Kaylyn Gibilterra - WTR 7
Women’s Tech Radio - Episode 7
Kaylyn Gibilterra |WTR 7
December 31, 2014
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DESCRIPTION: Kaylyn Gibilterra is a hackathon addict & a GEMS challenge advocate currently working as a developer at Capital One.
ANGELA: This is Women’s Tech Radio, episode 7.
PAIGE: A show on the Jupiter Broadcasting Network, interviewing interesting women in technology. Exploring their roles and how they’re successful in technology careers.
ANGELA: Today, I would like to ask you, what is your favorite snack to have at the computer?
PAIGE: That’s such a loaded question, because there’s the healthy snack and there’s the guilty snack.
ANGELA: Mm-hmm.
PAIGE: And my healthy snack is totally a nice bowl of carrots, maybe some raw broccoli, you know, all Tony Stark style.
ANGELA: Mm-hmm.
PAIGE: And then my guilty snack is totally either some nice dark chocolate or a giant bowl full of dill pickles.
ANGELA: Mine is so horrible. When I worked at the medical supply company, I would always have a container of frosting in my drawer. And my boss gave me such crap, and then told his wife, and then she came in and gave me crap. So, that is not the case anymore, but it’s typically a finger food and a Mountain Dew, for sure, for me.
PAIGE: I’m totally guilty of frosting can and spoon.
ANGELA: Oh yeah?
PAIGE: Yeah, you’re not alone.
ANGELA: Oh, okay. Good.
PAIGE: Today, we’re interviewing Kaylyn Gibilterra. She’s a developer at Capitol One, and also a director for Women Who Code in DC.
ANGELA: Before we get into the interview, I’d like to talk about DigitalOcean. DigitalOcean is a simple cloud hosting provider, dedicated to offering the most intuitive and easy way to spin up a cloud server. Users can create a cloud server in less than a minute. Paige, is that how long it took for you to get yours up?
PAIGE: Yeah, my last instance is up in 51 seconds.
ANGELA: Wow, and that instance is just $5.00 a month for 512 megabytes of RAM, 20 gigabyte SSD, 1 CPU, and 1 terabyte of transfer. DigitalOcean has data center locations in New York, San Francisco, Singapore, Amsterdam, and London. The interface has a simple, intuitive control panel, which power users can replicate on a larger scale with a company straight forward API. Scrolling down a screen right now is a list of all the tutorials that are available, and it turns out they will pay you $100.00 to $200.00 for technical tutorials. Potential writers can submit a writing sample to become a tutorial writer, and you can learn more about that program on the DigitalOcean website.
PAIGE: If you want to support Women’s Tech Radio, you can use the code WTRdecember at checkout to get $10.00, which will get you two months of service.
ANGELA: Today, we started by asking Kaylyn about the GEMS challenge.
KAYLYN: Yeah, GEMS is this really awesome -- I think it stands for Girls in Engineering, Math, and Science. It’s run by my friend Elizabeth Vandenberg. She has been one of the coolest people that I’ve met wince sort of getting involved in the women in tech space. She’s been doing this sort of thing for, I want to say, over 20 years. She’s really active in NCWIT, but what she does is takes different girls from high schools and they do all sorts of really awesome activities together. I know they’ve gone to a place called Noble Labs which is a maker space and done laser cutting and things like that. And she basically takes them all around the city to do different sorts of engineering. It’s one of the coolest organizations I’ve seen, so I always love to talk about what they do.
PAIGE: That’s cool. So, you find it super valuable to be involved with the Women in Tech space?
KAYLYN: Yeah, it’s something that -- in college I never really thought about, I should do women in tech things. It just never occurred to me. Maybe part of that was because there were no other women so it just didn’t seem like a thing. But when I started working, I kind of was looking for a place to do coding outside of work. Like a place to go ask questions and not be afraid of it being dumb or something.
ANGELA: Right.
KAYLYN: And I had checked around for a bit and gone to some meet-ups. And a lot of the meet-ups that I went to for women specifically tending to be more oriented towards social media or product or design, which as a developer I was like, well okay that’s not ideal. And then when I would go to a technical meet-up it would always be all guys.
ANGELA: Over your head? Oh yeah, sure.
KAYLYN: Which was generally fine, until you get asked out or something or everybody (unintelligible). Eventually though, I did find women in tech groups and I realized oh this is awesome, because it’s sort of the best in both worlds. You can hang out with them and ask your questions that you might be afraid to ask normally. But then go to larger events, like conferences, with everybody and kind of meeting people throughout the space. So, I’ve loved it.
ANGELA: So, what are some of the websites that you’ve used or groups that you’ve joined?
KAYLYN: Women Who Code is definitely the biggest. When I was searching I actually sent a message out to the Women Who Code organizes in San Francisco and I was just like, hey when is this coming to DC. And essentially their response was like, once you start it.
ANGELA: Nice.
PAIGE: I did the same thing in Portland.
