March 12, 2024 • 43 mins
Have you ever wondered what it takes to shatter the mold and passionately pursue a career in tech? Katherine Lewis joins us to share her extraordinary journey in software engineering, offering a candid look at the trials and triumphs that have defined her path. From overcoming gender stereotypes to the pivotal advice that changed her career trajectory, Katherine's story is not just about coding—it's about finding one's place in an ever-evolving technological landscape. Her commitment to writing accessible code and her roles as an entrepreneur, engineer, podcast host, and philanthropist shine a light on the multifaceted nature of success in the tech world.
Navigating the tech industry can seem like a labyrinth, but Katherine reveals how a proactive approach to job searching and the power of serendipity can lead to remarkable outcomes. She discusses the strategies that put her ahead of the game, from connecting with alumni to immersing herself in developer communities. Katherine's decision to transition from a startup to an apprenticeship at LinkedIn exemplifies the resilience and adaptability that are hallmarks of a thriving tech career. Her experiences underscore that there's no single path to success in tech, but rather a wealth of avenues for those bold enough to explore them.
At the heart of Katherine's narrative lies the undeniable influence of networking and mentorship. She discusses the doors that were opened thanks to her extensive network, resulting in a multitude of job offers. Yet it was the organic mentorships and the genuine human connections that left the deepest imprint on her career progression. Katherine also speaks to her involvement with the LinkedIn Reach Apprenticeship program and her dedication to accessibility in technology, providing insights invaluable to aspiring engineers and seasoned professionals. If you're seeking inspiration on how to grow your career while staying true to your values, this episode promises to enlighten and motivate.
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Episode Transcript
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Katherine Lewis (00:00):
I felt insecure .
I felt like, if I don't knowall of the things, I'm not going
to be a good engineer.
And that was completely false.
And I had a beautiful managerat LinkedIn who told me just
focus and get good at one thing.
And I was like okay, I have toaccept this.
I have to recognize that you'renot telling me something
(00:21):
incorrect, you're not leading medown a bad path.
I need to listen to this, andthat's something that I would
tell any young budding engineeris pick one language and get
really good at that, because ifyou get hired at another company
or you get on a differentproject that requires you to
learn another language, they'regoing to give you the time and
space to learn it.
(00:41):
So you're okay, it is okay,right, and I'll throw in a bonus
tip and this is because of whatI care about, but also, it is
so, so important is please writeaccessible code, please, please
, please.
That's my other piece.
Tim Bourguignon (00:58):
Hello and welcome to developers journey,
the podcast bringing you themaking of stories of successful
software developers to help youon your upcoming journey.
I'm a host team On this episode.
I receive Catherine Lewis.
Catherine is an entrepreneur, asoftware engineer working in
accessibility at LinkedIn, afellow podcast host creating the
(01:19):
opportunity made podcast, andshe runs the Leon Foundation of
Excellence, a program helpingyouth heal inter generational
patterns of trauma.
Catherine, a warm welcome tothe journey.
Katherine Lewis (01:32):
Thank you for having me.
Tim Bourguignon (01:33):
Oh, it's my pleasure.
It's my pleasure.
But before we come to yourstory, I want to thank the
terrific listeners who supportthe show every month.
You are keeping the day journeylights up.
If you would like to join thisfine crew and help me spend more
time on finding phenomenalguests, then editing audio
tracks, please go to our website, dev journeyinfo and click on
(01:58):
the support me on Patreon button.
Even the smallest contributionsare giant steps toward a
sustainable dev journey journey.
Thank you.
And now back to today's guests.
Catherine, as you know, theshow exists to help the
listeners understand what yourstory looked like and imagine
how to shape their own future.
So, as usual on the show, let'sgo back to your beginnings.
(02:21):
Where would you place the startof your step journey?
Katherine Lewis (02:25):
I would say that my development journey
started a long time ago, eventhough I've only been an
engineer for four years now.
When I was younger and in highschool I was someone who wasn't
excelling very well in math orscience.
It was something that I thoughtin a very stereotypical fashion
(02:47):
as a woman I wouldn't be goodat.
I fell into that trap, and somy dad was an engineer, my
grandmother was a saleswoman intech and my grandfather was an
inventor.
He created some of the firstdigitizers and plotters.
So I had a very science andengineering based family and I
(03:12):
was very inspired by them.
But I completely wrote that offas a career path for myself, so
I would say that it startedthere, even though that sounds
like the antithesis.
Moving forward, I knew that Ineeded to pursue a route that
was more focused on humanities,on business, and my heart really
(03:35):
wanted something that put me ina position where I could help
people, and so I got a businessdegree and then became a teacher
with Teach for America, and itwas only through that experience
that I was brought back toengineering.
So as a teacher, I had summersoff, and there's a wonderful
(03:55):
nonprofit called Code withClossey, where they bring in
people from Teach for America toteach high school students how
to program, and so I knewnothing about it.
I thought this is totally out ofmy wheelhouse.
However, I love learning and Ifigured that I could figure it
(04:15):
out, and so I signed up and wewent through a weekend boot camp
and then had to figure out therest on our own.
So I stayed up late that summerto learn about a frame and
react and JavaScript and all thethings.
And it was through thatexperience going around that
summer and the following oneteaching two week camps across
(04:38):
the United States, that Irealized this is a ton of fun
and I really love engineering,and so I went back to the same
organization that we did thatweekend boot camp with, which
was the Turing School ofSoftware and Design.
It was in my hometown, and so Isigned up for that following
(05:00):
year and went through thatprogram for the next nine months
learning how to do front endengineering, and then the rest
is kind of history from there,but it was beautiful to discover
that this thing I thought Icouldn't do I actually was
pretty good at.
Tim Bourguignon (05:17):
Oh, this is a lovely story.
I mean, it's hard to hear thatstereotypical ideas led you away
from it at first, but it's alovely story.
Coming back to it, I'd love togo a bit more into this.
This preparation time for this,summer camps.
(05:39):
Did you do summer camps?
How did you approach this field?
That was completely new to you?
In this, two days boot camp orweekend boot camp, or something
like this?
Katherine Lewis (05:50):
Yeah.
So we had just a couple of dayswith this school, so with
Turing, and they taught us thebeginnings of programming.
And then we were let free andso we had I know it's kind of
crazy thinking about it but wehad curriculum that was already
(06:11):
created for us and we just hadto review it, look through it,
try and understand it.
But everyone knows, when youare going to teach something,
you better understand it and,conversely, when you teach
something, it helps you betterunderstand it.
And so through that process ofpreparing for these boot camps,
(06:33):
it was looking through all ofthe lesson plans, trying the
projects myself, watching videoson YouTube, talking with my
other colleagues who were goingto be teaching with me, and just
slowly, step by step, learningone thing after the next, taking
notes, trying things out.
(06:54):
So there's definitely manymoments when you're learning on
the fly and you're sitting rightnext to those students in that
summer camp saying, I don't know, let's figure it out Right.
So there's a bit ofvulnerability that came with it
too, where you need to be upfront in saying I'm new to this
as well, and so we're going towalk through it together.
(07:16):
And then there's another piece.
That's a lot of preparation.
You're staying up late, you'regetting up early to go through
the lessons and prepare, and bydoing that camp again and again
over time you solidify thatknowledge and you really feel
like you know what you'reteaching and you are more of an
expert on the subject than whenyou first started.
(07:36):
But it was definitely a lot offloundering, a lot of trial and
error, a lot of work, a lot ofhours, but that's how we learn
something right.
Tim Bourguignon (07:46):
It is.
Indeed, we say, well, I don'tknow either, let's figure it out
.
I mean, I've done my firstshare of this, but at least I
had all the the background ofdebugging and really finding out
all the tools.
I knew all them by art, and sosomething happens that I can't
explain right now, but I havethe foundational knowledge to go
(08:07):
at it and figure it out.
I couldn't imagine doing well,I have no idea.
I have no idea where to start.
I have no idea about all thosetools, but let's figure it out.
Ouch, that is scary.
Here we go.
Katherine Lewis (08:20):
Yeah, it is scary, but there was,
beautifully enough, a sense ofconfidence that I could figure
it out, and I think that comesfrom my background.
I have invested in so manydifferent areas, I have degrees
in a lot of different things,and that's not to toot my own
(08:41):
horn, but life is so interestingand so there are so many
different subjects.
I love to study people, I loveto talk to.
You can see that in the podcastthat I host, where it's just
fascinating to chat with peopleand hear the details of their
lives and what are theyinterested in, and then I become
interested because they'reinterested right.
So by having this diversebackground where things are
(09:05):
fascinating, and I know thatgiven enough time I can figure
something out, it wasn't soscary to me to take this on.
Tim Bourguignon (09:15):
That matches the picture I have of you, but
still I would be scared.
So you did this for two summers, did I get that correctly?
Yeah, that was the samecurriculum, or?
