How coding knowledge is helping Lauren in her work as a Product Manager
Lauren graduated from a SheCodes Workshop in June 2020.
🙍♀️ Before SheCodes
Lauren is from Honolulu, Hawaii and is currently living in Seattle, Washington. She has a BA in Political Science and Human Rights from the University of Washington and also has volunteer experience as a Legal Clinic Administrator. In the past, she’s worked as a Paralegal, Partner Relations Manager, and Product Liaison. She’s currently working as a Product Manager at Zipwhip, a Computer Software company based in Washington.
“As a Product Manager, I diagnose customer pain and identify potential solutions that will improve how customers interact with our mobile applications. I then take these solutions and translate them into work for our engineers.”
Hence, her daily tasks include regular interaction with members of other departments, especially the engineering team. This sparked an interest in coding because she wanted to improve her daily work and her efficiency in working with the developers on her team.
“My job is very collaborative and requires me to communicate clearly and effectively with engineers to ensure features are properly built for the customer experience. Engineers are very technical, Product Managers are generalist and skilled in bringing the business case to the equation. In a sense, we speak different "languages". I wanted to learn to code in order to increase my technical aptitude, but also so I could better communicate with my engineers in their language.”
Thus, she decided to take the leap into the world of coding.
👩💻 Her SheCodes Experience
Before SheCodes, Lauren tried another online coding course, but found that it wasn’t what she was looking for. In the SheCodes online workshop, she enjoyed the deadlines, lesson videos, learning with other women, and the Slack community to receive help along the way.
“I tried Udemy before. I like SheCodes because homework held me accountable. Also the short video segments made lessons very digestible and not overwhelming. Having a slack community to chat with or refer to for help was the best! I also love learning with other women. Very fun, well done course.”
Her favorite parts of the SheCodes Workshop were the content and languages learned, along with the applicability of the material to her job.
“CSS was my favorite as I am more of a creative person, but Javascript was the most interesting to me. I love being a product manager and the material learned in SheCodes was definitely relevant and helpful to my job.”
🥐 💻Check out her final project on croissants here: https://www.shecodes.io/workshops/shecodes-online-workshop-16-0/projects/28367
🙋 How SheCodes has Helped to Change Her Life
Lauren’s newfound coding knowledge gained in the SheCodes Workshop almost instantly helped her improve her work. She had goals of improving her technical aptitude and bettering her work as a Product Manager, and SheCodes helped her achieve these goals.
"I began to apply my learnings to my job and could see how certain elements that we learned in SheCodes connected with apps I was building at work.”
“My motivation to join SheCodes was to improve my technical aptitude as a product manager and also improve my ability to have more technical, in-depth discussion with my engineers. Part of leading a team means you meet your teammates on a level that everyone understands. I am now able to have better, more efficient conversations with my developers, especially when understanding crashes and bugs.”
Even a little bit of coding knowledge can go a long way. Lauren’s introduction to the world of coding not only helped to improve her work, but also created a desire in her to learn more. She plans to continue her coding journey and possibly learn languages like Python next!
👩💼 Advice to Future SheCodes Participants
Lauren says that she would definitely recommend SheCodes to others due to the unique teaching methodology, instant implementation of new coding knowledge, and easily digestible lessons.
“Do it! Learning to code was not as difficult as I thought and I felt very proud of myself once I completed the course. Totally worth it, can't say enough good things.”
“The weekly video segments were very digestible and easy to tackle especially since they were in segments. Also the mini-challenges after the video segments made it easier to apply what we learned right away. Homework came very easy as long as you do the lesson challenges.”
Thanks to SheCodes, Lauren found a newfound passion for coding and gained knowledge to help her improve her current role as a Product Manager. We know Lauren’s coding future is sure to be bright!