KAYLYN: Yep. Maybe a month later or so, a couple of us started with a kickoff. So, that’s obviously my largest group. But I’ve been to events for this Hear Me Code, and their organizers started just like doing Python classes in her apartment and it’s now I think 700 people from the past year.
ANGELA: Wow.
KAYLYN: From the past year. Super awesome. And going to like -- there’s Girl Develop It in DC. There’s just a lot to go to and meeting all of the different organizations has been a lot of fun and seeing what they do is really great.
PAIGE: Very cool. So, do you have a more traditional background? It sounded like you went through college and actually got a Comp Sci degree?
KAYLYN: Yes. Yeah, I actually have been coding since high school. It’s funny because when I tell that to people at Women Who Code, I feel like people assume I have this vast knowledge and then I’m here like, oh I don’t know anything. But I did start coding in high school. I was in a lot of engineering classes. I always liked math and one of my friends was like let’s take this Microsoft Office class. She was like, it’s an easy A. It was our junior year. I said sure. It ended up being Visual Basic which is nothing like Microsoft Office, and we both sat there like what is this? What is code? And we both loved it.
PAIGE: So much for that easy A.
KAYLYN: We were like oh, there’s something else here. But that was my intro and I actually had a female teacher there.
PAIGE: Great.
KAYLYN: And I think that has helped me a ton. And that probably pays into where I love GEMS and anything related to teaching girls to code, because I know I wouldn’t have thought about going into coding if I hadn’t taken it in high school. And I also would have never stuck with it.
ANGELA: Right.
KAYLYN: There were definitely points in college where I wanted -- like really, seriously thought about quitting, but I would often go back to, well I really liked it in high school so I’ll keep trying and see if it gets better later.
ANGELA: Best mistake ever.
PAIGE: I think you mentioned too, there weren’t very many women in your program?
KAYLYN: Yeah, I think -- I remember in our graduating, we were in the front four or five rows during graduation. I went to Penn State, you know, it’s a great school but definitely not the most diverse for computer science. And I think we pinpointed the five girls in our graduation class of 200 and we were like let’s take a picture. There might have been other girls. They either didn’t show up or we just missed them, but we were definitely pointing each other out.
PAIGE: You know, I think the national average is under four percent. So what did you do after college? You got the traditional degree and then where did you go?
KAYLYN: I actually -- in college I had internships so I did a fifth year. I studied computer science and then stuck around for two more minors in psychology and engineering leadership, because I was like I want to learn more. So I did three internships in defensive contracting. So I was working on radios and sensors and night vision goggles.
PAIGE: Oh, very cool.
KAYLYN: And then my last internship I was like, I’m going to try something totally different and did web development, which was fun but not totally my thing. So I really liked -- I think I’ve always just been attracted to industries that are slow to change, because I feel like it’s this really interesting challenge to try and get them to move along. So I really like defensive contracting, but it was a little bit slower than I wanted when I was graduating. So, instead I went into banking and I was thinking that’s probably the slowest public sector -- or private sector group I could get involved with, and that’s how I ended up here. I liked it because, to me, finance represents everything around you, essentially. And it’s so messed up. Like, the fact that everybody is so afraid to talk about anything related to money, myself included and a lot of my friends and family. It’s an interesting problem so I like to think about that throughout the day, and try to think about technologies or applications that could kind of help with that problem. I tend to find myself being attracted to wherever there are taboo topics. So, I guess that relates to women in technology, but also finance. Things like that.
ANGELA: I see here on your Turner profile that you’re a Hackathon addict. Can you tell us about that a little bit?
KAYLYN: Yes, that is an actual problem, I think. A little part of my fifth year -- my mom actually did get a job at Penn State so I got a huge discount on tuition, so that was a little -- it played a role. But while I was taking my minors in psychology and engineering leadership, I was like well I’m not coding as much now. So I just spent the entire year -- it was right when Hackathons were starting three years ago and I traveled all the country. I would go to my professors and just be like, can you fund a flight for me to go to San Francisco? And they would just find money in some random class budget to send me. And that sort of -- that started a serious addiction. So, I started my real job here and immediately once I started it I was like, well I have to keep going to Hackathons. And luckily, Capitol One has been sending me to a ton. Maybe that’s not the best thing, because I haven’t overcome this addiction, but --
PAIGE: I feel like there are much worse addictions to have.
ANGELA: Yeah. And it’s not coming out of your pocket, right? If you company is sending you to it?
KAYLYN: Yes, it’s awesome.
ANGELA: That is great.
KAYLYN: So great.
ANGELA: What’s your favorite aspect of a Hackathon?
KAYLYN: The negative parts of a Hackathon is that you’re not coming up with the cleanest code and the best implementation all the time, but to a certain extent I love that because you don’t have to spend so much time thinking about testing you development. I’m going to list a bunch of terrible practices right now. And like, pair programing and stuff, you just sit there and built and integrate for like 24 to 48 hours and that’s just everything that I love about programing.
PAIGE: What stock are you working in now professionally?
KAYLYN: Mostly Java. I’ve been making -- I did a Java web app last year and did a Java API now as well as some Python APIs. I’m looking into Android, is what I’m really excited about next. And I have -- my college background was very heavy C and C++, so I’ve gotten excited about Arduinos and playing with those as well.