After a summer you had to redoit and start from, not scratch,
but with different curriculumagain.
Katherine Lewis (09:35):
So there were different levels to the summer
camp.
So there were lessons for thosewho are completely new to
coding coming in fresh, and thenwe have a couple levels up.
So, as I did more camps, Iwould work on the different
levels.
So the first one was kind of anintro HTML, css, javascript and
then the second summer I wasworking more with React and
(09:58):
A-frame and so I got to progress, I guess, in my development
through the camps that I wasdoing over the course of two
years.
Tim Bourguignon (10:09):
OK.
When you chose to quit teachinghigh school, was that high
school?
Katherine Lewis (10:20):
So the summer camp was high school, and then I
was teaching second and thirdgrade.
Tim Bourguignon (10:24):
Ok, so when you decided to quit teaching second
and third grade because I'msure you're still teaching
nowadays, but not second andthird grade anymore.
We decided to quit.
How did you evaluate youroptions and decide on how to
embrace this softwareengineering life?
Katherine Lewis (10:41):
Yeah, so there's a couple of nuances.
At the time I had done thesesummer camps and I absolutely
knew that I loved programming.
I loved learning.
That's the other thing aboutcoding is you're able to explore
this whole world that is neverending.
There's so much to learn aboutprogramming, and so that was
(11:04):
another piece that I truly,truly loved is just the depth of
what there is to learn about,and tech moves so fast, it's
always changing.
You have to be learning inorder to have that job security.
So just mentioning that, thatwas another piece I loved about
it.
But as a teacher, I actually raninto a bunch of health issues
(11:25):
and I had to leave the classroom, and so it was during that time
period where I knew that Icouldn't teach but I didn't know
what was coming next, that Iwas reflecting and thinking
about, well, what do I enjoy?
And decided to apply for theboot camp and that that would be
a good amount of time as wellfor my body to heal, and so it.
(11:50):
It was this culmination of Ineeded time to recuperate.
I was pretty burnt out and,having these health issues, I
also knew that I loved codingand I knew that there was a lot
of potential in that careerfield, so I wasn't moving into
something that lackedopportunity.
There's plenty of opportunityin tech.
Tim Bourguignon (12:13):
Indeed, indeed.
Okay, and that answers my nextquestion.
This nine month period is notso common.
I see it quite shorter or a bitlonger, but nine months.
There was a bit surprising, butthat makes sense if that was
that was needed.
Katherine Lewis (12:29):
On another aspect of your life, yeah, so
the I can dive deeper into that.
The boot camp is six months, andso it's six months long and
that is a longer time period formost boot camps, but they go so
in depth.
I love the program so much.
They are very, very thoroughand it's four modules over the
(12:50):
course of six months.
Now mine ended up being ninemonths because there was a
module in there that I failed, Ididn't pass and so I had to
repeat it and it's for a varietyof reasons.
Didn't grasp the content.
I also had a family member whowas sick at the time and I was
working three jobs, and so itwas a very intense period where
(13:13):
I was not mentally able to focusas much as I wanted.
But it was beautiful because Igot to repeat the module and the
content really sunk in, whichwas great because it was in
React, and then I ended up usingReact, and still use React in
my current job, and so I got toknow the material well and then
continue with that languagelater on in my profession.
(13:34):
So it is longer because of thatreason.
Tim Bourguignon (13:37):
Okay, okay, but still.
Six months is still longer thanthe usual bootcrab.
Katherine Lewis (13:42):
Yeah, yeah, it is.
Tim Bourguignon (13:44):
Okay, how did you approach your first job
entering this new industry?
Katherine Lewis (13:50):
So there are a couple of tips that I love to
share with people.
So hopefully your audience willfind this valuable and it'll be
a bit longer of a story, but Iknew that it was going to take a
lot of work to get a position.
So the reason why I had thatthought some of it was from a
(14:12):
lack of confidence in myself,but some of it was looking at
other people's stories andjourneys and just seeing that it
took a couple months beforethey were finding a position.
And so, as I mentioned before,we had four modules.
I started looking for aposition in module two, which is
a bit uncommon.
Usually in module three ormodule four is when you start
(14:34):
going through practiceinterviews, getting your resume
ready, applying all of thatstuff.
I started throwing out a bunchof applications in module two
because I wanted to see what wasout there.
I wanted to prime my eyes andstart knowing what my options
were and reading through jobdescriptions and seeing how what
(14:54):
the market was looking formatched what I was going to be
able to bring to the table.
I also wanted to get a bunch ofapplications out there to see
what was the response rate.
I wanted to test what is itlike to just throw your
application online and see howpeople will respond?
I wanted to know am I able togo that route, or do I really
(15:16):
need to build relationships inorder to find my next play?
The other piece of it is if, bychance, anyone was interested
and I could have an interview, Ifigured I wouldn't get a job.
I didn't know enough at thatpoint, but I would be able to
practice interviews and startgetting a sense for that, and I
wanted a really long amount oftime, compared to what they were
(15:38):
asking us to do, to be able tofigure that out.
Moving into mod three, as Imentioned, I repeated that.
So that was a decent timeperiod in which I started doing
practice interviews and they theschool itself provided a list
of alumni who were interested indoing practice interviews, so I
sourced that, reached out to abunch of people and then, on the
(15:59):
weekends, would just runthrough a bunch of interviews,
and this was practicing projects.
So here's a prompt and I wantyou to build a prototype of what
this application would be like.
It's also running throughfunctions, you know all
different kinds of things inorder to practice those
interviews.
Then, from there, I'm at theend of module three, I'm getting
(16:22):
a better sense for what is itgoing to be like to interview
and I start jumping online todifferent Slack communities.
So there were developercommunities that would post jobs
online.
They would have meetups, thingslike that.
So I started just putting myfeelers out and saying, hey, I
(16:43):
might be interested in this.
You know, are you willing totake on a junior developer?
I would go to meetups and sitwith people in coffee shops and
code with them and they wouldrealize that I'm a new developer
and they'd say, hey, pleaseapply to my company.
So I started getting theseopportunities from these smaller
microcosms.
I really didn't get too muchfrom applying online, which is
what I wanted to find out, so itwas good information.
(17:07):
It was through that process thatI had three opportunities and I
was interviewing for thosethree different companies.
They were very, very slow intheir uptake process, and so it
ended up being towards the endof mod four that I was still in
the first couple rounds ofinterviews.
They were all looking good like.
(17:30):
They were all very interested,but I had one company that came
back to me and offered me aposition, and so I ended the
process with the other two and Istarted at a startup.
It was local and it was focusedon.
There were two differentstartups, but one in particular
was focused on dating andmatchmaking and that kind of
thing, and so I was working withthem a bit and I was working
(17:52):
with them on the same thing andI was working with them on the
same thing, and that lasted forsix weeks actually, because, if
we roll back when I was still inmod four, I found the Reach
apprenticeship and that iscoming from LinkedIn, and so
it's their opportunity forjunior developers to come in as
(18:15):
an apprentice and, without acomputer science degree, learn
how to become an engineer, andso that was actually the one
fruitful application online, andso I applied to that, didn't
hear anything and then took thisstartup job and they reached
out for a phone interview andthen we proceeded in the process
(18:36):
.
I got an interview on campus andthen heard that I got the
position, and so it wasdevastating to me to do this,
but at the same time, I wantedLinkedIn so bad, so I went to
that startup and I said, hey,thank you so much for investing
in me.
I am so sorry and I am going toexit this position and move to
(18:59):
California and take a differentone.
And so I proceeded withLinkedIn.
And that was I mean.
I was crying literally as I wassaying this, because I was like
I do not want to be this kindof person and at the same time,
this is the opportunity of alifetime and I'm not saying no
to it.
So I know this is selfish, I'mgoing to be selfish and I am
(19:20):
saying yes to this, and so thatled into four years of being at
LinkedIn and still there nowmoving on from the
apprenticeship into being asoftware engineer and so on and
so forth, having lots ofdifferent opportunities there.
Tim Bourguignon (19:38):
Wow, that's a nice story actually.
Thank you, and this highlightssomething that I've seen again
and again, which is peoplecoming to our industry with a
second degree or third degree orsecond career or third career
approach things much differentlythan the others, and the very
(19:59):
thorough approach that youfollowed.
I want to see what's out there.
I want to see how the companiesrespond.
I want to see what works andwhat doesn't.
I want to see X, I want to seeY.
This is not what a 22 year oldwould do, and I love it.
I love it.
This is really highlightingwhat I like about this diversity
.
This is fantastic.
You mentioned in passing.
(20:20):
Do I need to expand my networks?
This is one of the things youwanted to find out.
Did you find the answer to this?
Katherine Lewis (20:29):
Yeah, so yes and no.
