Get Excited and Keep Pushing Through with Rizél Scarlett
Tags: codenewbie, beginners, career, webdev
Published: 2021-11-17 14:54:09

[Relicans](https://therelicans.com) host [Pachi Parra](https://twitter.com/pachicodes) talks to Developer Advocate at [GitHub](https://github.com), [Rizél Scarlett](​​https://twitter.com/blackgirlbytes), about coming to America as an undocumented immigrant, the biggest barriers she encountered when getting into tech, and the learning curve when going from coder to DevRel.

Should you find a burning need to share your thoughts or rants about the show, please spray them at devrel@newrelic.com. While you're going to all the trouble of shipping us some bytes, please consider taking a moment to let us know what you'd like to hear on the show in the future. Despite the all-caps flaming you will receive in response, please know that we are sincerely interested in your feedback; we aim to appease. Follow us on the Twitters: [@LaunchiesShow](https://twitter.com/LaunchiesShow).

{% podcast https://dev.to/launchies/get-excited-and-keep-pushing-through-with-rizel-scarlett %}

Jonan Scheffler: Hello and welcome to [Launchies](https://twitter.com/LaunchiesShow), proudly brought to you by New Relic's Developer Relations team, [The Relicans](https://therelicans.com). The Launchies podcast is about supporting new developers and telling their stories and helping you make the next step in what we certainly hope is a very long and healthy career in software. You can find the show notes for this episode along with all of The Relicans podcasts on [developer.newrelic.com/podcasts](developer.newrelic.com/podcasts). We're so glad you're here. Enjoy the show.

Pachi Parra: Hello and welcome to [Launchies](https://twitter.com/Launchies), a podcast for newbies, developers with non-traditional backgrounds, and career-switchers. I am [Pachi](https://twitter.com/pachicodes), and I'm a DevRel Engineer at [New Relic](https://newrelic.com). And I'll be your host for today. Today I have here with me [Rizél Scarlett](​​https://twitter.com/blackgirlbytes), and she's a Developer Advocate at [GitHub](https://github.com). Because of her undocumented status, she pivoted her career plans from psychology to tech. And she now helps lots of people in tech. 

She attended a non-profit coding bootcamp with her boyfriend, now husband. And after landing in tech, she discovered her passion for helping others to get into tech. So she also works as a software engineer implementing a number of projects, including AutoTranslate at [Hi Marley](https://www.himarley.com/), which allows non-native English speakers to communicate with insurance operators, which is awesome. Welcome.

Rizél Scarlett: Thank you so much. I'm happy to be here.

Pachi: I'm glad you're here. How are you doing today?

Rizél: I'm doing pretty good. Like we were just saying, it's a busy Monday, but I'm settling in.

Pachi: Yeah, I feel like Mondays are just the days you have to just get everything done. So for the rest of the week, you can relax a little. 

Rizél: Relax, yeah. [laughs]

Pachi: So I always like to start asking when did you first get interested in tech? Because lots of people I feel like they never, especially women (And I see that you are an immigrant, and I am too.), we don't even consider tech as a thing we can do until later in life. It's not like Americans that in high school, they have programming classes. That was mind-boggling when I learned that. So, when did you first realize that okay, I can work with tech and that it's awesome?

Rizél: At first, it was never an option to me, just like you're saying. I was always into writing, and English, and stuff like that. And I just didn't consider myself as someone in tech. That seemed like people that wore hoodies, and they're just always typing. So I was like, that's not me. 

Pachi: [chuckles]

Rizél: But I ended up having to make the pivot when I was in college and studying psychology. And I realized I don't have enough money to continue going to college. And I was like, oh my gosh, I'm 18, and I made a bad choice of just going off to college without any money. And I can't continue for the next semester. So I ended up going back to live with my parents; they were in Boston. And I started trying to figure out, like, okay, I need to brainstorm a couple of things. 

Because on top of that, I was undocumented, so I wouldn't get financial aid. But I still wanted to go to college. So eventually, I think that same year I had gotten approval for DACA, which is something that is called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. And it allows undocumented immigrants to be able to work, and it expires every two years. So every two years, you got to pay money again.

