, largely because of the community. I do not work with Django exclusively, and I’ve been involved with many other open source communities since, but Django has an exceptional level of involvement, everyone’s helpful, everyone’s happy to share what they’ve learned. Ten years in, Django also remains the most feature-complete and best-documented framework I’ve worked with.
What cool projects are you working on at the moment/planning on working on in the near future?
Not actually a piece of software, but more software development teaching materials. I just got back from PyCon, where I (along with Katie Cunningham, Davin Baragiotta and David Cormier) taught Young Coders for the third year in a row. Young Coders has been a beginner class, but I’m working on an intermediate curriculum to debut at PyCon 2016 in Portland.
What are you the most proud of?
Probably Young Coders - although creating a kids’ class was not originally my idea, I’m so glad that PyCon organizers invited me to work on it a few years ago. Since then I’ve refined the curriculum a lot, and it just gets better every year. Seeing our students’ faces light up when they realize what they can do with Python never stops being a magical experience.
What are you curious about?
That changes every day. Today, it’s trying to wrap my head around what makes Solr4 tick. Tomorrow, it will be something different.
What do you like doing in your free time? What’s your hobby?
I used to spend all my free time hacking, but I’ve grown out of that. I do still work on occasional side projects, but for the most part, when my work day is done, I step away from the computer and do something that lets me work with my hands. I sew (I was a reenactor for a long time, so I’ve been making costumes even longer than I’ve been coding) and make jewelry. I recently took up stained glass, and I’m about to start classes in fused glass and PMC. I also crochet, paint, and do a lot of collage art.
Do you have any advice/tips for programming beginners?
“Don’t compare your behind the scenes to someone else’s highlight reel.” Programming is hard, and every programmer - even the experienced ones - has struggles. Just because you don’t see that, don’t assume you’re the only one.
Thanks Barbara! :)Anna Ossowski
@OssAnna16Your Django Story: Meet Agata Grdal
This is a post in our Your Django Story series where we highlight awesome ladies who work with Django. Read more about it here.
Agata Grdal was an attendee of the first Django Girls workshop in Berlin. She organizes local Python meetings called wroc.py in her home city, Wrocław. She likes eating healthy, getting lost in new places and singing songs while driving. She’s trying to work, study, do additional projects and stay sane at the same time.
How did your story with code start?
When I was about nine or ten years old, I created my first blog. That was the time when I wanted to become a writer. I learned HTML and CSS to make it look pretty. Hey, I know what you’re thinking! The answer is: no, it wasn’t pink and sparkling! Then, a year ago, I took an introductory programming class at my university. We were taught basics of C++ and I got into it pretty quickly. I decided to learn a little bit more. There was this course starting on Coursera where you could learn Python. Sadly, I didn’t finish it, because my studies at university didn’t leave enough free time for me to do so, but this course gave me one thing - I fell in love with Python.
What did you do before becoming a programmer?
I was studying Mathematics and desperately trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life.
What do you love the most about coding?
I love so many things about it! But the most alluring thing for me is that it’s both science and art. Maybe I will never write a book, but I will write beautiful code instead. ;) It’s empowering. You can convert your ideas into reality. Also, I think it’s brilliant that you don’t need many years of experience nor expensive equipment to create great stuff. Also, there are a lot of free tutorials online and many already answered questions on stackoverflow.
How did attending a Django Girls workshop influence your life/career? What did you get out of attending a Django Girls workshop?
It gave me the boost to keep learning. I know it sounds silly, but being 21, I feared it was too late for me to start. I decided to keep on learning and got a job quickly afterwards. This workshop gave me so much positive energy that I decided to give some of it back to the world and organize Django Girls in my home city. Also, what’s even more important, I’ve met wonderful people, like Markus, my mentor at Django Girls Berlin or Ania, with whom I co-organize Django Girls Wroclaw.
Why Django?
Because of Django Girls. Because of people. Because of Python.
What cool projects are you working on at the moment/planning on working on in the near future?
I don’t know if I can talk about it. Two months ago someone came to me and said: “Hey! I have this <insert cool idea here>. I saw you did something with Django. I have some experience in Python. Do you want to collaborate?” Of course I said yes and now I’m a part of fantastic team and learn a lot while tinkering with Django. So it’s one more thing that I owe Django Girls!
What are you the most proud of?
I’m proud of being the co-organizer of Django Girls Wrocław. It took me, Ania and Asia four months, but the feedback we got was overwhelmingly positive and I think it was worth the effort. We had amazing coaches and superb attendees that were working hard the whole day, and at the end I think everyone left the workshops a little bit richer in experience, knowledge and positive thoughts.
What are you curious about?
I would like to have a chance to play with Raspberry Pi or Arduino. Never had either in my hands. :)
What do you like doing in your free time? What’s your hobby?