It's very interesting because,in order to get the first couple
of interviews and then thatfirst position, it was all about
who I knew, and I will say thatI had some incredible mentors
as well who were doing thoseinterviews with me, and they
both referred me to theircompanies as well, and I started
(20:52):
out with a first interview forone of those companies.
The other one was going to takea little bit longer as well,
and just the way that the timingmatched up, I took that startup
position, so I had fourcompanies where I was in process
in some kind of way, and thenthat fifth one that offered me a
position, and so that made ahuge difference.
I had five potential optionsbecause of the network and, at
(21:16):
the end of the day, I took theposition that was from an online
application.
So you could say does it matter, does it not?
What I will say most is is yes,having a strong network, having
relationships, is all aboutpeople.
That matters immensely,especially nowadays.
So, a couple of years later,where AI is doing that first
(21:37):
screen, if you know somebody andthey can put the piece of paper
on someone else's desk, that isa huge difference versus trying
to apply online, but I won'tsay that those online
applications don't work, becausethat's how I got my position.
So that's why I would just gofor both, but definitely have a
strong network.
Tim Bourguignon (22:00):
Do you still work on your networks nowadays?
Yes, now that you're notapplying.
Katherine Lewis (22:05):
Yes, absolutely Well, and for different reasons
.
I'll say it's always good tokeep your network warm, but
never do it from a place of whatcan I get from these other
people?
Right?
That's never the right approachand people can sense that.
You've got to have a heartwhere you truly care about
others.
You want to know how they'redoing.
(22:25):
You want to see if you can helpthem out and contribute.
For me, I love expanding mynetwork because that's more
people that I get to talk to onthe podcast.
I get to learn about who theyare and where they're coming
from.
There's this lesson that Ilearned a little bit ago.
This is a bit of a tangent, butI was in a grocery store and I
(22:48):
was talking on the phone.
I was being one of those peoplewhere I'm checking out and I'm
on the phone and I realized justhow rude I was being the
cashier, the woman.
She had said hello and I justgave her a nod.
Then I realized how rude I wasbeing.
So I hung up, told the personon the other side that I needed
(23:08):
to go and I just looked at her.
I said hey, Laura, how are youdoing?
We just had a moment of intenseeye contact and she felt seen.
Her energy, which has beensuper low, automatically picked
up and she's like I'm doing sogood and she just starts moving
everything across the linefaster.
(23:29):
She's looking at the peoplebehind me seeing how they're
doing.
Then I have this box ofcornbread and she tells me if I
add sour cream to it that itwould make it better.
She's just giving all thisinformation and she's got this
pepper in her step.
At the end I say Laura, have agreat day.
And she goes you too, darling.
So she's a total differentperson.
(23:51):
I learned in that moment howmuch of a unique opportunity it
is for us to meet anyone in thisworld.
There's 8 billion people inthis world, and the fact that
you and I are having thisconversation is a blessing.
It's a unique opportunity.
The fact that I got to meet herand see her and have this
(24:11):
impact on her state, justbecause she felt seen, was a
privilege.
It was so beautiful, and so forme, I love expanding my network
and I love keeping it warm,because I care so much about
people and I know what a uniqueprivilege it is to be connected
to anyone.
Tim Bourguignon (24:31):
It is a need.
You mentioned mentoring.
That's a segue into this aswell.
So you mentioned you hadincredible mentors.
Are you still in contact withthem?
Obviously, I would say yes.
Have you found new mentorssince?
Katherine Lewis (24:47):
Yeah, so still in contact with my current
mentors.
In fact, one of them, we joineda hackathon team and we worked
on a project together with acouple other folks and we won
regionals and then we took itall the way to nationals and won
that as well.
So there is like a lot of funthings that you can also do with
your mentors.
(25:07):
But since coming to LinkedIn,I've also had many other mentors
.
I've had the privilege of goingthrough LinkedIn's
accessibility champions program,where you learn how to become
an accessibility champion.
So you're understanding whatdoes it take to develop code
that is accessible?
And through that program Ireceived a mentor.
(25:31):
I did hackathons at work.
We host hackathons and throughthat I was on a project with
someone who months later cameback and said I see so much
potential in you, will you letme be your mentor?
Can I guide you?
Which is a true, true honor tohave someone do that.
So I have them as a mentor.
(25:52):
I was assigned a mentor throughthe Reach program as well, and
then I think it's just beautifulto start making connections and
, when you really vibe withsomeone, ask them for help.
That's what mentorship is isyou connect with someone and you
appreciate their wisdom andyou're willing to ask them
questions.
So it doesn't have to beanything official, it's just
(26:15):
people that you respect andhaving that conversation.
So, yes, I've been veryfortunate in having a lot of
mentors.
Tim Bourguignon (26:22):
Amen to that and actually in my experience,
putting the word mentor in itsometimes screwed the pooch.
Sometimes, really, you have avery and you're nodding right
now For the listeners who cannotsee you.
You're having a great, a greatsynergy with someone and as soon
as you put this word on it, itmakes it official and this is
(26:43):
scary, and sometimes just beingthere and listening and helping
and that's all you need.
Katherine Lewis (26:49):
Yeah, exactly, I agree with you because,
especially when people keep itin that context and they think,
oh, I'm going to go get a mentor, where can I find a mentor?
I need some kind of programwhere it can siphon me off to
some official mentor.
It's like, no, that's, that's,as you were saying, just too
(27:10):
official.
Just find somebody at work whoyou respect and ask them to get
coffee, and there you're beingmentored.
Even if it only lasts for 30minutes, even if it's not this
official long term relationship,you've been mentored.
Tim Bourguignon (27:24):
Indeed, indeed.
You mentioned being assignedmentor, meaning you were a
mentor for somebody from thereach program.
Katherine Lewis (27:33):
So I was assigned one, so someone became
a mentor for me.
Tim Bourguignon (27:38):
Okay, have you?
Have you tried really being amentor?
I would say willingly, not just, not just by accident, but
willingly trying to find someone.
Katherine Lewis (27:49):
For me to mentor.
Tim Bourguignon (27:51):
Yes.
Katherine Lewis (27:51):
Yeah, so once I went through the accessibility
champions program, then yougraduate, so to speak, and after
that you have the opportunityto become a mentor for others.
So I have a clan of about fivefolks, fellow employees, who've
also gone through the program,and then I had the pleasure of
being their mentor, and so it'sfun about that is you start out
(28:14):
with one and then you have two,and then now you've got this
whole group and you get toconnect them to each other.
So now they get to rely on eachother, and so I do less
mentoring and it's more of justfacilitating and bringing them
together and they reach out toeach other quite a bit for help.
Tim Bourguignon (28:32):
Yeah, that's something I've seen quite a bit
as well.
You start by mentoring someoneone person, and then you connect
two, and then you connect three, and then you connect four and
that's it.
You realize you have so manypeople in your life that you've
been guiding or somehow nudgingin a direction.
Not sure we can call themmentees or if we should, but
(28:52):
this is our people you've beenhelping, and there's a whole
bunch of them.
Yeah, and it feels so great,yeah, yes, so you mentioned that
this REACH program.
Could you tell us about howthat was structured?
Katherine Lewis (29:06):
Yeah, so again, as I mentioned, it's for folks
who don't have a computerscience degree and they can
either be self-taught or theywent through a boot camp.
But they have the skills to adecent level.
But what they have more of isthe willingness and capability
to learn right, and I can becareful with the word capability
(29:30):
Everyone's capable of learning.
I think it's more on thewillingness side.
Where you are hungry, you willgo after it, you will ask
questions, you will turn to yourresources, you'll do whatever
it takes to figure it out, andso a lot of it is
character-based in that way.
Right, do you have thecharacter to keep learning?
(29:51):
Are you teachable, are youcoachable?
And so it was about 400applicants and they took 17 of
us, and yeah, Wow.
And I think now it's up to maybe700 or 1,000 and they're still
taking about 20 folks or so.
Don't quote me on those numbers, but it's pretty competitive.
(30:13):
So you come in and you join acohort and so you're onboarded
to the company.
You get someone else who was aReach Apprentice to be your
buddy, so they'll have lunchwith you, they'll answer your
questions, those kinds of things, and then you get assigned to a
different team.
So organizations managers cansay, yeah, we'd love to take on
(30:36):
a Reach Apprentice, and theyknow that you're gonna need a
little bit more guidance, you'regonna need a little bit more
help, but they have capacity andare willing to do that.
And then they grow you over theyears and so it's anywhere from
a year to two years that you'llstay an apprentice and then
you're promoted to softwareengineer and then you just keep
going from there and it dependson what you're wanting to focus
(31:00):
on.
We have, I think, machinelearning back end and front end,
and so people will come in withthese different specialties and
then they continue tospecialize in that area and you
are with that cohort goingthrough programming for the
first six months and then it'skind of like on your own.
(31:20):
If you all wanna socialize andpull yourselves together, you
can, but you've left the programofficially.
