A Career in Software Engineering

I gave this talk at St Marys School for Girls in Pretoria. The audience was primarily school girls with an interest in Software Engineering.

Transcript

1. A C A R E E R I N S O F T WA R E
   E N G I N E E R I N G
   R E B E C C A F R A N K S
   

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2. Source: #WOCinTech
   

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3. It is not just code…
   

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4. Source: Google
   

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5. W H O A M I ?
   Rebecca Franks
   Android Engineering Lead at Dynamic
   Visual Technologies
   Google Developer Expert for Android
   and the Internet of Things
   

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6. W H AT D I D I S T U D Y ?
   • BSc (Hons) Information Technology in 2012
   • 3 years to obtain BSc Information Technology
   • 1 year to obtain Honours in Information Technology
   

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7. I M P O R TA N T FA C T S
   • I didn’t do Computer Science in High School.
   • I arrived at University with no knowledge of programming.
   • I’m still learning every day.
   

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9. D AY T O D AY
   

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10. C O D I N G
    Source: #WOCinTech
    

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11. C O L L A B O R AT I O N
    Source: #WOCinTech
    

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12. P R O D U C T D E V E L O P M E N T
    Source: #WOCinTech
    

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13. P R O T O T Y P I N G
    

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14. Kenya
    USA
    Switzerland
    Germany
    P U B L I C S P E A K I N G
    

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15. T R AV E L
    

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16. W H Y D O I L O V E I T ?
    

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17. Y O U A R E N E V E R F I N I S H E D L E A R N I N G
    Source: #WOCinTech
    

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18. T H E D E V E L O P M E N T C O M M U N I T Y.
    

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19. B E I N G A B L E T O G I V E B A C K
    

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20. AT T E N D I N G E V E N T S
    

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21. Source: Google
    

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22. C H A R A C T E R I S T I C S & I N T E R E S T S R E Q U I R E D
    • You love solving problems
    • You enjoy learning
    • Determined
    • Enthusiastic
    • Curious
    • Team player
    • Interested in Technology and building software that benefits people
    

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23. R E S O U R C E S F O R G E T T I N G S TA R T E D
    • Learn to Code: code.org
    • Code Academy: www.codecademy.com
    

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24. W H AT I D I D N ’ T K N O W B A C K T H E N
    • No one knows everything.
    • There are many different aspects to SE other than programming.
    • I would enjoy it so much and thrive in an environment that I battled with at
    first.
    • Team work and collaboration is one of the keys to building a successful
    product
    

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25. C A R E E R PAT H S I N S O F T WA R E
    Product Owner
    Test Analyst
    Business Analyst
    Software Engineer
    User Interface Designer User Experience Designer
    Source: #WOCinTech
    

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26. F I E L D S O F S O F T WA R E E N G I N E E R I N G
    Mobile (Android / iOS)
    Web (Chrome, Firefox etc)
    Internet of Things
    Operations (DevOps)
    Security
    Architecture
    Virtual Reality / Augmented Reality
    Artificial Intelligence
    Machine Learning
    Accessibility
    Cloud
    Database
    Game Programming
    

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27. M A N Y D I F F E R E N T L A N G U A G E S
    Java
    Swift
    Kotlin
    Erlang
    Typescript
    Go
    Javascript
    C#
    C++
    Elm CoffeeScript
    Dart
    Python
    PHP
    

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28. P R O M O T I O N PAT H
    Every company is different
    Chief Technology
    Officer
    Team Lead
    Architect
    Intermediate
    Software Engineer
    Graduate Software
    Engineer
    Junior Software
    Engineer
    Engineering
    Manager
    Senior Software
    Engineer
    Tech Lead
    

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29. D I F F I C U LT I E S F O R W O M E N I N T E C H
    • It is a male dominated industry
    • The job is no different for women (ie you don’t need physical strength)
    • Women often perform A LOT better than men when studying IT.
    • Plenty of efforts to change the ratio - Google Women TechMakers, GirlCode,
    Women who code, Pyladies, Hackbright, PinkIT ZA
    

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32. Source: Google
    

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33. If I could go back in time and change my
    career, Would I?
    

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34. No. I love it.❤
    

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35. T H A N K Y O U
    Rebecca Franks
    Android Engineering Lead
    Google Developer Expert
    Twitter: @riggaroo
    hello@riggaroo.co.za
    

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