BRITTANY AZARIS
BRITTANY AZARIS | Junior Front End Developer | Cambridge, Waikato
Q. Girls and non-binary children often find it hard to see a pathway for themselves into a coding career. How did you get into coding? What is one piece of advice you have for them?
Getting into coding was sort of unintentional for me. It happened because I was almost graduating from high school and I had no idea what I was going to do. Then one day I found out my best friend was planning on studying computer science, which I had never heard of. But I looked it up, and it sounded interesting, so I thought I’ll do that instead, and then I can have the same job as my best friend. Fortunately, when I started coding in university, I found that I actually really did enjoy it, and all of the many possibilities that knowing how to code can open up for you.
To any girls or non-binary kids who are interested in a coding career but struggling to see a pathway for themselves, my advice is don’t let anything stop you. I used to worry that I wouldn’t be smart enough to learn computer science, especially since I had graduated high school with zero coding knowledge or skills. But it’s actually not as hard as I imagined, and there’s tonnes of resources to help you on the Internet when you can’t figure something out. There are so many different career paths that coding can lead into so definitely just go for it – there’s nothing to worry about!
Q. Tell us about a rad piece of code that you’ve written? What piece of code are you most proud of in your career so far?
My favorite thing I’ve coded was actually one of the first projects I worked on at my first tech job. It was an internal ‘stats page’ for the company to track how much work each person was signed up to do/how much work they had already completed.
It was coded using React JS, and involved using libraries like C3 charts and Bootstrap. I learned so many things during this project, and persevered through many mistakes and ‘why isn’t this working’ moments. This project was the one that made me realise I prefer front end coding to other types of coding, and that I really enjoyed making web pages that looked cool and could show basically anything you wanted to create.
“Everything is possible …
I probably can code it if I just keep trying.”
The stats page always needed new charts or functionality added, and new bugs to fix. There were a lot of times where I would think, ‘This isn’t possible, I can’t code this part.’ But I eventually learned that, when it comes to coding, everything is possible, and yeah, I probably can code it if I just keep trying. For that reason, the stats page project will always hold a special place in my heart.
Q. What big dreams do you have as a coder? What are you aspiring to do next?
My big coder dreams are just to keep learning and become more confident with coding. I want to be a good role model, and someone who people can look up to and be inspired to try coding for themselves. If I can do it, then absolutely anyone else can. Much like when I was graduating, I don’t really have a plan for what I aspire to do next. I love my job as a front end developer and I’m also trying to teach myself how to make video games just for fun. Coding has gifted me with so many career choices that I have no idea what I’ll do next, but I’m sure I’ll enjoy doing it. Brittany codes in Javascript, React, Python, Bash, C#, HTML, CSS.