Let me start off by saying- you're not the only one who put aside their true passions for something more practical.

I wanted to become a famous writer and actress. I went to school in NYC for film and screen studies. I moved to LA to try my hand at breaking into Hollywood. Obviously, I didn’t make it very far 🙃

Like many people, since trying to achieve my dream wasn’t paying the bills, I decided to go after something that’d be easier to obtain. Choosing programming was…smart😂Hard, but smart. Not only is it a desirable skill set that pays well, and can be done from anywhere in the world, but it’s the field driving the digital era, and I didn’t want to be left behind.

However, sitting behind a laptop for 8 hours a day writing code is not the type of writing I’m passionate about. And I sure as hell can’t integrate acting with programming. For awhile, it felt as though I was just tolerating being in this industry for the benefits since I couldn’t find much joy in it. Until I did.

Listen, life is all about perspective. I swear. I arrived at a crappy hotel in Miami once that looked nothing like the pictures. I had such a negative attitude the first day of that trip, until I learned that this crappy hotel was actually in a wealthy area full of celebrities and millionaires. After I learned that new information, my entire mood changed and it was one of the best, boujee trips of my life.

See? Perspective. Shallow, but you get my point.

I’m not saying that I absolutely love programming now, but I did find a way to intertwine it with my passions, which helped me to change my perspective.

Think not of programming, but what you can do with it- a side project💡

Software Engineers solve problems. We solve big problems, small problems, in all industries and communities. Maybe you’re passionate about beauty or music. How can you use your programming skills to build something more convenient for influencers or consumers in those industries?

Maybe you can build a mobile app that allows shoppers to scan foundations in Sephora, and it pairs their skin tone to the correct foundation shade of every brand. Now they don’t have to manually test shades by touching the tester makeup. Nice way to prevent getting in contact with germs! And that’s just MVP, you can continue to build on that idea🛠

I’m not passionate about coding, I’m passionate about the ideas that I can bring to life with it.

For me, I thought of an app that allowed users to easily find and follow one another on social media platforms. The features of the app were really dope, and the interface was sexy. It was my golden egg idea. My way into wealth! I was extremely passionate about building it, and I needed to get better at programming to complete it.

This is what kept me excited.

Your job is your chance to learn and grow✨

Even if what you’re building at work doesn’t really relate to your side project, your experience there will be a huge contributor to it. It may not be the technical aspect of your job that contributes to it either, but maybe it’s the business aspect. Maybe you want to make money off your side project- you’ll need to learn things like marketing or sales. Take full advantage of what you’ll get exposure to at your job!

Personally, whether I loved what I was building at work or not, I knew I loved learning. I HAD to learn. The more I learned at work, the better a Software Engineer I became. My skill set would grow, which meant that I could build more, better, and faster. All of the knowledge I gained could be thrown right into my side project, which I treated as my baby. I couldn’t wait to go home and implement the things I learned at work.

This is what kept me motivated.

Find your community to keep you inspired🤩

“Your” community can fall into dozens of categories. The goal is to find people who are like-minded or resonate with experiences similar to yours.

#BlackTechTwitter is the community that keeps me inspired. I love seeing what my community members are currently learning or working on. It’s a great feeling to be able to engage with them, understand tech jargon and jokes with them, and learn from one another. It’s even better that it’s a community of people who look like me, and also have these same technical skills that give us the ability to create. It’s magical! #BlackTechTwitter truly makes me want to stay in this industry and continue contributing to it, simply because the community exists alone.

This is what keeps me here.

And remember, kids👂🏾

Technology is not limited to programming. There are soooo many fields within the industry that you may end up being passionate about! Do you love painting? Maybe you’d love UX/UI Design. Do you wish that you could build a world of your own to escape to? You’d probably love Virtual Reality!

I love writing, and I was able to continue doing it in the tech industry by blogging about things I learned, or experiences I had, and by starting a newsletter 😁As for acting, I plan to start a comedy vlog channel about how I micromanage my fiancé (who’s also a Software Engineer) and make him implement all the coding things that I don’t want to do myself. This industry allows you to fuse your technical skills with your passions and talents. There are no limits, so don’t be afraid to get creative!

Scholarships🔥

Practicum by Yandex is an educational platform that has partnered with Black Tech Pipeline to giveaway 6 scholarships to members of the #BlackTechTwitter community. Scholarships are available for the Web Developer, Data Scientist, and Data Analyst programs.

Tough decision! Before you apply, I suggest doing your research on all 3 fields and seeing which really peaks your interest✨Learn more and sign up before July 29th, for the chance to win a scholarship opportunity here.

Next Scholarship…🔥

Black Tech Pipeline has partnered with Outco to offer $500 OFF their program. Outco is a career coaching service and job accelerator program helping underrepresented Software Engineers land the job they’ve been dreaming of.

Up your programming skills, and practice the hard and soft skills of technical interviews with Outco instructors and mentors. Learn more and sign up up through our referral page for the $500 discount here !

