We Belong Here: Lessons from Unconventional Paths to Tech

40. Dacey Nolan: The Power of Community While Searching For Your First Coding Role

Feb 23 '21

In today’s episode, Dacey tells the story of studying Public Relations in school and pursuing many different avenues and industries to find a job she loved. She tried many different things from content management, social media, marketing, special education, and Non-Profit work.

One day, during a series of dates where she and her boyfriend (now husband) taught one another new things, he tried to teach her HTML and CSS. But the lesson wasn't a success because she didn't think she'd be good at it and zoned him out.

But eventually, she decided to build an app with him and they collaboratively built things that they were both interested in. He helped guide her self-learning and exposed her to core concepts and tools such as GitHub and pull requests.

When she felt ready, she left her full-time job in March 2019 to search for a job. She gave herself a year to learn the skills and wanted to be ready to apply to jobs by March 2020... which was a pretty rough time in the world to be applying to new roles! But she refused to let the pandemic get her down. Her husband and friend group helped her prep for interviews and built up her algorithm skills. She applied to 207 positions and got rejected 206 times. But she applied for a Sr. Developer role at This Dot and asked them to take a chance on her. And that they did! She came on via a contract, which helped her land her current job at TriggerMesh where she uses Javascript, Vue, and Cypress in her frontend role.

Today, her work in special education still impacts her work in tech. She understands the accessibility needs that folks face and that drives her passion day in and day out. You can find her tweeting about how to make applications more accessible for someone with epilepsy or is visually or audibly impaired.

Dacey reminds listeners that there is no age limit to learning to code.

Early in her career, she felt frustrated with how quickly another new employee was closing tickets and performing on the job. She reached out to her boss and received feedback that has never left her: “To never compare yourself to anyone but yourself.”

Resources:

Women in Tech sessions

Follow Dacey:

Twitter: @dacey_nolan

Dacey's LinkedIn

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