So let's go ahead and get started. So, uh first I'll start off, kick it off with uh a little information about me. Um and talk a little bit about my, talk a little bit about my tech journey.So, uh I've been in, I've been in technology the last I've been in technology the last 13 years. Um I decided at the, um I decided at the age of 11 that I was gonna be a computer scientist. You know, I didn't really know what that meant. I just knew that like I loved, I loved computer and it was one of the things that occupied my uh occupied all my weekends. So, um I later found out that I needed $30,000 a year for college in order to achieve my goal. And uh that $30,000 was very challenging to come by every year considering I only had a 1.7 GPA uh coming out of high school. And so, you know, my family struggled and every year, you know, I didn't know how I was gonna make it back to college to, to do another semester. So, um I always had this fallback plan that I was just gonna be a truck driver if I didn't come up with the money. And so, and so anyway, luckily I found someone, uh, every year to cosign for that, that $30,000 student loan, it's a very stressful situation.

But, um, once I, even in college though I struggled. Right. Uh, I was very interested in, like, learning how to code and very interested in technology, but I was taking a bunch of classes that, like, I frankly, I frankly just didn't care about. And so, uh I was faced with another challenge when it was time to get internships. Um I didn't have a 3.0 GPA because of those other classes that I was that I was taking, that I didn't do so well in. And so, um luckily, um luckily one um one semester, uh right before summer break, I got the, I got the uh a manager from IBM. I got the, I got their uh the hiring manager's uh uh phone number. Um I don't know how I found this but I called her every day. I knew she was looking for like an intern and I called her every day and left voicemails and, you know, she finally just called me back and gave me an interview honestly because I was just blowing up her voicemail. And so, um so anyway, so they, you know, she allowed me to do an internship for 12 months.

So I took a year off between my junior and senior year and I went to go work at IBM because I knew that I needed something that gave me like a competitive advantage coming out of college because I didn't have that 3.0 GPA. And so, um, I went back to graduate and I was faced with another challenge. I didn't have a 3.0 GPA. So I got rejected by over 50 plus uh companies um because I didn't have a 3.0 GPA. So no one wanted to hire me. But I found I kept going, I kept being persistent about like I, I didn't stop interviewing. And uh finally I got a company um to override my GPA and, and hire me and that company was in the missile defense industry. So, um I started my career in missile defense and so places I've worked, I've worked in missile defense insurance, accounting. I've worked in start ups in Silicon Valley. I've worked at Microsoft. Uh I now work at film in the film and television industry and I've also co-founded a few start ups. So, um tell me a little bit about my journey because it was, it's a very, very trying one, but it's uh only to, only to motivate as you, as you start your journey into tech.

Um You're gonna meet a lot of roadblocks but just don't, don't, don't give up. And so um the, in the inspiration for this uh for this conversation is really to show you that the path that I took is is now a lot, it's now a lot easier. Right? You don't have to have degrees and some of these other things and certifications um to enter into technology and there's a lot of myths out there. So this is, this is my opportunity to kind of demystify some of those things for you. All right. So just a little agenda, a little agenda um is that we're gonna go just technology one on one. And then talk a little bit about the myths. We'll talk a little bit about the software development life cycle. Then we're gonna map some roles and technologies that don't require um you know, any type of like cer certifications or degrees. And then we're gonna talk a little bit about the truth of uh starting your journey in technology and we'll go from there. All right. So this side is a simple, a simple slide, but I always like to start here because um as you start your journey into technology, um people automatically assume that like you, you know, people in your family will say, hey, you know, you know how to fix my, you can fix my computer or you can fix my phone.

And I just like to make the distinguishing factor that, you know, software examples are, you know, things uh things that you like cannot touch, right? We know that like a Facebook Amazon and then these on the right, these are hardware examples. These are 22 separate journeys, they're very similar, but they're 22 separate journeys. We're gonna focus on things around software development. That is where I'm an expert in. And so here's the difference here. So software engineers build the things on the left. Computer engineers build the things on the right or hardware engineers for just for simplicity. And so um very distinguishing fact as you start your journey into tech, decide which, which lane you're gonna be in because they, they're a little separate, separate journeys. So anyway, so here's, here's some of the myths, right? So I, I hear, I hear this a lot you have to have a degree or certification as I've stated several times, that is no longer true. A lot of these large tech companies have removed their degree requirement. Um And so it's not required if those things make you feel comfortable. And um if that is how you learn and how you successfully learn, then go for it, but it's, it is, it is not required. And there's this big debate, what search do I need? You don't need any certs, it's if you decide to take that journey. So that, that is a myth. Another is that like you have to have this high IQ I am a living example that that is not true, right? On paper, the, the, the the the grade struggle.