FREE 5 week virtual bootcamp ⚡️

Leon Noel, Lead Instructor and Managing Director of Resilient Coders, is teaching a free 5 week virtual bootcamp to those laid off due to the pandemic, and underrepresented groups. Leon is looking for 20-30 students to take advantage of this opportunity, and learn front end web development!

Some background on RC: Resilient Coders is a Boston-based bootcamp that pays and teaches Black/Brown and PoC people from underrepresented communities to code. After graduating from RC, their career trajectory in tech is astounding ! It’s also the bootcamp that I graduated from, and Leon was my instructor☺️

*This opportunity is NOT restricted to Boston, all can apply from anywhere.

Starting on August 9th, every Tuesday and Thursday for 5 weeks, Leon will be teaching HTML, CSS, and JavaScript on EST hours. I HIGHLY recommend signing up if you’ve been looking to learn to code live with an actual instructor, and mentorship.

Sign up here ⚡️

Just interested in learning more? here

Looking for work? 🧐

Already got the technical skills and experience, and looking for your next opportunity?

Black Tech Pipeline is releasing their talent application again!

We have tons of new partners who are hiring from our community. An example of 2 roles we’re currently looking to fill are:

📌Product Owner

📌Site Reliability Engineer

👉🏾If you’re interested in being considered for job opportunities through the Black Tech Pipeline platform, please fill out our talent application here 🥳

Let’s talk about events, baby. Let’s attend them virtually! (I tried)

Anyway, I hope your summer is going well, even if you’re enjoying it safely from inside. There are some dope events coming up that you’ll want to take advantage of, and share with your network! And the best part is, you can attend them straight from your couch😌

Learn to understand, not debate: Diversity Panel

Coming up on July 16th, 2020, Hexagon UX Boston will be hosting a panel with these dope women in the Boston tech scene (yes, i’m in there), to talk about their journey’s into tech and why companies should be prioritizing diversity, equity, and inclusion. Join us by signing up to attend: here 🔥

Owning Our Future

On July 17th, 2020, Owning Our Future will be hosting an event focused on how venture capitalists evaluate the competitive edge of the startups they invest in. We strongly encourage aspiring and existing Black Founders to attend and grab all the gems that will be dropped that day 💎

Check out this speaker lineup! Chris Lyons, Candice Brackeen, Charles Hudson, and Jewel Burks Solomon are headlining as they talk about their investment philosophy, and the scorecard they use to evaluate whether a founder is primed to thrive in the future of tech. Take advantage of this opportunity and sign up now: here

#HackExcellence

Happening September 7th- October 9th, 2020, #HackExcellence is a free virtual hackathon open to current students and recent graduates of Texas Southern University, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, Allen University, Norfolk State University and Tennessee State University. HBCU’s are eligible to compete for bragging rights a chance to win a cash prize🥇💰

Participants will create a platform or develop solutions to issues related to the COVID-19 pandemic. HBCU students will build Fintech, artificial intelligence or medtech solutions that drive social impact, with the aim of tackling some of the challenges related to the current coronavirus pandemic and economic collapse. Each team will create a pitch deck, business model and no-code MVP for their solution. Sign up to participate: here

Register and get these events secured in your calendar. You won’t want to miss them! And don’t be shy, share with your friends, family, and followers 🌎🤎

Phew! It’s right around the corner. After nearly two years of working with the #BlackTechTwitter community and various companies through Twitter DM’s and emails, we finally have a formal way to connect.

Work with Black Tech Pipeline 💻👋🏾

Black Tech Pipeline is a service based platform focused on bringing exposure, resources and opportunity to Black technologists, and our allies. We connect employers and opportunity extenders, to highly skilled and qualified talent within our pipeline. Our platform provides the support and tools necessary to help our community members grow and thrive.

What are those buttons?

Looking for work?- Black technologists who’d like to be considered for opportunities may fill out our candidate form so we can get a better understanding of their skills and goals. Opportunities range from jobs, being booked to speak, media interviews, and more! If you don’t want to miss out, you can fill out the form and be added to our talent database.

Hire our talent- All employers and opportunity extenders who are interested in learning more, or using our recruitment service to hire talent from within our pipeline should fill out the form to begin the process.

Recruitment 🤝

Black Tech Pipeline’s talent database is filled with technologists in the Black community, ready for their next opportunity. We partner with companies whose values on diversity, equity, and inclusion align with ours. We don’t just recruit, our focus is also retention. We consult with company leadership to ensure that our talent is entering a safe space that they’d feel welcomed in long term.

Our talent ranges from Software Engineers, to Designers, Digital Marketers, Project Managers, Speakers, and more. *Technologists aren’t restricted to only programmers, in my personal opinion.

Ads👁

Companies may advertise opportunities on our job board, events, and resources pages.

All advertisements have the opportunity to be published in our newsletter and posted on our Twitter and Instagram accounts, getting exposure to a combined audience of 30K+!

Job board🔥

All companies interested in promoting their open roles on our website will get more than a posting on our job board. They also receive a customized landing page with personalized content, giving potential applicants a more personable feel for the company. Our goal is to turn those potential applicants into definite candidates, and new hires.

On your company landing page, all open roles will appear, along with links to your social platforms, and website. Included are detailed descriptions about the company, teams, values, benefits, an overview of the vetting process, and more. We will also include photo’s.

