Eddie: Welcome to episode 29 of the web joy podcast.
I'm your host Eddie.
In this podcast, we interview guests about their origin story and what
makes them excited and joyful to be part of the tech community.
I hope you enjoy today's episode.
Please just give a girl a chance with Amber Shand.
Welcome to another episode of Web Joy.
I'm excited to have Amber with us today.
Amber, say hi to the nice people listening.
Hello everyone.
. Awesome.
Well, thank you for coming on the podcast.
I'd love to take a couple minutes to have you just kind of explain who
you are, what you do, where you work.
You know, a brief intro.
Cool.
Amber: Well, thank you so much for having me.
It's amazing to be here.
So a bit about me.
So my name's Amber.
I come from an economics and accounting degree.
So I actually was learning how to code in my second year of
university when I did a mergers and acquisitions internship in Madrid.
And I realized that finance definitely was not for me.
then?
Yeah.
Went through Coach First Guard, retrained through there in 2020.
During the pandemic, I started taking a lot more seriously, and now I'm
an award-winning front-end engineer.
I also have a podcast called Glowing in Tech, where I co-host alongside Jesse,
where we showcase black women in tech.
Also have a blog@amand.co uk and I think that's it.
Eddie: That's awesome.
Well, it sounds like you've been busy.
Yeah, definitely.
. I think no one would blame you for wanting to shift into tech after dealing
with a merger and an acquisition.
Internship.
Doesn't sound particularly fun, but I guess in the midst of that,
you ended up shifting to tech.
What was it that.
kind of made you think when you realized, this isn't what I want
to do, how did you realize mm-hmm tech is what you wanted to do?
Oh, that's
Amber: such a good question.
I think that at the time there was a lot of really scary news about automation
taking over jobs and how like, You know, professions that we admire,
like lawyers, doctors, surgeons, and all these other well respected roles,
were now g going to be automated by like AI and all these scary things.
And I was like, darling, I don't have time for this . So . So I research
into like high in demand skills cuz I wanted to, I just need to be protected.
I.
Darling's.
I don't wanna be a victim of technology.
I want to be like on the side of it, like actually building it.
And then that's how I found about coding and I was like,
what, what is this thing else?
So I was just so confused.
But, um, that's when, we'll code First Girls.
I did the web development course, you know, a cheeky little h email, c s s.
The bare basics.
And I was out here saying that I was a web developer, so when it, I was like,
yes, darling, this coding thing is just, this is what they were talking about
And then when I was applying for rolls, I was like, JavaScript . No
one said anything about that , and, and at the time there wasn't a big.
Like frenzy, I wanna say overreact, but I was just so shocked at like
the huge barrier to entry that there was compared to like finance.
We can say I'm passionate about numbers.
And there wasn't necessarily the whole data structures and algorithms interviews
proving yourself before landed that role.
Like I didn't have to have like a project list of all the accounts
that I've balanced to prove that, you know, I can be an accountant.
So that was just a huge shift.
I just couldn't comprehend the fact that now these interviews were gonna
be super, it's really challenging.
And I kept having that barrier of, oh, but you don't have a computer science.
Why do you wanna do this ? I'm like, please just give a, go a chance.
. . Eddie: Yeah.
I guess how did you, how did you deal with that, right?
Obviously, you ran into this.
Interview type stages that it's intimidating for all of us, right?
No matter if it's been a year or 10 years.
In tech.
You obviously made it.
You pushed through , you got the job.
How did you approach that?
What was kind of the thing that kind of ticked over in your mind where you
were like, all right, I can do this.
And, and everything.
Amber: So with Code First Girls, that was a great instruction to
web development as a concept.
And then we also had the Python course, which actually introduced us to the
concept of APIs and things of that region.
But I had no clue what was going on, so I went back to university to finish
off my economics and accounting degree, and then, 20, 20 March the pandemic hit
and I was just like, what is going on?
like I was, I was so in denial.
I was like, to my friends, look darlings, it's going to be fine.
But then I realized I really need to take this coding thing seriously because
I'd been applying for graduate schemes.
From August, 2019 and I kept getting rejected and the only a
few I got through one of them, they were like, you know what?
Don't stress out about, you know, the test.
And then it was, I, no one had told me at this point about
data structures and algorithms.
