Blog

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…

In its four years, Ada has grown from a tiny “one-room schoolhouse” of 15 students to a major tech workforce training program in Seattle that will have graduated 150 by the end of 2017 and will train an additional 96 students annually going forward. Our program is well-known in the Seattle tech scene, and it continues to benefit from the financial and volunteer support of the tech community. But we need your help again. Being tuition-free is not enough for…

1. What were you doing before you became a Software Engineer? I came to the US at 17 and got an industrial engineering degree from the University of Washington. Not long after, I started working for a private company as a laser engineer. The bulk of my work was conducting experiments to qualify new manufacturing processes. I also worked closely with quality control to keep an eye on our defect rate. I enjoyed creating algorithms for our quality control department…

1. What were you doing before you became a Software Engineer? My previous career was in clinical research compliance, which involved a lot of reading research studies to make sure they complied with federal regulations and were ethical. Compliance is a rather small piece of the clinical research industry, and the technology used to process research is often outdated. In a few of my roles, I worked closely with software engineers to test software updates and even acted as a…

by Cynthia Tee, Executive Director It has been an honor to be Ada’s executive director and to help carry forward Ada’s bold, important mission. We just graduated Cohort 6, yet another amazing group of Adies out to change the world. Cohort 7 is presenting their capstones this Friday and about to start their internships. Cohort 8 starts in 2 weeks. In a month, we open up admissions for Cohort 9. Our Adie community continues to grow, and is made up…

It’s been a wild 5 months for our current cohort! 2 weeks ago, they found out where they will be going for their internships. And currently, they are tapping away at their keyboards to get their capstone projects complete. We want to take a moment to reflect on their time here and what they are looking forward to moving ahead. Below are a few of our student’s reflections on their last 5 months here: Brenna I was always a big…

1. What were you doing before you became a Software Engineer?  I was a couple years out of college, living at home with my parents, working as a graphic designer/marketing catch-all at a small HVAC company. The day-to-day of my job consisted of writing copy for emails and blog posts and designing graphics for marketing materials and trade show booths. I loved designing, but hated the job.  2. Where are you currently working and what do you do?  I am…

Our seventh cohort of students have just completed their sixth week of curriculum, and their first week of web development! Each class spent the week learning HTML and CSS with the purpose of creating static websites. The curriculum highlighted CSS layouts and the importance of using semantic HTML. Each student created their own personal websites based off of wireframes they created. Below we have highlighted a few of these student projects that are on the web! (Note: this is the…