Today, Saron talks with Phoebe Voong-Fadel, a self-taught Frontend Developer at the National Foundation for Educational Research. After having transitioned from a successful 14-year career in Higher Education in 2017, Phoebe made the courageous decision to pursue coding full-time while balancing the responsibilities of being a mother to her two children. Along with learning about her experience balancing learning to code and being a mom we talk to Phoebe about her passions that extend beyond her professional role. She actively contributes to the coding community by writing articles for freeCodeCamp and mentors early-career developers. Show Links AWS Insiders (sponsor) Udemy React The Collab Lab Paired programming OpenLayers Front-end Development Python CS50 JavaScript #100DaysOfCode freeCodeCamp HTML

Saron talks with Africa, a former Occupational Therapist specializing in virtual therapy and assistive technology. Saron and Africa talk about transitioning from Occupational Therapy to working as an Accessibility Engineer testing government software and teaching developers how to build more inclusive web applications. Africa also talks about her journey teaching herself how to code, what stretches are useful for Software Engineers, and how important coffee chats and networking are. Be sure to listen for the mini-guided stretch break during the episode as well! Show Links AWS Insiders (sponsor) Pomodoro Timer Your Stretch Break #100devs CS50: Introduction to Computer Science The Odin Project freeCodeCamp Occupational Therapy

Saron talks to Senior Accessibility iOS Engineer at Spotify, Daniel Devesa Derksen-Staats. Daniel talks all about accessibility and specifically delves in on how he got interested in the field, examples of how to make code more accessible, and how others listening can add accessibility to their tool kit of coding skills. Author of the “Developing Accessible iOS Apps” book, he keeps himself busy by writing a daily tweet about accessibility and iOS with the hashtag #365DaysIOSAccessibility. Show Links AWS Insiders (sponsor) VoiceOver #365DaysIOSAccessibility Mobile A11y WWDC23 Developing Accessible iOS Apps Screen Readers Accessibility

Saron sits down again with Frankie Nicoletti who we heard from in Season 23. This time Saron and Frankie talk about neurodivergence. They talk about what neurodivergence is, how listening to people's needs and making accommodations to allow people to do their best work is and will always be good for everyone, not just those who are neurodivergent, and the benefits of being neurodivergent. Show Links AWS Insiders (sponsor) Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity Laziness Does Not Exist Loom Dyslexia Bottom-up thinking Autism ADHD Neurodivergence

Tae’lur Alexis is a self taught software developer, application security enthusiast and content creator. Her mission is to help people with non traditional backgrounds break into tech. Tae'lur sits down with Saron to talk about her coding journey going from fast food to tech and the habits and tips she has learned to get to where she is today. Show Links AWS Insiders (sponsor) Tae'lur's Talk at BSides Baltimore 2023 Beer & Chocolate Delivery App The Pomodoro Technique freeCodeCamp The Web Developer Bootcamp 2023 Codeacademy