So all I'm seeing is binary research tree.
What's this one?
Oh no.
And I'm.
All I know is all I know at this point is basically H M L C S S like, and a
bit of Python, but not to the extent of knowing how to reverse a binary
research tree or to steal these things.
I was like, what's this tree that they're talking about?
? I was, I was so confused, and it was a real wake up call that I
probably can't balance my degree and actually learning how to.
because it was too much of a learning curve for me to do both, and it
was my final year of university and things were getting really tough.
So the pandemic hit and now like I've got a lot of time and that's when I joined
the Sky Getting to Tech Scheme, which is a 14 week part-time course with Skye.
And that was great because I had the power of community so we were all
learning together, which was great.
And I was also teaching with Code First Girls.
I was teaching the words button course cuz remember I was saying
I know about H one CSS at least.
And I was looking at cuz the thing.
A big feedback that was I was getting was one, I didn't have a computer
science degree, so I didn't get through like most of like past the CV stage.
So I was stalking people on LinkedIn who had a computer science degree
and how can I stand out against them?
And like a few of them had taught with Code First Girls.
So I thought, okay, great.
Two and one, you know, accelerating my learning.
Giving back to the community, but then also like being able to put stuff in my
CV and say, look, I'm technical enough if I'm able to at least be involved
in this, in teaching a coding course.
Right.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
Thank you.
And so my whole thing was, okay, I need to kind of build up my brand
at the same time that having solid proof that I can actually code my
projects teaching and be involved in this community because it meant.
There's that accountability.
I think that it can be quite a lonely route.
Learning how to code and face all these hurdles and all these
things that you see on Twitter.
Roadmap to land your first straw and then it's like H M L C S S, JavaScript
React testing like data shots now.
And it's so overwhelming.
I remember feeling so stressed.
It is.
I was like, I'm not sure if I'm gonna be able to, to actually land that
role because it was so stressful.
But it also, like I was para programming with my friend, we
pray, programmed every day from like 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM for like.
Two months on Code Wars.
Wow.
And it was so helpful because she was better than me and when it's
amazing me to find someone better than you, cuz it means that they
can explain certain concepts to you.
And, and it was just probably the one of the most amazing experiences because
it taught me how to think like a coder.
I just didn't, when I saw like those little mini, like the basic cat.
I was, how am I meant to know that an array is the thing that I
need to use to solve this problem?
How do I know about the various different methods when it comes
to various different data types?
That whole concept was super confusing.
So I think that the power of community definitely accelerated my learning
growth, and I had a lot of help when it came to preparing for interviews as.
, which was amazing.
Eddie: Yeah.
I think, like you said, problem solving, right?
And understanding what tools to apply to different situations.
It's all about actually encountering those situations where like you need to
use that tool and having someone there to be able to say, Hey, this situation
is where I, you, you would use this and this one is where I'd use that.
I love that, that, that definitely, I can see how that would
speed up the learning process.
Amber: And it's like when you are getting that kind of rejection,
it can be easy for you to be put off of still applying for roles.
And the thing is, I know that I applied way too early who told me to apply
for computer science graduate skills when I only knew H O C S S basically.
But I feel like I would definitely apply early cuz it gives you a great insight
into what you need to prepare for.
So I remember applying for the scheme and someone asked me about GI.
And I was like, we've just used GitHub desktop.
Like I was like, I know about the whole pulling and pushing concept,
but I didn't know about GI commands.
And so after that interview I basically wrote down all of the
questions that she asked me.
I made sure to learn everything.
That's cuz it's like, clearly I know that with, well at the time
I didn't know the importance of.
So I've reached out to a few software developers.
I knew, I was like, is this something that I really need to learn?
Is it like the whole binary research tree thing?
Which I'm just not going to be
I'm just, I'm just not gonna delve in, like, is this actually
something I need to know?
And it was like confirmed like, yes, you'll be using this tool every day.
You need to know how to use a terminal.
and I was like, terminal commands . But yeah, it, it's honestly a great way to
focus on the things that you actually need to learn to learn that role and things
that are relevant within that role as
Eddie: well.
Yeah, I think that's utilizing, putting yourself into a position a little
bit earlier than you might do it.
Hopefully that also could take pressure off, like if someone knows,
okay, I'm not actually expecting to.