PAIGE: So, doing that do you practice TDD? Aer you pair programing?
KAYLYN: One of my very good friends at work is just very -- loves pair programing, loves test driven development. It is that thing that I always say I will do. I have done pair programing and if it’s with somebody that I have known for a while, I actually think it’s awesome. I have a harder time when it’s just pair programing with random people I always get freaked out. Test driven development, I have very little experience with, other than like, I’m going to do test driven development for this example case. So, I’ll have to work on that and see where I can apply that more.
PAIGE: I found that it’s not super common, but I’m super interested to do some pair programing. It’s one of the pieces I’m missing in my tech resume.
KAYLYN: Yeah, I think that -- for me, I like pair programing when you don’t call it pair programing. I don’t know what is is when you’re like, I’m going to sit here and pair with you that makes it feel really intimidating, but when I just sit with a friend and we’re coding together and looking at the same problem, that’s always been cool and fun. But once -- something about the label makes it change for me.
PAIGE: The formality of it changes it. Do you think it taps into -- especially -- and I’m going to call it out, but especially as women we are totally prone to imposter syndrome, like crazy?
KAYLYN: I think so. I think that there is something with just engineering in general where the biggest skillset of an engineer is just your intelligence, really. And that’s what everybody kind of judges or tries to judge people on. We say we judge that. Whereas, in a business degree or advertising or something, even if you’re not necessarily the smartest person in the room, you can be, I’m a great networking or I can communicate and people can up those things. So, I kind of think the imposter syndrome might be just in general more prevalent for engineers. But I do think, at least personally, I totally suffer from it and I get really freaked out by it.
ANGELA: Can you tell us about The Iron Yard?
KAYLYN: Oh yeah. I have been talking with them a little bit. They are one of -- there’s general assembly, but they are one of the first boot camps that I’ve seen come to DC and I am really interested in boot camps. One, I’m just kind of interested in, like maybe I will do one at some point. Like Hacker School in New York, but through Women Who Code you have all the time people trying to go back and learn new skills and see how they could maybe transition careers. So, I think boot camps are a really interesting and really powerful way to do that. The part that is always the catch is with any new emerging way of teaching, you can kind of have the really great resources and then kind of the scammy ones. So, trying to figure out which is which can be a little bit difficult, but so far Iron Yard seems awesome to me so I’ve been excited for them to come to DC and I can’t wait to see the programs that they put on.
PAIGE: You say you handle -- you work with a lot of people or talk to a lot of people in Women Who Code who are just getting started or transitioning. What sort of advice do you usually give them as someone from an established, professional, more traditional background?
KAYLYN: I think the first is, I think people with CS degrees don’t know as much as people say they do. Of course, you have the top five percent who are complete rock stars and know everything, and everybody is terrified of them, but for the most part I would say your CS degree graduate is still a normal human being. They’re not light years ahead of you. The other part that I bring up is CS curriculum is pretty behind. There’s just a ton of theory based things in most programs that leave out a lot of the real world implementation skills and how to use these tools and how to do certain things in agile ways. The learning on your own can really -- you can learn those skills much faster than people in college do often. And the other piece is just, I think a lot of computer science really just comes down to how well can you learn on your own. And that’s something where it’s like, as long as you can put in the effort and as long as you wi9ll work at this, I think that everybody can at least get some understanding of how coding works and get that exposure. But it does come down to, I think, the amount of hours you can put into it.
PAIGE: Yeah, I like to try to tell people that once we get past the hurdle of knowing what questions to ask, all the answers are out there and it’s just, you know, putting your butt in the chair and putting your hands on the keyboard.
ANGELA: Yep.
KAYLYN: Yep.
PAIGE: I always like to ask, what gets you excited about technology? About where we’re headed, what’s going forward?
KAYLYN: I like this too. I get excited about so many things.
ANGELA: The next Hackathon.
KAYLYN: Generally, the next Hackathon. But one of the things that I’m really passionate about is, sort of, social change and I mean beyond making the website. Actually changing how people go about their lives and how they feel -- do they feel satisfied in what they’re working on, or do they feel healthy and they have access to right networks for education, whatever that may be. And I think we’re just starting to look into the industries that can have that big impact on people’s actual quality of life. So I’m really excited about that. And I think that also is part of why I’m really excited to be in DC right now. I don’t know if I’ll live in DC forever, but DC has such an interesting makeup that full of, obviously, all of the politician and like the grimy stuff associated with DC, but it also has just a lot of very intelligent people who know intimately the problems that we have in our country and just might not have the technology skill or the resources to fix those problems. So, I’m super excited to kind of see DC get better in those areas and start solving those things that they understand so personally.
ANGELA: Well, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your journey and path in technology.
If you’d like to be interviewed on Women’s Tech Radio, you can email us at [email protected].
PAIGE: And you can reach out to us at heywtr.
ANGELA: heywtr.
Transcribed by Carrier Cotter - [email protected]
