Key takeways listening to Pariss Athena's DevJourney
Tags: devjourney, career, learning, diversity
Published: 2020-01-07 21:47:47

---
title: Key takeways listening to Pariss Athena's DevJourney
published: true
description: Pariss Athena Chander did a lot in her relatively short career in software development. After interviewing her for the DevJourney podcast, here are the key takeways I personally took out of the discussion.
tags: DevJourney, Career, Learning, Diversity
cover_image: https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/zxoteo5nl76f9fq9us9p.png
canonical_url: https://timbourguignon.fr/devjourney82
---

This week, I published Pariss -Athena- Chandler's #DevJourney story on my eponym Podcast: [Software developer's Journey](https://devjourney.info). Among many other things, here are my main _personal_ takeaways:

* 4 Years ago, Pariss didn't have a career in tech "at all". Her first interest for software development came from a real scare of being left behind. It is a concept I have heard many times before, but never from the main protagonist, and never that clearly. It's impressing to see how much of a motivator "fear" can really be.
* One day, [Pariss tweeted](https://twitter.com/ParissAthena/status/1068873547005812737) "What does Black Twitter in Tech look like? Here, I’ll go first! 💪🏽📸👇🏽" and it exploded. The #BlackTechTwitter and #BlackTechPipeline movements emerged out of this. Those movements now take a major part of her time. This is a very practical example of what can happen when you are not searching for something, but ready for it.
* Pariss said that she will have to learn some managerial and entrepreneurial skills in 2020, to be ready for what might come. Like the previous point, this is a great reminder that you have to be ready to make use of opportunities when they arise. This reminds me of the book [Great by choice](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12675109-great-by-choice) and the concept of [Return on Luck](https://www.jimcollins.com/concepts/return-on-luck.html).
* Pariss praised the mentors that accompanied her in her life. It never ceases to amaze me how important willing and skilled mentors are. Yet it is still a very much underused practice.
* As a bootcamp graduate-female-of-color, Pariss was hired as Engineer N°4 at a Startup. This gives me so much hope for the future. Our industry will get out of the hole it dug for itself and embrace diversity.
* The one advice Pariss decided to give is: "do not compare yourself to others". This is crucial. This resonnates so much with the philosophy and goal of the DevJourney podcast itself: every journey is unique!

Thanks Pariss for sharing your story with us!

You can find the full episode and the shownotes here:
* On [devjourney.info](https://devjourney.info/Guests/82_ParissChandler.html)
* Or directly [here on DEV](https://dev.to/devjourneyfm/82-pariss-athena-chandler-learns-jumping-in-with-both-feet-first)

Did you listen to her story?

* What did you learn?
* What are your personal takeaways?
* What did you find particularly interesting?

Since this is the first personal summary of an episode I write here, I'd also be interested in your feedback. Should I write some more?

_Note: this article was first published my blog: [timbourguignon.fr](https://www.timbourguignon.fr/devjourney82/)_