And the other really cool pieceis you have 20 to 25% of your
work time to focus on whateveryou want.
If you wanna learn anotherlanguage, if you wanna dive
deeper into what you'recurrently specializing in, you
(31:40):
can, but it's free time toexplore whatever you like.
One so you can get to know whatyou do like, but two so you
just develop more skills.
And it's so amazing that themanagers protect this time and
allow us to learn, becausethere's a lot of work that needs
to be done and so it's verygenerous of them, but it's a
(32:02):
beautiful experience that helpsyou get your footing.
Tim Bourguignon (32:06):
It sounds very thorough indeed.
How did you end up in diversityor working in diversity or
accessibility?
Katherine Lewis (32:15):
sorry, yeah, so you're actually spot on with
both of those.
There are a couple other rolesthat I have at LinkedIn.
One is as an accessibilitychampion, where I am working
with teams to make sure that theproducts they're developing are
accessible.
There's a whole backstory tothat, so I'll go through it and
(32:37):
then I can jump over to thediversity piece.
When I was in the bootcamp inthat last module, I had a family
member who was sick and theylost a lot of functionality, so
there were a lot of things thatthey couldn't do.
It was hard for them to text,it was hard for them to write,
it was hard for them to rememberthings, and we had to develop
(32:58):
an application as our finalproject.
So, closing out that bootcamp,I created this speech to text
application and it would allowpeople to vocalize hey, can you
pick up the groceries, can youdo the laundry, whatever it is,
and it would create this to-dolist based on speech to text,
(33:20):
and then that would be sent tothe receiver, the caretaker, and
they would be able to do thosetasks and it would notify the
other person.
So sometimes we would havedifficulty where, because I was
working so much and because Iwas in school, I wasn't always
able to communicate when thingsgot done, and so it was through
(33:42):
this application that I couldjust check it off and instantly,
if I forgot to communicate thatit was done, they still saw
that it was done, and they wereable to communicate what they
needed to have through speech.
And so that put me in thisworld of accessibility and
understanding.
How do you develop accessibleapplications and just caring
(34:02):
about it in general, from aphysical sense as well?
And the kind of disability thatthey had was temporary.
They were able to heal and moveon from that.
There's situationaldisabilities, there's permanent
disabilities, and my mind wasjust primed to be thinking about
this.
So when I went to LinkedIn, Istarted asking questions what
(34:23):
are we doing for accessibility,not knowing that there was this
whole world, this whole legaldepartment, all these things
that they had to do?
I had no idea, but I got tomeet all of these folks and I
got integrated in a bunch ofdifferent ways and realized just
how important this is and howmany engineers don't know about
it.
They're not being trained todevelop accessible code and in
(34:46):
the end, it costs companies,depending on their size,
millions of dollars, whetherit's through lawsuits, legal
fees or just having to go backat the end of developing a
product and say, okay, now we'lltest it for accessibility.
Oh, my goodness, we havehundreds of bugs.
This is gonna take thousands ofhours and that's a lot of money
(35:08):
when you're paying people to dothat, versus developing
something that's accessible atthe very beginning.
It's so easy.
It makes your designs better.
There's no I'm gonna say thiscarefully, like there's no wrong
way of doing it from theperspective that a lot of
engineers are nervous.
They're gonna try and makesomething accessible and make it
(35:29):
more inaccessible.
Just get started, just do it.
You'll learn along the way.
People are pretty forgiving.
At least you're trying, andbecause you'll learn along the
way, you'll figure out the rightway to create an accessible
product.
So that just created this wholebeautiful side piece to my
career at LinkedIn, where I gotto get super involved and then,
(35:53):
real quick, I'll jump over.
You were mentioning diversityand that whole side of the house
.
So we have a lot of work thatwe do in terms of dibs and
making sure that we have reallystrong culture.
I am an ERG some employeeresource group global
partnership leader, which meansthat I work with different
(36:15):
nonprofits across the worlddifferent organizations,
internally, externally, to makesure that we are forming strong
partnerships for our employeesat LinkedIn who have
disabilities or who are allies.
So maybe they have a familymember or a child that has a
disability, and how do weprovide them the resources they
need so they can develop as aparent or as an employee or
(36:40):
whatever the situation may be?
So that's a whole other side tomy work that I absolutely love
as well.
Tim Bourguignon (36:46):
And seeing your smile while you're telling
those two stories.
Thank God you took thisopportunity and not stayed at
the start of.
I mean, we never know whatwould ever happen, but your
smile is really tally.
Katherine Lewis (36:59):
Well, thank you .
Yeah, linkedin has beenabsolutely incredible the
culture and the opportunities,and they've just been very
gracious with me to allow me totake on these additional roles
and everything has been superfulfilling, so I'm grateful.
Tim Bourguignon (37:13):
Looks like it.
So more software engineering,more diversity, more
accessibility in your future.
Do you want to add anything tothat list?
Is there something on your backlist?
Katherine Lewis (37:26):
That's a long, long list already.
Yeah, absolutely Justcontinuing with all of those
things.
And we've got more plans in theworks, more partnerships, that
we're creating, all these kindsof things, which is really
exciting.
You know, I'm always pullingaccessibility into the
engineering work that I'm doingand educating other teams.
I've got a call later on to dothe same thing and start helping
(37:50):
out other suppliers, all thiskind of stuff.
So it's just ramping up, whichis fun.
In terms of other things, I'mstarting to add author to the
list and hopefully, more keynotespeaker opportunities.
I love talking to folks and Ilove sharing whatever I've
learned, even if it's thefailures and the mistakes, and I
(38:12):
think we all benefit when weshare life stories.
I know that you value that too.
That's why this podcast exists.
So doing more speaking, doingmore writing, is something else
I'm investing in.
Tim Bourguignon (38:26):
You put a finger in there and your arm is
going to go.
I'll tell you that, but I guessit's in your adventure.
That's a really cool one,fantastic, fantastic.
Is there an advice that youhave been giving your mentees,
your cohort of mentees of theREACH program, again and again
and again and you would like toshare here on the show?
Katherine Lewis (38:49):
When I first started out with REACH, I
mentioned we had that 20% timeto explore anything and I
stressed out what should I befocusing on?
Is it this?
Is it this, is it this?
There were too many things tolearn and I felt insecure.
I felt like if I don't know allof the things, I'm not going to
be a good engineer.
And that was completely false.
(39:11):
And I had a beautiful manager atLinkedIn who told me just focus
and get good at one thing.
And I was like okay, I have toaccept this, I have to recognize
that you're not telling mesomething incorrect, you're not
leading me down a bad path.
I need to listen to this, andthat's something that I would
tell any young budding engineeris pick one language and get
(39:35):
really good at that, because ifyou get hired at another company
or you get on a differentproject that requires you to
learn another language, they'regoing to give you the time and
space to learn it.
So you're okay, it is okay,right, and I'll throw in a bonus
tip and this is because of whatI care about, but also it is so
, so important is please writeaccessible code, please, please,
(39:57):
please.
That's my other piece.
Tim Bourguignon (40:01):
Then we have to add some resources on where to
send people so that they canlearn about accessible code, at
least in the show notes.
Do you want to shout out to oneplace where we should send them
?
Katherine Lewis (40:14):
Yeah, so Microsoft is a leader in
accessibility.
They have free online coursesthat you can take.
I think it's calledAccessibility 101.
You can do that.
You can also go on to LinkedInand LinkedIn Learning.
We have many accessibilityfocused courses.
Some of them are completelyfree because so you don't have
(40:34):
to have a premium subscription.
We just want people to learnthese skills.
So those are two superimportant resources.
The last one I'll throw in isthis company called DQ.
They create Axe Core, which isan accessibility testing suite,
and they also have a conferencethat's coming up in this spring,
so that's a really good placeto learn more about
(40:55):
accessibility.
I'm going to keep going with mylist.
Forgive me, but Microsoft alsohas accessibility insights and
Google has Lighthouse, and thoseare two testing suites that you
can pull into your dev tools soyou can use it as an engineer,
you can use it with your PM,with your designer.
I mean anyone can just open upwhatever site you're working on,
whatever application, and runthose tests and see, oh goodness
(41:19):
, we have work to do or wow,like we're doing this pretty
well.
So those are my top resources,and then if anyone wants to
connect with me on LinkedIn,it's the LinkedIn URL slash
opportunity made.
Feel free to reach out to me.
I have a whole nother list ofresources.
I also have a newsletter calledopportunity made and I'll talk
about accessibility sometimes inthere too, but just in general.
(41:43):
If people have more questions,feel free to message me on
LinkedIn.
Tim Bourguignon (41:48):
You answer the next question, which was where
can people find you online andconnect with you?
Anything else you want to plugin?
Katherine Lewis (41:56):
I would say that the last resource is
actually my podcast opportunitymade.