, get into graduate school right now or get a job right now, but that I'm just
putting myself in this position to learn what people are looking for and like,
yeah, hopefully that takes a little bit of the pressure off, you know,
they can just think of it as practice.
I think that's awesome.
Yeah, exactly.
One of the things that we try to talk about every episode is
something that brings you joy.
, what is it that kind of brings you joy?
Oh my gosh,
Amber: there's so many different things.
One of my missions is definitely to get more women into tech, like wherever that's
through, learning how to code or whatever.
But I think that's why I've been so heavily involved in various different
communities, like Code First Girls and Code Black females, and just to
see their development as they go from, you know, just being quite confused.
, what's a variable?
What are like basic like four loops and things like that to
actually landing their first role.
And I think that there's a lot of courses out there about how to
code, but there's a lot of things that aren't necessarily focused.
Like there's not a big focus on like just how much imposter syndrome may
impact you even applying for jobs and when you apply for those jobs.
And I've been doing a lot more research into things like composite syndrome and
how that shows up in various different.
And like how it's definitely affected me.
So one way is the expert.
So sometimes when you feel like you never know enough, how can I apply for a role
when I'm not proficient at JavaScript?
But then how was that measured?
You know?
Or it's like the perfectionist, they have super high expectations.
Like, I don't want to go to an interview if I can't answer those questions.
There have been times in interviews where I've said, I dunno the answer.
I remember, I was like, I'm sorry, I, I actually dunno the answer to this.
And it's so uncomfortable.
It's so awkward, and I can understand how that can actually take an effect on
your confidence because I'm someone that has very high expectations for myself.
So the fact that I'm here telling this person, I don't have a clue.
It just makes you feel very vulnerable.
And I remember.
Having the worst interview of my life, and I'm screaming, like, I'm
literally screaming afterwards.
Like, that was the world's worst interview also, um, PO as
you know, the natural genius.
So, so there's a thing called GSCs, which is for like, I wanna say 11
year olds to 16 year olds in the.
Those came very easy to me.
And because that kind of instilled this, I should get things on
the first try kind of thing.
Mm, yeah.
Yeah.
Like when I'm like learning how to code, I'm like, why do I need
to look back at this fall loop?
Like, why can't I just learn it once and then it's just in here?
and like, um, sometimes I was even talking about this in Twitter
space today when people say, oh, how'd you get so good at coding?
And the answer for everything, how to good, good at anything
is time and consistency.
But everyone wants that kind of hack.
Like, I wanna get good in six days.
How can I get 10 years of developer experience in six days?
Is there like kind of some cheat form that I can do?
And then also the soloist and they're the person that kind
of says, oh, I can't ask for.
Or any questions cuz it just exposes the fact that I really am an imposter.
So it's just like having those conversations with people and delving
deep into what's holding you back from maybe learning how to code, progressing
in that, applying for jobs and Yeah.
And even when you are in that job, like how that's affected, I think that it's
very rewarding for me to see people develop and that makes me extremely
Eddie: happy.
I love, that's something that you like to talk about and get out there cuz I.
If someone were to draw a caricature of a programmer, I would probably match it.
I've been nerdy since I grew up.
I wear glasses, right?
. I match every little checkbox that someone would expect of,
like a caricature of a programmer.
I had a lot of imposter syndrome because I would just feel like these
other people are better than me.
You know what I mean?
Mm-hmm.
like and like as soon as someone else would like point out something
or like do some really good.
It somehow made my work feel less good.
Right.
Less, even though it was different and it's like, I don't know how I got wrapped
up in that, but it was just one, something I kind of kept internally for a long
time, like I didn't tell anyone about it.
It was just like kind of that little secret that like hangs on your shoulder
and kind of weighs you down and.
. I can only imagine this was 10 years into programming.
Mm-hmm.
, you know, it wasn't like year one.
Wow.
If being in the industry that long, like I can feel it.
I can only imagine all the imposter syndrome that everyone trying to get
into tech feels and like how lonely that is to not know that we all feel it and
like this is how you can push through.
So, no, I think that's such a great.
Area to focus on and to help people.
I really love that, that you're focusing on that.
Amber: Yeah, and it's just like, especially come from a
non-technical background when you are hounded with messages, like
why are you getting into tech?
