How Can I Help?

2025-04-29

Lately I've been concerned about the future of women in tech.

Despite the gains we've made in the last couple of decades, as soon as I heard a certain dork of a founder call for more "masculine energy" a few months ago, I knew we were in for a rough time. Not that I think any of us are in danger of being shut out, but our industry is going to get harder for women to function in.

Calling for "masculine energy" is a dog-whistle for the worst elements to test the fences, to see how many microagressions (or just aggression-aggressions) and how much harassment they can get away with to drive us away from our careers.

To that end, I want to do what I can to help.

Over the years, I've done a lot of teaching, of students, of junior programmers, mostly women. Now, I want to offer my time as a mentor for women.

I understand impostor syndrome, I've been there - you never want to appear vulnerable around your colleagues. It can be scary, especially if you're early in your career. But maybe it's easier to ask someone who understands? I can be that someone.

Are you trying to learn a new tool but you're stuck on something you just can't figure out? Are you working on a project and need advice when it comes to planning your infrastructure? Are you building an application, running into errors, and struggling to find the root cause? I can help with all of those things.

My limitations: My expertise is in Python and the Python ecosystem; I won't be able to help much with specific** questions around other languages. By day I work as an infrastructure engineer, so I can also help with a lot of SRE/DevOps topics (e.g., kubernetes, or working in cloud providers such as AWS or GCP).

** Those limitations might not matter. My real goal is more abstract - to be able to help you solve the problems that you've been keeping to yourself, and hopefully to give you some confidence in your own problem-solving skills in the process.

One of my other limitations is time - mine isn't infinite. To that end, I'm going to carve out a few hours every week to meet one-on-one with other women in a virtual "office hours" type setting.

Here's how I'd like this to work (for now - if the form is abused I'll do something different): Sign up using this form. I don't need much, just some basic contact information, an email address where I can contact you, and a description of the kind of assistance you're looking for.

Once I have some free time in my schedule, I'll email you with a link to a Cal.com calendar where you can select a time to meet within the available hours.

Come to me with your questions, or specific problems you're trying to solve - if I don't know the answer, I will help you find it and we can solve it together.