You can find that on Apple,spotify, wherever, but I have a
lot of guests on there too whotalk about accessibility.
They talk about engineering,they talk about tech.
I've got a couple of excitingguests coming up who are going
to be talking about AI andaccessibility, and so by the
(42:18):
time this show is out, thosewill probably be out as well.
So, yeah, hopefully you cantune into that show too.
Tim Bourguignon (42:24):
And we'll link to all those links in the show
notes, so you just have toscroll down and click and you'll
find it there.
Catherine, it's been fantastic.
Thank you for telling us thestory, taking us on this roller
coaster of your life and thoselast years at LinkedIn.
That was fantastic.
Thank you so much.
Katherine Lewis (42:42):
Thank you for having me.
Tim Bourguignon (42:44):
And this has been another episode of Devverse
Journey.
I will see you next week.
Bye, bye.
I felt insecure .
I felt like, if I don't knowall of the things, I'm not going
to be a good engineer.
And that was completely false.
And I had a beautiful managerat LinkedIn who told me just
focus and get good at one thing.
And I was like okay, I have toaccept this.
I have to recognize that you'renot telling me something
(00:21):
incorrect, you're not leading medown a bad path.
I need to listen to this, andthat's something that I would
tell any young budding engineeris pick one language and get
really good at that, because ifyou get hired at another company
or you get on a differentproject that requires you to
learn another language, they'regoing to give you the time and
space to learn it.
(00:41):
So you're okay, it is okay,right, and I'll throw in a bonus
tip and this is because of whatI care about, but also, it is
so, so important is please writeaccessible code, please, please
, please.
That's my other piece.
Tim Bourguignon (00:58):
Hello and welcome to developers journey,
the podcast bringing you themaking of stories of successful
software developers to help youon your upcoming journey.
I'm a host team On this episode.
I receive Catherine Lewis.
Catherine is an entrepreneur, asoftware engineer working in
accessibility at LinkedIn, afellow podcast host creating the
(01:19):
opportunity made podcast, andshe runs the Leon Foundation of
Excellence, a program helpingyouth heal inter generational
patterns of trauma.
Catherine, a warm welcome tothe journey.
Katherine Lewis (01:32):
Thank you for having me.
Tim Bourguignon (01:33):
Oh, it's my pleasure.
It's my pleasure.
But before we come to yourstory, I want to thank the
terrific listeners who supportthe show every month.
You are keeping the day journeylights up.
If you would like to join thisfine crew and help me spend more
time on finding phenomenalguests, then editing audio
tracks, please go to our website, dev journeyinfo and click on
(01:58):
the support me on Patreon button.
Even the smallest contributionsare giant steps toward a
sustainable dev journey journey.
Thank you.
And now back to today's guests.
Catherine, as you know, theshow exists to help the
listeners understand what yourstory looked like and imagine
how to shape their own future.
So, as usual on the show, let'sgo back to your beginnings.
(02:21):
Where would you place the startof your step journey?
Katherine Lewis (02:25):
I would say that my development journey
started a long time ago, eventhough I've only been an
engineer for four years now.
When I was younger and in highschool I was someone who wasn't
excelling very well in math orscience.
It was something that I thoughtin a very stereotypical fashion
(02:47):
as a woman I wouldn't be goodat.
I fell into that trap, and somy dad was an engineer, my
grandmother was a saleswoman intech and my grandfather was an
inventor.
He created some of the firstdigitizers and plotters.
So I had a very science andengineering based family and I
(03:12):
was very inspired by them.
But I completely wrote that offas a career path for myself, so
I would say that it startedthere, even though that sounds
like the antithesis.
Moving forward, I knew that Ineeded to pursue a route that
was more focused on humanities,on business, and my heart really
(03:35):
wanted something that put me ina position where I could help
people, and so I got a businessdegree and then became a teacher
with Teach for America, and itwas only through that experience
that I was brought back toengineering.
So as a teacher, I had summersoff, and there's a wonderful
(03:55):
nonprofit called Code withClossey, where they bring in
people from Teach for America toteach high school students how
to program, and so I knewnothing about it.
I thought this is totally out ofmy wheelhouse.
However, I love learning and Ifigured that I could figure it
(04:15):
out, and so I signed up and wewent through a weekend boot camp
and then had to figure out therest on our own.
So I stayed up late that summerto learn about a frame and
react and JavaScript and all thethings.
And it was through thatexperience going around that
summer and the following oneteaching two week camps across
(04:38):
the United States, that Irealized this is a ton of fun
and I really love engineering,and so I went back to the same
organization that we did thatweekend boot camp with, which
was the Turing School ofSoftware and Design.
It was in my hometown, and so Isigned up for that following
(05:00):
year and went through thatprogram for the next nine months
learning how to do front endengineering, and then the rest
is kind of history from there,but it was beautiful to discover
that this thing I thought Icouldn't do I actually was
pretty good at.
Tim Bourguignon (05:17):
Oh, this is a lovely story.
I mean, it's hard to hear thatstereotypical ideas led you away
from it at first, but it's alovely story.
Coming back to it, I'd love togo a bit more into this.
This preparation time for this,summer camps.
(05:39):
Did you do summer camps?
How did you approach this field?
That was completely new to you?
In this, two days boot camp orweekend boot camp, or something
like this?
Katherine Lewis (05:50):
Yeah.
So we had just a couple of dayswith this school, so with
Turing, and they taught us thebeginnings of programming.
And then we were let free andso we had I know it's kind of
crazy thinking about it but wehad curriculum that was already
(06:11):
created for us and we just hadto review it, look through it,
try and understand it.
But everyone knows, when youare going to teach something,
you better understand it and,conversely, when you teach
something, it helps you betterunderstand it.
And so through that process ofpreparing for these boot camps,
(06:33):
it was looking through all ofthe lesson plans, trying the
projects myself, watching videoson YouTube, talking with my
other colleagues who were goingto be teaching with me, and just
slowly, step by step, learningone thing after the next, taking
notes, trying things out.
(06:54):
So there's definitely manymoments when you're learning on
the fly and you're sitting rightnext to those students in that
summer camp saying, I don't know, let's figure it out Right.
So there's a bit ofvulnerability that came with it
too, where you need to be upfront in saying I'm new to this
as well, and so we're going towalk through it together.
(07:16):
And then there's another piece.
That's a lot of preparation.
You're staying up late, you'regetting up early to go through
the lessons and prepare, and bydoing that camp again and again
over time you solidify thatknowledge and you really feel
like you know what you'reteaching and you are more of an
expert on the subject than whenyou first started.
(07:36):
But it was definitely a lot offloundering, a lot of trial and
error, a lot of work, a lot ofhours, but that's how we learn
something right.
Tim Bourguignon (07:46):
It is.
Indeed, we say, well, I don'tknow either, let's figure it out
.
I mean, I've done my firstshare of this, but at least I
had all the the background ofdebugging and really finding out
all the tools.
I knew all them by art, and sosomething happens that I can't
explain right now, but I havethe foundational knowledge to go
(08:07):
at it and figure it out.
I couldn't imagine doing well,I have no idea.
I have no idea where to start.
I have no idea about all thosetools, but let's figure it out.
Ouch, that is scary.
Here we go.
Katherine Lewis (08:20):
Yeah, it is scary, but there was,
beautifully enough, a sense ofconfidence that I could figure
it out, and I think that comesfrom my background.
I have invested in so manydifferent areas, I have degrees
in a lot of different things,and that's not to toot my own
(08:41):
horn, but life is so interestingand so there are so many
different subjects.
I love to study people, I loveto talk to.
You can see that in the podcastthat I host, where it's just
fascinating to chat with peopleand hear the details of their
lives and what are theyinterested in, and then I become
interested because they'reinterested right.
So by having this diversebackground where things are
(09:05):
fascinating, and I know thatgiven enough time I can figure
something out, it wasn't soscary to me to take this on.
Tim Bourguignon (09:15):
That matches the picture I have of you, but
still I would be scared.
So you did this for two summers, did I get that correctly?
Yeah, that was the samecurriculum, or?
After a summer you had to redoit and start from, not scratch,
but with different curriculumagain.
Katherine Lewis (09:35):
So there were different levels to the summer
camp.
So there were lessons for thosewho are completely new to
coding coming in fresh, and thenwe have a couple levels up.
So, as I did more camps, Iwould work on the different
levels.
So the first one was kind of anintro HTML, css, javascript and
then the second summer I wasworking more with React and
(09:58):
A-frame and so I got to progress, I guess, in my development
through the camps that I wasdoing over the course of two
years.
Tim Bourguignon (10:09):
OK.
When you chose to quit teachinghigh school, was that high
school?
Katherine Lewis (10:20):
So the summer camp was high school, and then I
was teaching second and thirdgrade.
Tim Bourguignon (10:24):
Ok, so when you decided to quit teaching second
and third grade because I'msure you're still teaching
nowadays, but not second andthird grade anymore.