Pachi: Is that a Boston thing?

Rizél: No, it's a United States thing. Obama instated it. It's only if you came to America undocumented and your parents brought you.

Pachi: Oh, okay.

Rizél: Yeah, that's the only way. And you had to have a certain amount of years and all that. So I was like, okay, but then these next two years, I need to be able to get a degree or something like that that I can actually use. I was like, I don't want to do psychology anymore because if I do two years, I will still be in the same place, no money, no nothing. And for psychology, you got to go for your grad degree. So what I ended up doing is I googled, and Google was like, if you go into tech, you can get an associate and be able to make money, and I was like, okay. 

Pachi: Go for it.

Rizél: Yeah. So in community college, I studied computer information systems, and I started working as a help desk technician. And that's when I started hearing people talk about software engineering. I was a help desk technician at [HubSpot](https://www.hubspot.com/), and everyone's like, "Yeah, I'm coding," dah, dah, dah. I'm like, oh, what's that? So it looked really cool. And that's when I decided to sign up for a free coding bootcamp called [Resilient Coders](https://www.resilientcoders.org/) that's located in Boston. And that's how I found out about it and decided to learn to code.

Pachi: That's awesome. That's really awesome. And I just wanted to tell people who are listening that if you want to stay in the West with a student visa, you have to pay the whole thing and have the money in your account. I feel like lots of Americans don't know how hard it is to stay legally in the U.S. 

Rizél: Yes.

Pachi: You have to have the money for the whole course, and you cannot work. You cannot legally work in the U.S. while you have a student visa. So basically, you can only come to the U.S. for college if you're very rich.

Rizél: Yeah, that's the thing. A lot of people think it's easy. They're like, "Just do the legal route." And my parents didn't even know when they brought me here that it will cause this much trouble. [laughs]

Pachi: I was undocumented for like five years. And people were just like, oh, why don't you just get legal? And I'm like, [laughs] why haven't I thought of that? And I feel like Americans don't know their migration laws. So just so you hear, it's very difficult to be legal in the U.S. to get the documents. For the work visa, you have to be a unicorn. The company has to prove that this person cannot find... anyone else. So it's not "Just go get a visa."  

Rizél: It's not easy. [laughter] And it's very expensive.

Pachi: Yes. And I wanted to make this point because when I was looking for listings, they said, "Hey, why don't you just do that?" Because it's not an option. [laughs] I ended up marrying, and that was, for me, the only thing.

Rizél: Option, yeah.

Pachi: But yes, I'm glad you went through that to do coding in school. And after you finished your coding school...that's a silly question, and I know the answer, but I like to ask it. Did you feel ready for your first job after that? [laughs]

Rizél: Not fully ready. [Resilient Coders](https://www.resilientcoders.org/) is a super, super good coding bootcamp. They taught me a lot, but I was still nervous. I was still like, I don't really know what it's going to be like. [laughs] And the interviews, there's so much data structures and algorithms. And I'm like, you see that I'm a bootcamp grad. Why would I know something that computer --

Pachi: Yeah. I still can't do that.

Rizél: [laughs] I'm like, this is too much. So I didn't feel ready. But I just decided to jump in and just apply to a bunch of jobs because I wanted money.

Pachi: And how long did it take you after the bootcamp to get your first job?

Rizél: I got an internship before the bootcamp ended. So I'm always overly ambitious, I guess. So maybe some people waited until the bootcamp ended. But I knew the bootcamp was starting to end, and I applied for a job, interviewed, and I got it and started right after.

Pachi: That's great. 

Rizél: Yeah, thank you. 

Pachi: You just got it. I always say you're not the person to judge. The interviewer or director is going to say if you're good or not.

Rizél: Exactly. I will say I cried after my first interview, though. It was like a simple question, and I was so scared, and then I just cried. [laughs]

Pachi: It is too much. And the interview is usually...I don't know about the one you did, but especially the technical part, they're not very realistic. And nothing prepares for it. [laughs]

Rizél: They're not realistic at all. [laughs]

Pachi: And so you did the internship. Did you get a job after that, or you had the first job after that?