And so um that is, that is not true. Um Also people think that like they get exposed to coding, they don't enjoy coding and then their journey stops there, right? And there's so many different opportunities in technology and I'm, I'm, I'm gonna show you and these graphics over here on the left, I put them there on purpose because this is what people think engineers do and this is not the reality. Think like it's like the matrix screen or someone sitting in a dark room with all this green, the code on the screen. And that is what a software engineer does or that is what someone in tech does and that's not true and I'm gonna show you. So let's start here. So the software development life cycle. So everything, every piece of technology that you use on a daily basis um has gone through the same, the same life cycle, right? Um And so I'm gonna walk through the, the different uh life cycles and also just um you know, max some roles to them. And so first off, we have the, you know, analysis phase or like the requirements phase and this is like, what are, you know, deciding, like what are, what are you building, right? Um Who are we building it for?

Um And what are, you know, what are some list of things that the technology should do? And so then we also have the um design phase and this is like, what what does, what, what should the, what should the software look like? Look and feel? Are the buttons oval? Are they round? Uh what's the color scheme um in a development phase? Um What technologies will we use to like, build the site? Um Where will the code live? Where, what type of database will we use? Quality assurance is more so of what does, what does the red uh um basically taking those requirements and making sure that the developer who has uh built the, has built the code, it's basically confirming like that. It does, does it work. And so that's quality assurance is just, you know, breaking things, trying to, trying to find the bugs. And so uh deployment is more of a phase of how do we get what we built into like the hands of like consumers or how do we, how do we make it available for users? And so, um also then there's this maintenance phase and this is kind of one of my, one of my favorite um entries into technology is the maintenance phase is that this is supporting the technology once it's already built.

And so let's, let's let's jump into some different, let's let's jump into some different roles. So here, so in the analysis phase, I've listed out a few roles here that um that kind of sit in this space. Right? Again, this is where we decide like what we're building, that's product managers, business analysts, product owners, project managers. And so, um some of the people who are very successful um in these roles are, you know, people who are very good at like asking the why um project managers.

I mean, if you are, if you're a stay at home mom or if you're someone who, you know, manages your schedule for your family are very good at planning things. I mean, you would like excel in this role. Again, all of these roles here are roles that I have personally in my journey in the last 13 years have seen people come into these roles and do not have, do not have a degree or certification. These are things that like they've learned in Excel. All right. Next up is the design phase. Again, this is what is the site gonna look, what is the site gonna look like? So this is our uh user uh Uiux designers that's user interface, user experience, um designers. So how does the drop down work? And is it a scroll within the drop down or things on the left or things on the right? Focusing more of like positioning of where things are on the on the actual website? Um So product designer very, you know, very, very similar role. Um They more have like a theoretical approach to like what um to actually like designing products and do like a lot of like research based on other products. Then you have document engineer. This is another one of my favorite ones here. This is exactly what it sounds like. This is someone is that as the, as the software goes through these different cycles of um the software development cycle they're documenting there.

This is one of the most, one of the more important ones because as you know, people, people change jobs, people change roles and documentation is like key. So this role again, this is someone who is very good at taking notes and very good at like uh documenting things again, no degree required. All right. So next up is the favorite one of everyone is like the development phase. So this is your people, this in this role. You do, do you do write code, right? So you have front-end engineers, you have those are the people who take those front-end designs from the US, uh the the Uiux designers or product designers, they take that design and turn it into code. So those are the front end engineers back in engine. They're gonna make sure that like when those buttons and those things are put on that front end of the site that they work and they do things on the back end. So it's less uh it's almost like the the brains of it. And so if you think about the human body, a front end engineer would be like the face and and then the backend engineer would be more like the brain. And so a full stack engineer is an engineer that basically they can do both, right?

They do front end, they do backend. Um They can handle, handle both, both sides of the stack when I, when I was an engineer and I, and I actually coded a few years ago. Um my, I was a, I was a backend engineer. That is, that is, that was my, that was the space that I enjoyed. Again, front-end engineers, backend engineers full that a lot of people are self taught. Everything is on youtube. You don't have to buy a course. Everything is online to learn how to do these skills. All right. So next up, let's talk about quality assurance. So this one right here actually started my career at IBM when I talked about that internship, I started in Q A and so Q A, we are, we are all Q A engineers, right? When we, when our phone doesn't work, what do we do? We start to close apps, right? We try to recycle the phone. Uh we try to uh you know, turn it off, turn it back on. Uh We try to shut down all the apps and you know, clear, clear our memory. And so Q A is not exactly that right. It's making sure that like bugs don't make it, um don't make it into production that they, that when you go to the website or that product that it has been tested and all the buttons have been pressed all the different conditions have been checked.