We decided to quit.
How did you evaluate youroptions and decide on how to
embrace this softwareengineering life?
Katherine Lewis (10:41):
Yeah, so there's a couple of nuances.
At the time I had done thesesummer camps and I absolutely
knew that I loved programming.
I loved learning.
That's the other thing aboutcoding is you're able to explore
this whole world that is neverending.
There's so much to learn aboutprogramming, and so that was
(11:04):
another piece that I truly,truly loved is just the depth of
what there is to learn about,and tech moves so fast, it's
always changing.
You have to be learning inorder to have that job security.
So just mentioning that, thatwas another piece I loved about
it.
But as a teacher, I actually raninto a bunch of health issues
(11:25):
and I had to leave the classroom, and so it was during that time
period where I knew that Icouldn't teach but I didn't know
what was coming next, that Iwas reflecting and thinking
about, well, what do I enjoy?
And decided to apply for theboot camp and that that would be
a good amount of time as wellfor my body to heal, and so it.
(11:50):
It was this culmination of Ineeded time to recuperate.
I was pretty burnt out and,having these health issues, I
also knew that I loved codingand I knew that there was a lot
of potential in that careerfield, so I wasn't moving into
something that lackedopportunity.
There's plenty of opportunityin tech.
Tim Bourguignon (12:13):
Indeed, indeed.
Okay, and that answers my nextquestion.
This nine month period is notso common.
I see it quite shorter or a bitlonger, but nine months.
There was a bit surprising, butthat makes sense if that was
that was needed.
Katherine Lewis (12:29):
On another aspect of your life, yeah, so
the I can dive deeper into that.
The boot camp is six months, andso it's six months long and
that is a longer time period formost boot camps, but they go so
in depth.
I love the program so much.
They are very, very thoroughand it's four modules over the
(12:50):
course of six months.
Now mine ended up being ninemonths because there was a
module in there that I failed, Ididn't pass and so I had to
repeat it and it's for a varietyof reasons.
Didn't grasp the content.
I also had a family member whowas sick at the time and I was
working three jobs, and so itwas a very intense period where
(13:13):
I was not mentally able to focusas much as I wanted.
But it was beautiful because Igot to repeat the module and the
content really sunk in, whichwas great because it was in
React, and then I ended up usingReact, and still use React in
my current job, and so I got toknow the material well and then
continue with that languagelater on in my profession.
(13:34):
So it is longer because of thatreason.
Tim Bourguignon (13:37):
Okay, okay, but still.
Six months is still longer thanthe usual bootcrab.
Katherine Lewis (13:42):
Yeah, yeah, it is.
Tim Bourguignon (13:44):
Okay, how did you approach your first job
entering this new industry?
Katherine Lewis (13:50):
So there are a couple of tips that I love to
share with people.
So hopefully your audience willfind this valuable and it'll be
a bit longer of a story, but Iknew that it was going to take a
lot of work to get a position.
So the reason why I had thatthought some of it was from a
(14:12):
lack of confidence in myself,but some of it was looking at
other people's stories andjourneys and just seeing that it
took a couple months beforethey were finding a position.
And so, as I mentioned before,we had four modules.
I started looking for aposition in module two, which is
a bit uncommon.
Usually in module three ormodule four is when you start
(14:34):
going through practiceinterviews, getting your resume
ready, applying all of thatstuff.
I started throwing out a bunchof applications in module two
because I wanted to see what wasout there.
I wanted to prime my eyes andstart knowing what my options
were and reading through jobdescriptions and seeing how what
(14:54):
the market was looking formatched what I was going to be
able to bring to the table.
I also wanted to get a bunch ofapplications out there to see
what was the response rate.
I wanted to test what is itlike to just throw your
application online and see howpeople will respond?
I wanted to know am I able togo that route, or do I really
(15:16):
need to build relationships inorder to find my next play?
The other piece of it is if, bychance, anyone was interested
and I could have an interview, Ifigured I wouldn't get a job.
I didn't know enough at thatpoint, but I would be able to
practice interviews and startgetting a sense for that, and I
wanted a really long amount oftime, compared to what they were
(15:38):
asking us to do, to be able tofigure that out.
Moving into mod three, as Imentioned, I repeated that.
So that was a decent timeperiod in which I started doing
practice interviews and they theschool itself provided a list
of alumni who were interested indoing practice interviews, so I
sourced that, reached out to abunch of people and then, on the
(15:59):
weekends, would just runthrough a bunch of interviews,
and this was practicing projects.
So here's a prompt and I wantyou to build a prototype of what
this application would be like.
It's also running throughfunctions, you know all
different kinds of things inorder to practice those
interviews.
Then, from there, I'm at theend of module three, I'm getting
(16:22):
a better sense for what is itgoing to be like to interview
and I start jumping online todifferent Slack communities.
So there were developercommunities that would post jobs
online.
They would have meetups, thingslike that.
So I started just putting myfeelers out and saying, hey, I
(16:43):
might be interested in this.
You know, are you willing totake on a junior developer?
I would go to meetups and sitwith people in coffee shops and
code with them and they wouldrealize that I'm a new developer
and they'd say, hey, pleaseapply to my company.
So I started getting theseopportunities from these smaller
microcosms.
I really didn't get too muchfrom applying online, which is
what I wanted to find out, so itwas good information.
(17:07):
It was through that process thatI had three opportunities and I
was interviewing for thosethree different companies.
They were very, very slow intheir uptake process, and so it
ended up being towards the endof mod four that I was still in
the first couple rounds ofinterviews.
They were all looking good like.
(17:30):
They were all very interested,but I had one company that came
back to me and offered me aposition, and so I ended the
process with the other two and Istarted at a startup.
It was local and it was focusedon.
There were two differentstartups, but one in particular
was focused on dating andmatchmaking and that kind of
thing, and so I was working withthem a bit and I was working
(17:52):
with them on the same thing andI was working with them on the
same thing, and that lasted forsix weeks actually, because, if
we roll back when I was still inmod four, I found the Reach
apprenticeship and that iscoming from LinkedIn, and so
it's their opportunity forjunior developers to come in as
(18:15):
an apprentice and, without acomputer science degree, learn
how to become an engineer, andso that was actually the one
fruitful application online, andso I applied to that, didn't
hear anything and then took thisstartup job and they reached
out for a phone interview andthen we proceeded in the process
(18:36):
.
I got an interview on campus andthen heard that I got the
position, and so it wasdevastating to me to do this,
but at the same time, I wantedLinkedIn so bad, so I went to
that startup and I said, hey,thank you so much for investing
in me.
I am so sorry and I am going toexit this position and move to
(18:59):
California and take a differentone.
And so I proceeded withLinkedIn.
And that was I mean.
I was crying literally as I wassaying this, because I was like
I do not want to be this kindof person and at the same time,
this is the opportunity of alifetime and I'm not saying no
to it.
So I know this is selfish, I'mgoing to be selfish and I am
(19:20):
saying yes to this, and so thatled into four years of being at
LinkedIn and still there nowmoving on from the
apprenticeship into being asoftware engineer and so on and
so forth, having lots ofdifferent opportunities there.
Tim Bourguignon (19:38):
Wow, that's a nice story actually.
Thank you, and this highlightssomething that I've seen again
and again, which is peoplecoming to our industry with a
second degree or third degree orsecond career or third career
approach things much differentlythan the others, and the very
(19:59):
thorough approach that youfollowed.
I want to see what's out there.
I want to see how the companiesrespond.
I want to see what works andwhat doesn't.
I want to see X, I want to seeY.
This is not what a 22 year oldwould do, and I love it.
I love it.
This is really highlightingwhat I like about this diversity
.
This is fantastic.
You mentioned in passing.
(20:20):
Do I need to expand my networks?
This is one of the things youwanted to find out.
Did you find the answer to this?
Katherine Lewis (20:29):
Yeah, so yes and no.
It's very interesting because,in order to get the first couple
of interviews and then thatfirst position, it was all about
who I knew, and I will say thatI had some incredible mentors
as well who were doing thoseinterviews with me, and they
both referred me to theircompanies as well, and I started
(20:52):
out with a first interview forone of those companies.
The other one was going to takea little bit longer as well,
and just the way that the timingmatched up, I took that startup
position, so I had fourcompanies where I was in process
in some kind of way, and thenthat fifth one that offered me a
position, and so that made ahuge difference.
I had five potential optionsbecause of the network and, at
(21:16):
the end of the day, I took theposition that was from an online
application.
So you could say does it matter, does it not?
What I will say most is is yes,having a strong network, having
relationships, is all aboutpeople.
That matters immensely,especially nowadays.
So, a couple of years later,where AI is doing that first
(21:37):
screen, if you know somebody andthey can put the piece of paper
on someone else's desk, that isa huge difference versus trying
to apply online, but I won'tsay that those online
applications don't work, becausethat's how I got my position.