Rizél: So I did an internship at a company called [Formlabs](https://formlabs.com/), and it's like a 3D printing startup. And then, after that, I already had another internship lined up at this company called [Veson Nautical](https://veson.com/). And I ended up staying there and going full time. 

Pachi: Oh, that's good.

Rizél: I have had multiple jobs.

Pachi: How long had it been before you got your first job?

Rizél: Oh, that's a good question. I think I graduated from my coding bootcamp in April 2018. So I had started that internship sometime in April 2018. And then the full-time role I started maybe October or September 2018.

Pachi: And you have been here since.

Rizél: Yeah. [laughs]

Pachi: And now you're a developer advocate at [GitHub](https://github.com/).

Rizél: Yeah, I am. I'm a junior developer advocate. [laughs]

Pachi: How did that happen? 

Rizél: I've been interested in developer advocacy for a while because, like I mentioned to you before I discovered tech, I was really into writing and stuff like that. When I was little, I was like, I want to be an author or something. I was very into writing, and I was like, man, I wish there was a way for me to work and be able to blog and code like still have that balance. And I started finding out, like, oh my gosh, there are people who do that, and they do technical talks. I'm like, that's cool. 

I started applying to some places, but they were looking for more senior people. And then I also got experience teaching women of color to code and creating the curriculum and stuff like that at this program called [G{Code}](https://www.thegcodehouse.com/). So that made me even want to do developer advocacy even more. I was like, this is awesome; getting to teach, create content, write, and just learn in public is really great for me. 

So I saw a [GitHub](​​https://github.com/) post on Twitter that they were looking for a junior developer advocate. And they were like, yeah; you don't...they didn't have really strong requirements or anything like that. It was just like, you want to learn in public. You already know how to code and stuff like that. And I was like, okay, I'll apply. And I went through the interview process, and they hired me.

Pachi: Awesome. Congrats. And that was quite recently, right? Because I think I remember seeing you announcing your job on Twitter.

Rizél: Yeah, that was very recent. This is my third week.

Pachi: Oh. How do you like it so far?

Rizél: I love it. It's so fun. People are already reaching out to me about doing talks or writing for their blog. And I feel like it's just a good balance of being able to continue to code but then also do other stuff that I'm passionate about.

Pachi: Yeah, it's really fun. I really love it. I'm doing this podcast, and it's my work. Yay. [laughter] So you talked about [G{Code}](https://www.thegcodehouse.com/). So that's a place specifically for women and non-binary people to learn to code? 

Rizél: Yes. 

Pachi: That's really awesome. So you say you work there helping with the curriculum, but you also give classes there.

Rizél: Yeah. So essentially, it's a team of three of us. The founder created this idea. Basically, she wanted to purchase the house in a town in Boston that's historically black but starting to get heavily gentrified. And the idea was to house women of color there who are struggling with housing insecurity and also teach them to code. But it needs a lot of renovation. So in the meantime of renovating, me and another woman that works there, Bailey, we came up with the idea of, like, let's do online sessions. So yeah, what that turned into is me creating the curriculum and then me sometimes teaching. But I found a couple of other people who could also teach that way. I'm not burnt out.

Pachi: That's such an awesome project, not only teaching you to code but having this space. Because, again, people assume that they can just go to a college or a coding bootcamp. But if you don't have a safe space, you cannot think about it.

Rizél: Exactly. It's like you need to have shelter. You need to have food. You need to have those basic needs met before you can go into learning to code because it's not really useful when people are like, "Oh yeah, I don't have money. I'm struggling." And everybody is like, "Oh, why don't you learn to code." It's like, they have other stuff to focus on. They can't just be coding.

Pachi: Yeah. People are like that. "Why don't you just code hard enough?" And now when you don't even have everything just to start on. Like when you're working, and you just feel a little hunger, and you don't have a snack, you already cannot concentrate. [laughs] 

Rizél: Yeah, you will not be able to absorb the information

Pachi: It is very important. I love that. So since you got into tech and it has been almost three years, especially in the beginning, what do you think were the biggest barriers you encountered? I feel like being an immigrant, and everything is hard enough already. But for you, like in the beginning especially, what were the worst things?