Q A, that's what they do, they test again. I've seen people who excel in this role of teachers, right. Some, some teachers do well in this because that's what they do. They grade, right. This is the same thing I've, I've, I've hired people who are Q A who have been, you know, teachers, school teachers and transitioned into like Q A. Um, someone who just frankly likes to like prove people wrong. So you regulate to prove people wrong. And so this is a, this is also like a role that like people excel in this uh Q A engineer, Q A tester um Q A engineer. Um something they both of the terms are used, but A Q A engineer may be somebody who write, who writes like automated tests, right? They try to automate the um they try to automate uh their, their testing and so they may be a little more um closer to like development, but again, everything is online. All right. So next up um deployment. So the deployment phase, this one right here, I would say out of all of them is probably the more challenging, but it's still, it's still doable, no degree requirement.

So the deployment phase, this is, this is again taking that product that all these other people have touched and built, right? This is making it available to the world. And so uh Dev ops, you'll hear Dev ops engineer infrastructure engineer and sometimes the database admin sits in, this sits in this apartment as well. And so, have you ever been to go and buy like some concert tickets or looking to, um, purchase a hot item? Right? There's gonna be a sneaker drop or something and when you go to the site you see 404 or you're unable to check out, there's some bugs that start happening. Right? So, the DEV ops team, they're responsible for making sure that like as there's high traffic load, they're thinking about that, they're making sure the site scales, making sure that it doesn't fall over. And so these people um they're, they're very close to like the cloud, they're in the cloud. When you hear about the cloud and servers and all that, these are the people who configure those. This is a little, these are more technical in nature, but again, there's still no requirement. Um It just, it just takes some takes some research and, and learning. All right.

Lastly, I mentioned the maintenance phase is being like one of my, one of my uh pieces uh of the software development life cycle that a lot of people use to transition, right? So this is these are people like once the technology is out there for the world, we need like customer success, we need customer support, we need tech support, we need people who are looking at the analytics behind right behind how much traffic are we getting, when are people using the site mostly.

And so this phase here, I recommend that if you're stuck and you're like, you don't, you know, you want to get into technology and you're not too sure where you wanna go look at moving into a tech support role, right? In this role. Uh, I mean, a lot of people, they, they barely make, um, sometimes there's like low, you know, there's low salaries, um associated with uh like customer support, right? When you think about like uh working at uh one like a cell phone company or something, right? Um That same role in technology, it, it could be a six figure role. Like I, I've, I've, I've seen it and it's the same thing, it's, it's doing chat uh helping people via uh chat or helping people via the phone sometimes. And so tech support is really a, a way to get into technology. Um a lot of companies when they look to hire from within or they want to bring in entry level developers, they start in like customer support. These people understand the product, they understand it in and out, they understand the books, they understand the quirks, they make very good developers or, or even moving into like the analysis phase of uh software development. And so I encourage you to take a look at all these roles and you know, do some thinking about like, what, where do you, where do you feel like you fit.

But, and when in doubt, tech support is always a great, a great option to really get your foot in the door and a lot of tech companies. So now what you've seen, you've seen all of, you've seen all of these different roles and there's nothing on here that requires you to have a degree or some type of like certification. So, let's talk a little bit about, um, let's talk a little bit about um the truth. Now, um this is these are things that are required for you to enter technology, right? You have to have an appetite for problem solving what people do in tech and what engineers do. Um or anyone on those, any one of those roles, they're required to have an appetite for problem solving technology is complex. And so you have to have the passion for, you know, being able to problem solve. Also passionate about continuous learning technology. You have to, there, there's, there's new technology, there's new coding language, there's new, there's new systems, there's new things that are coming out every single day and having a passion for technology uh is required.

Also any with any change into moving into any new direction requires a mindset shift. So start to think about how things are built, right? Start to troubleshoot. Um When you go to a website and things are not working, like start to think about an engineer, start reading the when you get a new update on your iphone. Start reading those release notes of what the engineers change, have a little mindset shift. That is, that's one of the most important things there. Well, that's my time. Um I hope that you uh feel inspired to start a journey into technology. I hope, I hope, I hope you learn some things to stay in contact with me. Here's my email, please take a screenshot of it. Um And uh see, see you all in tech. Thank you.