Resources📰

Our resources page allows content creators, consultants, business owners and more to promote their products and services that they feel our community would benefit from.

Events🗣

Promote your upcoming events! Whether it’s a conference, meetup, or hackathon, share it with our community on our events page.

Want to be part of our launch?👇🏾

Let’s get started by setting up a call! Email me at Pariss@BlackTechPipeline.com

Our last newsletter, ‘Hey Employers: Do Black Lives Matter?’, listed ways for companies to support Black employee’s during times of protest. Now, let’s talk about how tech barely has Black employee’s to support.

For the past few days, Black technologists have been seeing tech companies give their statements on where they stand with #BlackLivesMatter. Some statements were heartfelt, others were generic and obviously thrown together very quickly (you can always tell who’s riding the sympathy train while it’s chugging). Some companies went a step further and donated funds to different organizations fighting to protect Black lives.

That’s nice and all. However, the Black community has seen this routine over and over again. Companies do their part by saying something nice, throw some money at it, then walk away without understanding what true allyship looks like, which is why they’re failing at it.

Let’s talk about the products these companies are building.

🤔Who are they selling it to? Who do these products benefit? Who do they harm? Who do they exclude?

🤔And who’s funding them? Who else are those investors funding?

As a matter of fact, let’s go even deeper.

🤔Who are the technologists building these products? Where do they come from? What do they look like? How do they think? What kind of perspective do they bring to the company?

Do you see what I’m getting at? You don’t truly support anything if you’re contributing to the harm of it.

So, tech, you want to really support the Black community?

Let’s start with the hardest reality of what allyship looks like…

💥Drop your racist, bias clients and partners. Stop accepting funding from harmful investors. Quit supporting projects that are harmful to underserved communities. Find alternatives.

💥Surround yourself with Black people. Find Black communities. Stop making excuses. Connect with them. Engage with them. Build relationships with them. Build relationships with their network too.

My favorite part👇🏾

👉🏾Hire Black people. Hire a lot of us. Communities of Black technologists exist. There is no pipeline problem.

-Hire us on all teams

-Hire us in leadership positions, the roles that have the power to make change. *That includes the board

👉🏾Make sure that we aren’t missing from any conversation, on any team, and at any table.

-Things shouldn’t move into production without the input of Black voices+ other underrepresented groups

👉🏾Build Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion(DE&I) values into your vetting and interviewing process.

-Make it clear that DE&I is a priority at the foundation of your company. Ask candidates what that means to them and why. Make it a company reminder that it’s a value and practice

-Hold those in your company accountable when they demonstrate otherwise

👉🏾Put out anonymous surveys. Get feedback on how you’re doing DE&I wise. Hire external DE&I consultants to tell you what you could be doing better. Listen to them, implement the feedback. Don’t know any consultants?👇🏾

PROMO🔥Hustle Crew is holding a workshop on Understanding Bias next Tuesday (June 9th, 2020) I encourage you to sign up. Here are the learning objectives:

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• Understand the blockers to making objective hiring decisions

• Understand blind spots and strategies to mitigate them

• Gain confidence navigating topics like class, race, gender

👉🏾Does your company have a major web presence. Use your platform to give exposure to other Black platforms and businesses. Encourage your followers to also become theirs. Support them.

👉🏾Work with Black Founders. Use and purchase their products, and share them with your network.

👉🏾Share resources and opportunities that will help Black technologists grow and thrive within the company and their careers

To wrap this up, let’s start expanding your network and resources today🌎

Tirzah Moneé is a public speaker, creative brand strategist, and accountability coach who helps her clients create profitable & trusted brands on and offline.
As the founder of YesHoney Collective, Tirzah specializes in helping entrepreneurs create systems to scale their business, attract a buying audience, and position themselves as industry leaders respectively. With her background in web development, interactive media, public relations, and e-commerce strategy she helps brands go from Start-Up to Glow Up. 

Tirzah offers private1:1 coaching and free resources for business owners at TirzahMJ.com in addition to entrepreneurial events at YesHoneyCollective.com. You can say hi to  Tirzah on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn. 

Jehron Petty is Founder of ColorStack. ColorStack is a non-profit organization increasing the entrance, retention, and success of Black and LatinX students in tech through community building, academic support, and professional development.

Students interested in ColorStack can sign up: here

Professionals who’d like to get involved with ColorStack, email Jehron at: jehron@colorstack.org

Check out his feature in Cornell News🔥: here

Naya Moss is an Entrepreneur, Creative Technologist, and IT Pro from Harlem, New York. Naya started her first business at 14 years old fixing phones, laptops, and providing IT Helpdesk support. Over her 10+ year career in tech, she has held roles such as Cloud Infrastructure Engineer, IT Manager, and IT Director.

Naya is Founder of:

Frauvis, a supportive community for Black women in Tech, started in 2017.

Culturefiy, an HR Tech software that focuses on culture and automation, launched in 2018.

And Namos Studio, a podcast production and editing studio, launched in 2019.

You can connect with Naya right through her website, or reach out to her on Twitter