So that's why I would just gofor both, but definitely have a
strong network.
Tim Bourguignon (22:00):
Do you still work on your networks nowadays?
Yes, now that you're notapplying.
Katherine Lewis (22:05):
Yes, absolutely Well, and for different reasons
.
I'll say it's always good tokeep your network warm, but
never do it from a place of whatcan I get from these other
people?
Right?
That's never the right approachand people can sense that.
You've got to have a heartwhere you truly care about
others.
You want to know how they'redoing.
(22:25):
You want to see if you can helpthem out and contribute.
For me, I love expanding mynetwork because that's more
people that I get to talk to onthe podcast.
I get to learn about who theyare and where they're coming
from.
There's this lesson that Ilearned a little bit ago.
This is a bit of a tangent, butI was in a grocery store and I
(22:48):
was talking on the phone.
I was being one of those peoplewhere I'm checking out and I'm
on the phone and I realized justhow rude I was being the
cashier, the woman.
She had said hello and I justgave her a nod.
Then I realized how rude I wasbeing.
So I hung up, told the personon the other side that I needed
(23:08):
to go and I just looked at her.
I said hey, Laura, how are youdoing?
We just had a moment of intenseeye contact and she felt seen.
Her energy, which has beensuper low, automatically picked
up and she's like I'm doing sogood and she just starts moving
everything across the linefaster.
(23:29):
She's looking at the peoplebehind me seeing how they're
doing.
Then I have this box ofcornbread and she tells me if I
add sour cream to it that itwould make it better.
She's just giving all thisinformation and she's got this
pepper in her step.
At the end I say Laura, have agreat day.
And she goes you too, darling.
So she's a total differentperson.
(23:51):
I learned in that moment howmuch of a unique opportunity it
is for us to meet anyone in thisworld.
There's 8 billion people inthis world, and the fact that
you and I are having thisconversation is a blessing.
It's a unique opportunity.
The fact that I got to meet herand see her and have this
(24:11):
impact on her state, justbecause she felt seen, was a
privilege.
It was so beautiful, and so forme, I love expanding my network
and I love keeping it warm,because I care so much about
people and I know what a uniqueprivilege it is to be connected
to anyone.
Tim Bourguignon (24:31):
It is a need.
You mentioned mentoring.
That's a segue into this aswell.
So you mentioned you hadincredible mentors.
Are you still in contact withthem?
Obviously, I would say yes.
Have you found new mentorssince?
Katherine Lewis (24:47):
Yeah, so still in contact with my current
mentors.
In fact, one of them, we joineda hackathon team and we worked
on a project together with acouple other folks and we won
regionals and then we took itall the way to nationals and won
that as well.
So there is like a lot of funthings that you can also do with
your mentors.
(25:07):
But since coming to LinkedIn,I've also had many other mentors
.
I've had the privilege of goingthrough LinkedIn's
accessibility champions program,where you learn how to become
an accessibility champion.
So you're understanding whatdoes it take to develop code
that is accessible?
And through that program Ireceived a mentor.
(25:31):
I did hackathons at work.
We host hackathons and throughthat I was on a project with
someone who months later cameback and said I see so much
potential in you, will you letme be your mentor?
Can I guide you?
Which is a true, true honor tohave someone do that.
So I have them as a mentor.
(25:52):
I was assigned a mentor throughthe Reach program as well, and
then I think it's just beautifulto start making connections and
, when you really vibe withsomeone, ask them for help.
That's what mentorship is isyou connect with someone and you
appreciate their wisdom andyou're willing to ask them
questions.
So it doesn't have to beanything official, it's just
(26:15):
people that you respect andhaving that conversation.
So, yes, I've been veryfortunate in having a lot of
mentors.
Tim Bourguignon (26:22):
Amen to that and actually in my experience,
putting the word mentor in itsometimes screwed the pooch.
Sometimes, really, you have avery and you're nodding right
now For the listeners who cannotsee you.
You're having a great, a greatsynergy with someone and as soon
as you put this word on it, itmakes it official and this is
(26:43):
scary, and sometimes just beingthere and listening and helping
and that's all you need.
Katherine Lewis (26:49):
Yeah, exactly, I agree with you because,
especially when people keep itin that context and they think,
oh, I'm going to go get a mentor, where can I find a mentor?
I need some kind of programwhere it can siphon me off to
some official mentor.
It's like, no, that's, that's,as you were saying, just too
(27:10):
official.
Just find somebody at work whoyou respect and ask them to get
coffee, and there you're beingmentored.
Even if it only lasts for 30minutes, even if it's not this
official long term relationship,you've been mentored.
Tim Bourguignon (27:24):
Indeed, indeed.
You mentioned being assignedmentor, meaning you were a
mentor for somebody from thereach program.
Katherine Lewis (27:33):
So I was assigned one, so someone became
a mentor for me.
Tim Bourguignon (27:38):
Okay, have you?
Have you tried really being amentor?
I would say willingly, not just, not just by accident, but
willingly trying to find someone.
Katherine Lewis (27:49):
For me to mentor.
Tim Bourguignon (27:51):
Yes.
Katherine Lewis (27:51):
Yeah, so once I went through the accessibility
champions program, then yougraduate, so to speak, and after
that you have the opportunityto become a mentor for others.
So I have a clan of about fivefolks, fellow employees, who've
also gone through the program,and then I had the pleasure of
being their mentor, and so it'sfun about that is you start out
(28:14):
with one and then you have two,and then now you've got this
whole group and you get toconnect them to each other.
So now they get to rely on eachother, and so I do less
mentoring and it's more of justfacilitating and bringing them
together and they reach out toeach other quite a bit for help.
Tim Bourguignon (28:32):
Yeah, that's something I've seen quite a bit
as well.
You start by mentoring someoneone person, and then you connect
two, and then you connect three, and then you connect four and
that's it.
You realize you have so manypeople in your life that you've
been guiding or somehow nudgingin a direction.
Not sure we can call themmentees or if we should, but
(28:52):
this is our people you've beenhelping, and there's a whole
bunch of them.
Yeah, and it feels so great,yeah, yes, so you mentioned that
this REACH program.
Could you tell us about howthat was structured?
Katherine Lewis (29:06):
Yeah, so again, as I mentioned, it's for folks
who don't have a computerscience degree and they can
either be self-taught or theywent through a boot camp.
But they have the skills to adecent level.
But what they have more of isthe willingness and capability
to learn right, and I can becareful with the word capability
(29:30):
Everyone's capable of learning.
I think it's more on thewillingness side.
Where you are hungry, you willgo after it, you will ask
questions, you will turn to yourresources, you'll do whatever
it takes to figure it out, andso a lot of it is
character-based in that way.
Right, do you have thecharacter to keep learning?
(29:51):
Are you teachable, are youcoachable?
And so it was about 400applicants and they took 17 of
us, and yeah, Wow.
And I think now it's up to maybe700 or 1,000 and they're still
taking about 20 folks or so.
Don't quote me on those numbers, but it's pretty competitive.
(30:13):
So you come in and you join acohort and so you're onboarded
to the company.
You get someone else who was aReach Apprentice to be your
buddy, so they'll have lunchwith you, they'll answer your
questions, those kinds of things, and then you get assigned to a
different team.
So organizations managers cansay, yeah, we'd love to take on
(30:36):
a Reach Apprentice, and theyknow that you're gonna need a
little bit more guidance, you'regonna need a little bit more
help, but they have capacity andare willing to do that.
And then they grow you over theyears and so it's anywhere from
a year to two years that you'llstay an apprentice and then
you're promoted to softwareengineer and then you just keep
going from there and it dependson what you're wanting to focus
(31:00):
on.
We have, I think, machinelearning back end and front end,
and so people will come in withthese different specialties and
then they continue tospecialize in that area and you
are with that cohort goingthrough programming for the
first six months and then it'skind of like on your own.
(31:20):
If you all wanna socialize andpull yourselves together, you
can, but you've left the programofficially.
And the other really cool pieceis you have 20 to 25% of your
work time to focus on whateveryou want.
If you wanna learn anotherlanguage, if you wanna dive
deeper into what you'recurrently specializing in, you
(31:40):
can, but it's free time toexplore whatever you like.
One so you can get to know whatyou do like, but two so you
just develop more skills.
And it's so amazing that themanagers protect this time and
allow us to learn, becausethere's a lot of work that needs
to be done and so it's verygenerous of them, but it's a
(32:02):
beautiful experience that helpsyou get your footing.
Tim Bourguignon (32:06):
It sounds very thorough indeed.
How did you end up in diversityor working in diversity or
accessibility?
Katherine Lewis (32:15):
sorry, yeah, so you're actually spot on with
both of those.
There are a couple other rolesthat I have at LinkedIn.