Programming is my hobby. And when I’m not coding, I’m watching talks from conferences, funny cat videos or Ellen DeGeneres show. I also have soft spot for the English language. I read books in English, watch movies without subtitles. It’s so musical and concise. That’s why nearly every song in English sounds good. But I feel the happiest when I just lay in my bed, read a good book and know deep inside that I’ve done everything that I planned for this day. Eh, it’s a rare feeling.
Do you have any advice/tips for programming beginners?
Ahh, as I still feel like a beginner, I could write the whole list! Let me tell you what helped me the most: Find someone you can learn with. I took my first programming class with my friend. It is much easier to learn when you can talk the problem through with someone. You can help each other. It’s uplifting when you can help someone and explain the parts that you grasped quicker. On the other hand, if you don’t understand something, your programming buddy can explain it to you like a non-programmer to non-programmer, without clouding the image with sophisticated wording. Secondly, don’t give up too quickly. When you start learning programming there is this euphoria, everything is so easy, logical and fun. Then comes the moment when bugs are piling up, you get overwhelmed, nothing seems easy or logical - it feels like a dog flying a helicopter. Remember, it’s just a phase. I have one of our DG posters glued to a wall - the one that says “Bugs come and go. Skills stays forever.”. Learn early how debugging works! The last thing - balance practice and theory. Some things are much easier to understand in practice than in theory, but too much practice and not enough theory will make you waste your time on simple things.
Thanks Agata! :)
Anna Ossowski
@OssAnna16Volunteer opportunity: Translation Manager needed!
Since we published the Django Girls Tutorial on the 21st July last year, it has been read by 48 052 people and translated to 4 languages by hundreds of collaborators.
Today, we’re happy to publish yet another resource: Django Girls Translation Guide. It’s a resource for all of the translators, explaining our translation guideliness and process of publishing a translation.
However, we need your help to make the translators lifes easier. Django Girls Tutorial is published in 5 languages, but there is a work in progress on 13 more languages at the moment.
It became quite too much for us to handle, on top of helping organizers from all over the world to start their events. Being completely honest: we haven’t found a good workflow for translators yet. Right now it’s buggy, annoying and done manually by only a handful of people. We don’t have enough resources and experience in our small team to focus on that, so here is a call for help.
It is your chance to help teach how to code people from all over the world who are not privileged with being fluent in a second language yet. We’re looking for a person with some free time on their hands, who would like to volunteer to take care of the following:
- come up and implement a workflow to efficiently update translation strings
- improve and establish a process of creating & publishing translations for new languages
- create communication channels between translation teams
- document all of the above in our internal wiki and improve the Translation Guide
We’re preferably looking for someone who already has some experience or knows how it should work, but knowing how hard it can be to find such a person, everyone with free time and energy is more than welcome to apply!
If you’re interested in giving us a hand, please write to hello@djangogirls.org and tell us a little bit about yourself.
Hugs, strawberries and sunshines!
Django Girls Team
Django Girls now deploy to Python Anywhere
We just pressed the big green merge button on one of the biggest pull requests to the Django Girls Tutorial so far: replacing Heroku deployment with Python Anywhere. Thanks to the huge efforts of Harry Percival and other collaborators, we made the deployment easier and more useful.
Heroku isn’t going away – the really well tested deployment instructions are now available in our second book: Django Girls Tutorial Extensions. If you want, you can still learn how to deploy to Heroku with us.
The tutorial has been read so far by almost 50,000 people, so we thought it’d be a good idea to share our motivations behind this change. Here it goes:
Deployment is one of the most critical parts of the Tutorial. In the end, we want to show people how to build an application they can use, share and brag about in front of their friends, and how to make something real. Deployment is what makes it real. Deployment is also one of the hardest things for beginners – we can’t count how many people said that this is the trickiest part of the whole Tutorial. We’ve improved the Heroku deployment instructions with every workshop, but couldn’t completely remove the feeling of a complete beginner doing loads of magical things and not completely clear changes to different files to make it somehow work. The chapter was confusing and frustrating. This was a feedback after literally every event we did.
Yet, if you compare Heroku deployment process to all the other alternatives available in the market, it’s quite simple. The simplest we’ve seen. It’s not because it’s necessarily very good, but it removes a lot of roadblocks and replaces it with magic. It’s also simple, but only because all the alternatives are just really really hard.
Unfortunately, magic isn’t a beginner’s friend. Magic confuses and doesn’t allow to understand what is really happening. We wanted to change that, but still keep the deployment process as simple as possible.
3) Enter Python Anywhere. Python Anywhere is a company that supported Django Girls in London, and when Harry Percival saw that we’re using Heroku, he decided to convince us that Python Anywhere is indeed easier. Convincing us wasn’t easy: we knew that Heroku is way more simpler than anything available on the market. Harry took the risk to write an alternative deploy chapter that uses Python Anywhere, even though he knew that there was a chance we may never merge it. It paid off.
You can see the Pull Request that lead to the change here – it’s a real collaboration effort of many people who helped us review and test it.
Why do we think it’s better?