Like you are almost questioned about your intentions and having that message.
Well, at least for me, oh, you're not technical enough.
And so it's just like having that, almost like when you go into a relationship,
all this baggage, it's like I'm going to this job of all this baggage of like
me feeling like companies have told me that I'm just not good enough and
I'm going, and I'm starting this role.
And I'm like, oh my gosh, am I even good enough?
Because I keep being told I'm not technical.
How did I manage to land this role?
And it's just like sometimes you feel like you're always having to prove
that, okay, I am technical enough.
I do know what I'm.
But as a junior, you don't know what you are doing, , you dunno what you're doing.
And no one really ever knows what they're doing, . And it's the
the hardest thing to navigate.
And it's so complicated.
There's so many different layers to this, and it's just like, I've
been very fortunate in both my roles that I've had a very supportive and
inclusive team, but genuinely, because I promise you, if they weren't, I
wouldn't have said anything , but.
Some people don't have that, so it's like they don't feel like they can
open up to their work colleagues.
They don't feel like they can be vulnerable with their managers.
It's hard for them to actually address their pain points and how
like their company or their manager or their team can support them.
I think that can be one of the hardest things to actually manage.
Like, oh my gosh, now I'm in the role.
What the hell am I doing?
? Eddie: No, that's a good point.
Right?
A lot of focus can be how do you learn programming?
How do you get into the job?
And then you get into the job and it's like that's almost an area where people
kind of almost lose that support.
They're suddenly like, oh, well now I got the job.
I can't say I don't know what I'm doing.
I can't ask questions, and they can kind of.
Flounder a little bit in that first job, not knowing what to do.
Amber: Yeah, and the thing is, it's like asking questions is what they
expect and they don't necessarily expect that much from junior developers.
Mm-hmm.
. And it's the most confusing thing because, so you're told before the job.
Okay.
You need to know all these things to land this role.
And then when you're in the role, it's like we don't expect you to know anything.
You don't, you don't have a clue.
You are just a junior.
And it's how do you go from one extreme to the other?
Just let me know because I don't get it , I
Eddie: don't get it.
Yeah, no, for sure.
I think it's so interesting.
As people are junior, I hope that people can really embrace asking questions
because like it should never leave.
At my last company, I was managing a team of all senior engineers,
but like you have engineers who have to learn the code base, right?
They have to learn the like industry you're in, right?
We were in cybersecurity.
Then you had people, like I hired some people who knew React and they were good
at React, but we were using Angular.
Mm-hmm.
, like I kept having to tell them.
I know you're a senior engineer, but like it's okay to ask question and
at some point I kind of just started saying, Hey, listen, in your first 90
days, that's your permission to ask every question that enters your mind.
Yes, you can ask questions after the first 90 days, but like you
shouldn't be withholding yourself from.
Asking any question in the first 90 days, cuz that's like your
free ticket to ask questions.
Yeah.
Like everyone expects questions in the first 90 days.
I think that's definitely like take advantage of those first 90 days.
Like everyone knows you're new, ask every question . Yeah.
And
Amber: I think people need more managers like that to communicate.
Okay.
It's very normal to ask questions like this is something that we celebrate
within the organization because if people aren't told that, it's just
like they normally do internalize.
Oh, okay.
If I ask a question, then it's just going to, again, like what we're
speaking about, the soloist, oh, it's going to expose that I really am an
imposter, and what questions are good questions and is this a stupid question?
I don't wanna ask stupid questions.
In this big meeting of like 50 people in this zoom call, it can
be quite stressful for people.
I was very fortunate in my first role as a junior software engineer.
The director used to always ask questions.
You knew that if he was in a meeting, he would have some question to ask,
and it kind of gives you that safety to know that, well, if this director's
asking these questions, then I can definitely ask the questions and.
You know, it's not an all nothing thing.
The great thing about hybrid working is that you can type a question.
I didn't necessarily appreciate because I was doing all these
things during the pandemic.
I didn't necessarily appreciate the fact that these things
all used to be in person.
I can't imagine doing a standoff in person , like I've never had to do it.
And so I can imagine that could be even more anxiety inducing.
Everyone looking at you.
Yeah.
Right.
And you are saying, well, what the hell was I doing yesterday?
