In 2013, Michael Poage broke his jaw, which was a huge problem for his job as a recruiter. How could he meet the numbers if he couldn’t even be on the phone? This was the start of Michael’s transition into tech, but it wasn’t his first career pivot. Starting out as an aspiring filmmaker, Mike worked at a film internship in Manhattan. But because it was unpaid and circumstances weren’t so great, he later found himself in a recruiting agency through the help of a friend. Here, he was exposed to various industries, including tech, which he took an interest in. When he realized that he was burnt ..read more

Kara Luton was 17 years old, living on her own in New York City, and was on her way to becoming a professional ballerina. However, the competitive nature of the dance world brought her elsewhere – to the music industry. But, similar to her previous career, she got burnt out. In her search to find something else, Kara stumbled across coding. After pursuing a career as a professional ballerina, Kara moved back to her hometown of Nashville, TN to work as a music publicist. A life of pitching journalists and walking red carpets left her feeling unfulfilled and she made the switch to being a softw ..read more

Kara Luton was 17 years old, living on her own in New York City, and was on her way to becoming a professional ballerina. However, the competitive nature of the dance world brought her elsewhere – to the music industry. But, similar to her previous career, she got burnt out. In her search to find something else, Kara stumbled across coding. After pursuing a career as a professional ballerina, Kara moved back to her hometown of Nashville, TN to work as a music publicist. A life of pitching journalists and walking red carpets left her feeling unfulfilled and she made the switch to being a softw ..read more

Matt Wiethoff had a promising career in tech…until everything was put on pause because of an injury that made it painful to type on a keyboard. But he turned his challenge into an opportunity and founded Serenade, a powerful tool that lets you code using only your voice, from refactoring code to writing docs. After getting his computer science degree, Matt spent his time working in the machine learning space. Things were going well but suddenly took a turn when he developed an injury that made it unbearable to type for more than 20 minutes. After seeing all the inadequate solutions in the mar ..read more

Dealing with cancer is already a huge burden to bear. But if you pair that up with deaths in the family, economic recession, and the global pandemic, the weight becomes a hundred times heavier. Amidst these difficult situations in her life, Stacey Graham was still able to find a successful career in tech. It took Stacey 13 years to get an IT degree. She’s gone through a lot – moving into another state, becoming a mother of three, and losing a six-month-old son. But even after all that, her tech career took time to grow. Unemployment rates were high, and she couldn’t get a job. And when she de ..read more

Jesse Weigel pivoted into a new tech career under a unique combination of circumstances – a growing family, a curiosity for coding, and a friend with a job opportunity.  Even without any formal training in coding, Jesse decided to take a programming job offered by a friend. By teaching himself through free resources online, he was able to pull it off. As he continued to learn more and more – even participating in freeCodeCamp’s early live streams – he built the confidence he needed to book clients as a freelancer. With more experience under his belt, he eventually got his first full-time ..read more

Nikkole Spurgeon has been through a lot – domestic violence, drug addiction, and even imprisonment. She knew that things should change, and that’s where coding came into the picture. It’s been a long road for Nikkole. After being imprisoned for substance abuse, she took it upon herself to get all the self-help classes she could find. One of the programs she got into was from Persevere Now, a nonprofit organization that runs coding bootcamps for inmates. And out of the 250 applicants, she was one of only 12 who passed! Soon enough, Nikkole found herself with a job in tech after her sentence. N ..read more

Danny Thompson was facing a crossroads. He had to decide between staying a gas station fry cook forever or making a drastic career shift. And after hearing that rapper will.i.am was learning to code, he felt encouraged and decided to start coding, too. Even while working countless hours as a full-time fry cook, Danny made the time to learn how to code on the side. Today, Danny’s made the full career change into tech, and he currently works at Google in Developer Relations. From understanding the basics, to finding a great community of developers, to helping hundreds of people land their first ..read more

Today’s women often feel like they’re being pulled in different directions, juggling decisions about careers, life, and family. Is it really possible to have it all at once—starting a family, pursuing a dream career, and managing all the other logistics of a busy life? As she was working an unfulfilling administrative job and becoming a first-time parent, Phoebe Voong-Fadel was pondering the same question. She enjoyed doing tech projects, but thought she needed a CS degree to change careers. Then, maternity leave gave Phoebe a perfect time to really rethink her career, research her options, a ..read more

As a young aspiring astronaut in high school, Camille Eddy started building websites to pay for her college housing. She’s a first-generation STEM student, and through the connections she made in college, Camille was hired for an internship at HP. That exposure helped her cultivate a personal brand on top of her academic life, and through the support of key mentors, her career has continued to grow. Today, Camille is a robotics and product engineer who speaks internationally about inclusion in the tech community. She does research primarily on cultural bias and AI, and she currently works for ..read more