It shows how deployment works under the hood. No magical Procfiles, magical collecting of the static files, magical configs. There is no “just works”, so it’s easier to understand, but at the same it doesn’t make it more complicated.
It introduces a deployment technique that can be used everywhere: even on your own server. It’s a knowledge that will be useful outside Python Anywhere too, which is a huge advantage.
It introduces attendees to Github, the center of the open source world. We always try to give people tools we, as developers, use in our everyday life. Now we’re adding another piece of this puzzle.
Huge thanks to everyone who was involved in this change, especially Harry Percival, who spent days trying to accommodate all of our nitpicking ;-)
Happy deploying! 🐍🌏
Your Django Story: Meet Stacey Haysler
This is a post in our Your Django Story series where we highlight awesome ladies who work with Django. Read more about it here.
As CEO of Blue Swan Human Resources Consulting, Stacey is a business services professional with both corporate and consulting experience in the high tech, legal, recruiting, communications and media, banking, and retail fields. Her background includes more than 25 years in human resources, recruiting, contracts administration, event management, and accounting. Stacey also conducts training workshops for aspiring consultants, and personnel management workshops for small employers.
Stacey is also the Chief Operations Officer of PostgreSQL Experts, Inc., a San Francisco open source software consultancy.
She serves as Treasurer of the Django Software Foundation, and Corporate Secretary of the Django Events Foundation North America.
When not occupied with keeping her businesses running smoothly, Stacey passes her time with reading, watching movies, and doing historical re-enactment.
How did your story with working in the OSS world start?
I run my own company, Blue Swan HR Consulting, working with small businesses on their employee management and compliance issues. My company did some work for PostgreSQL Experts (PGX), which is a Postgres consultancy. One project led to another, and five years later, I’m now the Chief Operating Officer of PGX in addition to continuing to run my own company.
What did you do before becoming a consultant and running your own business?
I had a variety of jobs, mostly administrative and human resources, in law firms. I learned so much about running a business, dealing with contracts, and corporate management - it was terrifically helpful, even if it was incredibly stressful at times. I also worked in client services at Bank of America, where I learned a great deal about finance - and also that I did not want to work at a bank.
What do you love the most about your job?
Working with super-smart people who are developing interesting ideas. Being able to talk about an incredible variety of topics, both work-related and outside interests, and learn new things all the time.
What’s the story behind you working for the Django Software Foundation? What do you do for the DSF?
I’m the DSF Treasurer. I handle all of the money that comes in - sponsorships, donations, etc. - and make sure that sponsorships are paid out promptly and that the bills are paid on time. I hadn’t considered being part of the DSF until last year. I was chatting with Russell Keith-McGee (DSF President) at DjangoCon Australia, and the conversation turned to the challenges of managing the corporate side of a non-profit corporation. I mentioned that I had worked for an attorney who created and managed non-profits for some years, and offered to be a resource. When the elections rolled around, Russ suggested I run for the board, and here I am!
What cool projects are you working on at the moment/planning on working on in the near future?
I’m also part of Django Events Foundation North America, the new foundation that’s putting together DjangoCon US. Working with Jeff Triplett and Craig Bruce to refocus the conference and make it a true community event is terrifically exciting! It’s a huge project, and of course there’s a lot of time pressure, but it’s coming together really well. The community is responding positively to our work, and that’s really rewarding.
What are you the most proud of?
In terms of my professional achievements, starting my own company that’s still growing after so many years. I’m also the first person in the US-born branch of my family to graduate from college, and only one of two college graduates in my generation. In terms of my personal life, being surrounded by amazingly talented and creative people who are a second family to me.
What are you curious about?
History! The stories are always written by the winners, so there are countless unanswered questions about what life was like for those on the other side of history. Also, most Western European history was written by men. I’ve done a lot of research on women in Renaissance Europe, but there’s still so much we don’t know because no one wrote it down. I would love to go back in time for a week and take photos and document everything.
What do you like doing in your free time? What’s your hobby?
I read, a lot. Even if I have just a few minutes, I grab a book. There’s never enough time for reading. I also do historical re-creation a bit - I used to do it on a regular basis, but now just once or twice a year. It’s fun to put on a historically accurate Renaissance gown and pretend to be a Duchess for a weekend. I get to dance and swordfight, and it’s a complete and fabulous change from my real world life. I also have an overwhelming fascination with Marvel Comics movies, and a very patient spouse who will talk about comics with me.
Do you have any advice/tips for people who want to get started working in the OSS world?
Jump in and do it! I’ve worked most among the Django and Postgres communities, and can say that the people I’ve dealt with have been friendly and helpful. There are so many online resources to help you get started learning the OSS of your choice, and then connecting with other users through meetups, workshops, conferences, and so on is the best way to go. The encouragement I see for people at all experience levels to develop their skills and contribute to the project is terrific. And even though I’m not an engineer, I still feel welcome in the community and appreciated for the work I do, and that’s a fantastic thing to experience.
Thanks Stacey! :)