Cause I didn't have a clue.
just trying to like go through the code base and do my best to navigate like
whatever ticket that I was assigned.
So yeah, I didn't necessarily appreciate just how different it was pre pandemic.
Eddie: Yeah, it definitely, like you said, I think it's interesting cuz some
people are concerned that like, oh, remote juniors won't have as much support, but
I feel like it's also less scary and it's easier to like slack someone a question
walking over to someone's desk where everyone can hear you and like asking a
Amber: question.
Exactly, but then also when you are onboarded virtually, it can be
quite hard to reach out to people.
Yeah.
At least that's what I found in my experience.
Cuz it's like everyone knows each other, everyone knew each other
from pre pandemic and you kind of feel like this outside up, you just
like this little box in the standup.
It can be quite intimidating.
Okay, so now I need to reach out to this person and ask them a question
. And I dunno why I found that just so scary, even though I knew that.
Super nice and really collaborative, and when he did ask him the question,
there was like literally no judgment.
It still petrified me and I think, again, like that's why it's so important to have
these kind of connections, especially when you're working in a virtual environment.
When I was starting my role, there was still like we literally were not allowed
by the government to go into the office, so there was like no hybrid situation.
I think it's really important to have some kind of like one-to-one calls
incumbent team members set with new joiners because as a new join.
Because everyone, you don't see what everyone's doing, so you
assume that everyone is super busy and they won't have time to even
have like a 15 minute coffee chat.
And I think that when you arrange those things for new joiners, it makes
a huge difference in terms of feeling included, having that more likely
to have that psychological safety to like, contribute, ask questions,
make mistakes, and be open about it.
Eddie: So, yeah, I totally agree.
I think that anyone who's listening who has like the ability to
kind of push that stuff, right?
If you are a, you know, mid or a senior developer or even just a junior
who's been at your company for a couple years, like when new people
come in, like, do what Amber said.
Reach out, do a coffee chat.
Like you are helping that person feel more comfortable, feel part of the family, and
kind of taking, taking the responsibility of being the person who has been at
the company longer to like invite them.
Yeah,
Amber: and give them insight into like various different
team members what they're like.
I remember meeting with my director.
He said, you know, if you need help with X, go to this person.
If you need help with y, go to that person.
And I was just like, I asked the right person, that.
Awesome.
I'm talking to the perfect person.
And it helped me just to gain a better understanding of like my team members and
also like areas that they're strong in.
Eddie: As we wrap up the episode, we always like to see if anyone has anything
they'd like to share with the community.
Obviously, you listed off a lot of really awesome things at the beginning
of the episode, so I'd just like to kind of swing back around and, uh,
have you share some of that stuff again for people to be able to check out.
Amber: Thank you.
So I co-host the Glowing and Tech podcast.
It's powered by coding black females.
It is a space where we showcase black women in tech.
So we split the episodes in two parts of episodes.
First part is just learning about them and their journey into tech.
And then we have a 10 called discussion called tech topic in 10,
which is always like super exciting.
And then we have like spilling the tech tea where they share.
Controversial take or something in the tech industry, and that's
always something super fun.
So yeah, definitely check it out.
It's on YouTube, Spotify, apple and Auto, audible, , so
Eddie: yeah.
Yeah, definitely.
We'll include links to that as well as everything else you've mentioned.
kind of in this episode today in the show notes.
So if any of that sounds familiar, definitely go check it out.
And Amber, thank you so much for joining us today.
It's been just a pleasure to talk.
It's been
Amber: amazing to talk . Thank you so much for having me.
This has been so much fun.
Eddie: Thanks for joining us for episode 29, please just give a
girl a chance with Amber Shand.
You can find out more about Amber on her website.
Amber shand.co.uk or her Twitter at Amber Lee tech.
You can find links to everything we talked about in this episode,
as well as a link to ambers website and Twitter in the show notes.
If you enjoyed this episode, help others discover it as well.
Why don't you give us a shout out on your favorite social media platform,
maybe tag a friend or coworker that you think would enjoy it.
Don't forget to follow us wherever you hang out online.
Or you can subscribe to our newsletter, stay up to date on a weekly basis.
Thank you for listening and have a great day.
Amber: Have
a great day.
Take care.