Category: job market

Where to find Birmingham’s tech networks

Post first written in 2017, but updated to reflect changes in the local tech community in 2018 & 2019. I’ll continue to update as changes occur.

New to Birmingham and want to know where to find the techies? Or you’ve finished a first degree or training course and you want to know how to connect with other people in your field? In Birmingham, here are the three places you need to start looking to find them.

TechBirmingham’s community listings

TechBirmingham, the region non-profit coordinating and promoting the growth of the regional tech sector, has listings of the local tech organizations on its Community page. These include chapters of national organizations, such as the Project Management Institute, Infragard, and Women Who Code .

You’ll also find local tech-focused groups such as the Red Mountain Makers and Steel City SQL.

Magic City Tech

MagicCityTech.org is the signup page for the Magic City Tech slack, a chat channel used by tech community organizers to coordinate events, share information and post jobs. An informal water-cooler-style back channel, you’ll see everything from good React tutorials and case studies. to job postings for Scada and R programmers. The number of channels grew significantly in 2017 & 2018. Activity has been a bit slower in 2019. 

Meetup

Most of the local tech interest groups list their meetings on Meetup. (most of these are on the TechBirmingham community page). These interest groups range from language specific interest groups (javascript, .NET, to interest groups focused on startups and development)) A new group forming up, CSBhm, is looking to connect the computer science and technology educator community. 

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Growing a diverse tech community in Birmingham

Because I was talking to a number of women at the We Rise Women in Tech conference this weekend, (June 24th) about the mechanisms necessary to make a given tech community penetrable by people who are not part of the dominant culture, (in Birmingham, white Caucasian hetero male), I want to park links to some of the organizations that I was introduced to who are developing the essential contact and education networks.

African American:

Latino:

5 LGBTQ organizations (article behind the link)

Steal this list! Build the community! My observations from WebGrrls in the late nineties, and now with Women Who Code, is that when you are a minority group within a given community, working to grow your presence in a regional industry, national and international organizations help. A lot.

Back from We Rise Women in Tech conference

Just home from Women Who Code Atlanta’s We Rise Women in Tech conference. I have lots of notes to look through, suggestions for task-specific SDKs, contacts to follow up on, and new topics to explore. Reconnected with women I met last year at the first hackathon. I was only able to attend one day of this two-day conference due to work obligations but enjoyed every dang minute of it! So much positive energy, engagement, encouragement, reinforcement – it’s nice (and reassuring)  to know that we’re out there, and we’re supporting one another. My notes from the sessions I attended follow.

Hot tip – the 2nd Women Who Code hackathon date is set for October 15 – 17th. Save the date!

Building a project portfolio – how to get started

Updated October 28, 2018. 

In many cities with a tech scene there is a need for programmers and developers who aren’t necessarily computer science (CS) majors. CS is great for understanding the structures underlying programming, how software interacts with hardware, and the mathematics behind compression, encryption, algorithms graphics and topology. Their skills and understanding are needed to build computing and programming structures and frameworks, for working out effective storage techniques, telecommunication methods, encryption and for a lot of security work.  You will always need these specialists. And, if you want to be a CEO of major tech company, the groundwork is vital.

But for the rest of us, a mix of our existing skillsets in combination with either a boot camp or self-study with tutorials are the most effective ways to start a programming career. Our power is crossover knowledge. We’re going to be working in teams to build and implement using existing tools – and being able to learn quickly, effectively and put existing pieces together to solve people’s problems is the best way we can contribute.

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How to break into Birmingham’s tech industry

On Monday, September 12th, Women Who Code Birmingham held its Programming & Tech Career Development panel at UAB’s iLab at the Innovation Depot.

Twenty-seven women (and a few men) came out to learn what technical and software development employers are looking for in the Birmingham area, what to expect in a technical interview and how to ensure success starting a career after graduation from university, or when transitioning into the field from another career.

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