By Devin Helmgren, Software Development Instructor Hello! My name is Devin and I am the new instructor as of the start of Ada’s tenth cohort! I was born and raised in the greater Seattle area, and after a brief jaunt to Portland, OR for college, I came back to pursue a career in games! After a few years of work at a local studio, I went independent, and during that time met another indie developer who happened to be on…
By Jeanie Walker, Marketing Communications Director Hello! I’m Jeanie, one of Ada’s newest staff members. I am excited to be part of such a dynamic, active community. To me, Ada’s mission is a bellwether for workplace inclusivity. Ada’s ripple effects are profound and far-reaching. With a long career in technology, I’m excited to be part of the positive change Ada represents. I am focused on being part of this incredible shift through sharing our stories and Ada’s vision. I’ve lived…
By Valerie Horvath, Program Manager for Internships & Alumni Hi I’m Valerie and I am the new Program Manager for Internships and Alumni at Ada! I’m pretty much a Seattle Native! I know there are very few of us in Seattle now, but I’ve been here since I was 2 years old. I joined Ada because I want to be on the side of changing the face of tech. I respect what Ada is doing within the community and I…
Thursday, August 23rd was a landmark for Ada Developers Academy. Ada Developers Academy alumni made a commitment to fundraise and subsidize on-going applications process costs estimated at an annual cost of $30,000 over the next three years. Ada recently introduced a new application fee beginning with Cohort 11 in August, 2018. The Ada community launched an immediate and public response to this introduction as there was deep concern that this fee would create a barrier for the groups Ada aims…
By Lisa Flores, Senior Program Manager Hi all – My name is Lisa and I’m the Sr. Program Manager at Ada. I’ve lived in Seattle for the past 4 years working in marketing at Amazon and Starbucks before joining Ada last year. Before that, I lived on the East Coast for several years, mostly in New York City. I started out my career as an 8th-grade teacher in the South Bronx and then moved on to education nonprofits. I’m originally…
By Dan Roberts, Lead Instructor This cohort, Ada taught React as our front-end JavaScript framework for the first time. We’re now at the end of the first week and I would say it went well – the students seem to have a solid understanding of the basics of React. Perhaps more importantly, students enjoyed the content and are excited about learning more. If that’s not a successful rollout then I don’t know what is. As with any new product we…
We are excited to announce The Laurel Fund, Ada’s first scholarship opportunity! The goal of the Laurel Fund is to provide funds to cover the living expenses of two or more Ada students during the initial classroom instruction portion of the Ada program. After the initial 6-months instruction portion is complete, students participate in 5-month paid internships with Seattle-area software companies. But, during the initial, intensive instruction phase, it can be difficult to make ends meet. The Laurel Fund is…
by Dan Roberts, Lead Instructor This is the story of how I found and fixed a performance problem in a React webapp. I’ve debugged many slow programs but never in the context of the web, so this was a great opportunity to experiment with the tools and grow my skill set. My problem turned out to be particularly tricky to analyze, but with the help of Chrome’s performance tools, some manual profiling and a careful scientific approach I was able…
Hello! I’m Dee Del Rosario, a new instructor at Ada, and I’m very excited to be here! I’ve spent a lot of time in Chicago and most recently Atlanta. Prior to this, I had been working as a full-stack software developer and front-end web developer. I also spend time working on efforts around inclusivity in video games and games communities. If I’m not on my computer, you’ll likely see me shopping for novelty mugs or blogging about optimism saving the…
1. What were you doing before you became a Software Engineer?I’ve had lab jobs in an oceanography, genetics and organic geochemistry. I’ve also worked in a library and as a waitress. Most recently I worked for a number of years as a pharmaceutical research chemist. Right before Ada I was at Seattle-based Amgen. 2. Where are you currently working and what do you do? I am a Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) at Uber on the Software Networking team. What an…