One is as an accessibilitychampion, where I am working
with teams to make sure that theproducts they're developing are
accessible.
There's a whole backstory tothat, so I'll go through it and
(32:37):
then I can jump over to thediversity piece.
When I was in the bootcamp inthat last module, I had a family
member who was sick and theylost a lot of functionality, so
there were a lot of things thatthey couldn't do.
It was hard for them to text,it was hard for them to write,
it was hard for them to rememberthings, and we had to develop
(32:58):
an application as our finalproject.
So, closing out that bootcamp,I created this speech to text
application and it would allowpeople to vocalize hey, can you
pick up the groceries, can youdo the laundry, whatever it is,
and it would create this to-dolist based on speech to text,
(33:20):
and then that would be sent tothe receiver, the caretaker, and
they would be able to do thosetasks and it would notify the
other person.
So sometimes we would havedifficulty where, because I was
working so much and because Iwas in school, I wasn't always
able to communicate when thingsgot done, and so it was through
(33:42):
this application that I couldjust check it off and instantly,
if I forgot to communicate thatit was done, they still saw
that it was done, and they wereable to communicate what they
needed to have through speech.
And so that put me in thisworld of accessibility and
understanding.
How do you develop accessibleapplications and just caring
(34:02):
about it in general, from aphysical sense as well?
And the kind of disability thatthey had was temporary.
They were able to heal and moveon from that.
There's situationaldisabilities, there's permanent
disabilities, and my mind wasjust primed to be thinking about
this.
So when I went to LinkedIn, Istarted asking questions what
(34:23):
are we doing for accessibility,not knowing that there was this
whole world, this whole legaldepartment, all these things
that they had to do?
I had no idea, but I got tomeet all of these folks and I
got integrated in a bunch ofdifferent ways and realized just
how important this is and howmany engineers don't know about
it.
They're not being trained todevelop accessible code and in
(34:46):
the end, it costs companies,depending on their size,
millions of dollars, whetherit's through lawsuits, legal
fees or just having to go backat the end of developing a
product and say, okay, now we'lltest it for accessibility.
Oh, my goodness, we havehundreds of bugs.
This is gonna take thousands ofhours and that's a lot of money
(35:08):
when you're paying people to dothat, versus developing
something that's accessible atthe very beginning.
It's so easy.
It makes your designs better.
There's no I'm gonna say thiscarefully, like there's no wrong
way of doing it from theperspective that a lot of
engineers are nervous.
They're gonna try and makesomething accessible and make it
(35:29):
more inaccessible.
Just get started, just do it.
You'll learn along the way.
People are pretty forgiving.
At least you're trying, andbecause you'll learn along the
way, you'll figure out the rightway to create an accessible
product.
So that just created this wholebeautiful side piece to my
career at LinkedIn, where I gotto get super involved and then,
(35:53):
real quick, I'll jump over.
You were mentioning diversityand that whole side of the house
.
So we have a lot of work thatwe do in terms of dibs and
making sure that we have reallystrong culture.
I am an ERG some employeeresource group global
partnership leader, which meansthat I work with different
(36:15):
nonprofits across the worlddifferent organizations,
internally, externally, to makesure that we are forming strong
partnerships for our employeesat LinkedIn who have
disabilities or who are allies.
So maybe they have a familymember or a child that has a
disability, and how do weprovide them the resources they
need so they can develop as aparent or as an employee or
(36:40):
whatever the situation may be?
So that's a whole other side tomy work that I absolutely love
as well.
Tim Bourguignon (36:46):
And seeing your smile while you're telling
those two stories.
Thank God you took thisopportunity and not stayed at
the start of.
I mean, we never know whatwould ever happen, but your
smile is really tally.
Katherine Lewis (36:59):
Well, thank you .
Yeah, linkedin has beenabsolutely incredible the
culture and the opportunities,and they've just been very
gracious with me to allow me totake on these additional roles
and everything has been superfulfilling, so I'm grateful.
Tim Bourguignon (37:13):
Looks like it.
So more software engineering,more diversity, more
accessibility in your future.
Do you want to add anything tothat list?
Is there something on your backlist?
Katherine Lewis (37:26):
That's a long, long list already.
Yeah, absolutely Justcontinuing with all of those
things.
And we've got more plans in theworks, more partnerships, that
we're creating, all these kindsof things, which is really
exciting.
You know, I'm always pullingaccessibility into the
engineering work that I'm doingand educating other teams.
I've got a call later on to dothe same thing and start helping
(37:50):
out other suppliers, all thiskind of stuff.
So it's just ramping up, whichis fun.
In terms of other things, I'mstarting to add author to the
list and hopefully, more keynotespeaker opportunities.
I love talking to folks and Ilove sharing whatever I've
learned, even if it's thefailures and the mistakes, and I
(38:12):
think we all benefit when weshare life stories.
I know that you value that too.
That's why this podcast exists.
So doing more speaking, doingmore writing, is something else
I'm investing in.
Tim Bourguignon (38:26):
You put a finger in there and your arm is
going to go.
I'll tell you that, but I guessit's in your adventure.
That's a really cool one,fantastic, fantastic.
Is there an advice that youhave been giving your mentees,
your cohort of mentees of theREACH program, again and again
and again and you would like toshare here on the show?
Katherine Lewis (38:49):
When I first started out with REACH, I
mentioned we had that 20% timeto explore anything and I
stressed out what should I befocusing on?
Is it this?
Is it this, is it this?
There were too many things tolearn and I felt insecure.
I felt like if I don't know allof the things, I'm not going to
be a good engineer.
And that was completely false.
(39:11):
And I had a beautiful manager atLinkedIn who told me just focus
and get good at one thing.
And I was like okay, I have toaccept this, I have to recognize
that you're not telling mesomething incorrect, you're not
leading me down a bad path.
I need to listen to this, andthat's something that I would
tell any young budding engineeris pick one language and get
(39:35):
really good at that, because ifyou get hired at another company
or you get on a differentproject that requires you to
learn another language, they'regoing to give you the time and
space to learn it.
So you're okay, it is okay,right, and I'll throw in a bonus
tip and this is because of whatI care about, but also it is so
, so important is please writeaccessible code, please, please,
(39:57):
please.
That's my other piece.
Tim Bourguignon (40:01):
Then we have to add some resources on where to
send people so that they canlearn about accessible code, at
least in the show notes.
Do you want to shout out to oneplace where we should send them
?
Katherine Lewis (40:14):
Yeah, so Microsoft is a leader in
accessibility.
They have free online coursesthat you can take.
I think it's calledAccessibility 101.
You can do that.
You can also go on to LinkedInand LinkedIn Learning.
We have many accessibilityfocused courses.
Some of them are completelyfree because so you don't have
(40:34):
to have a premium subscription.
We just want people to learnthese skills.
So those are two superimportant resources.
The last one I'll throw in isthis company called DQ.
They create Axe Core, which isan accessibility testing suite,
and they also have a conferencethat's coming up in this spring,
so that's a really good placeto learn more about
(40:55):
accessibility.
I'm going to keep going with mylist.
Forgive me, but Microsoft alsohas accessibility insights and
Google has Lighthouse, and thoseare two testing suites that you
can pull into your dev tools soyou can use it as an engineer,
you can use it with your PM,with your designer.
I mean anyone can just open upwhatever site you're working on,
whatever application, and runthose tests and see, oh goodness
(41:19):
, we have work to do or wow,like we're doing this pretty
well.
So those are my top resources,and then if anyone wants to
connect with me on LinkedIn,it's the LinkedIn URL slash
opportunity made.
Feel free to reach out to me.
I have a whole nother list ofresources.
I also have a newsletter calledopportunity made and I'll talk
about accessibility sometimes inthere too, but just in general.
(41:43):
If people have more questions,feel free to message me on
LinkedIn.
Tim Bourguignon (41:48):
You answer the next question, which was where
can people find you online andconnect with you?
Anything else you want to plugin?
Katherine Lewis (41:56):
I would say that the last resource is
actually my podcast opportunitymade.
You can find that on Apple,spotify, wherever, but I have a
lot of guests on there too whotalk about accessibility.
They talk about engineering,they talk about tech.
I've got a couple of excitingguests coming up who are going
to be talking about AI andaccessibility, and so by the
(42:18):
time this show is out, thosewill probably be out as well.
So, yeah, hopefully you cantune into that show too.
Tim Bourguignon (42:24):
And we'll link to all those links in the show
notes, so you just have toscroll down and click and you'll
find it there.
Catherine, it's been fantastic.
Thank you for telling us thestory, taking us on this roller
coaster of your life and thoselast years at LinkedIn.
That was fantastic.
Thank you so much.
Katherine Lewis (42:42):
Thank you for having me.
Tim Bourguignon (42:44):
And this has been another episode of Devverse
Journey.
I will see you next week.
Bye, bye.
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