Rizél: I feel like getting comfortable with asking questions and knowing when to ask and how many. Because I would sometimes be like, okay, I don't want to ask because everyone seems like they know what they're doing. Or sometimes, when I would ask, there were some teams that I was on that were a little toxic. Some teams, everyone would be like, "Oh yeah, ready to help you." But some people would just be rolling their eyes when I asked for help, so then I just felt like I had to just sit there and just keep my head down. So that was definitely a struggle for me.

Pachi: Yeah. I feel like asking for help is hard. So when you do it, and the person is not responsive, it just breaks it.

Rizél: [laughs] It made me have a lot of [imposter syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome). But I realized, okay, maybe I need to change the way I ask questions. So I'll just be like, here are all the things I tried. Here's where I'm at. Please help me here. And I got a little bit more responses that way.

Pachi: Yeah, I feel like it's very common. It's a mix of we need help, but we don't know what we're doing. But I don't want people to know that we don't know. [laughter] That's funny because when I was looking for my front-end job, this person liked me but she didn't have space. "I am thinking about hiring a part-time DevRel. Do you have an interest in DevRel?" And I didn't know what DevRel was. But I didn't want to ask her and say, "I don't know," because what if it's something that everybody should know? So I just googled it very quickly and said, "I never thought about that, but I would be interested in trying it out." [laughs] I just didn't want to say, "No."

Rizél: [laughs] That's the perfect way to answer.

Pachi: And I said, "Yes, I haven't considered that, but I'll try it out."

[laughter]

Rizél: I love it.

Pachi: So just ask for help, people. If you don't know something, just say it. It's the best thing. My brother has been my mentor, and he used to say to me that if he explains something to me and I don't understand, that was his fault because as a mentor, as a senior person, he should be able to explain that in a way that makes sense. And that was like, hey, it's not my fault I don't understand, and I will get there eventually. 

Rizél: Yeah, I'm still learning that today. And I always tell people at [G{Code}](https://www.thegcodehouse.com/) too. I'm like, "Definitely interrupt and say you don't know what we're talking about because there's no point in us to keep on going, and you guys are lost." [laughs]

Pachi: And the secret is nobody knows what they're doing.

Rizél: Yeah, exactly. I told them that too. I'm like, listen; there are mentors here that are senior engineers. They don't know stuff. I'm like; I worked with people who are senior engineers. They don't know CSS. It's crazy. You have an advantage. You know CSS. You know the little stuff. [laughs]

Pachi: If you can align this div, you're ahead of so many people in life, seriously. [laughter] So ... learn.

Rizél: Exactly. [laughs]

Pachi: I always tell people the hardest thing in computer science is aligning things. Because CSS does what CSS wants to do. 

Rizél: [laughs]

Pachi: It's not like your function that behaves the way you tell it to behave. CSS is like; I don't want to be there. I want to go here. But I love CSS; I do. [laughter]

Rizél: Yeah, with JavaScript or other languages, you're like, I want to get the data. You tell it to get the data; it gives it back to you, whatever. But with CSS, like you're saying, you're like, flex display, flex-direction column. And you're like, it’s not changing. 

Pachi: You just try everything. Sometimes something is going to work eventually. Maybe you just forgot a semicolon, and that was the whole thing.

Rizél: Yeah. I hate when that happens. 

Pachi: Yeah, this happens too often. [laughter] But anyways, you have been in your new job for three weeks. How has been the learning curve? In your first job, you were only coding, and now you're coding, too, but you don't have a product to deploy on Friday. Don't deploy on Friday, people. So, how has it been?

Rizél: It's definitely new. I'm feeling very positive about it so far, though. Usually, I get a first ticket, and they're like, deploy to production. But now it's kind of more autonomous of like, okay if you want to post a blog, you can. Do you want to do a talk? You can. I'm like, wow. I think I like how much opportunities there are. And I really like how [GitHub](​​https://github.com/) because they're remote-first; they do a good job at communicating and finding information and stuff like that. So they have everything compiled, and I'm just reading through it. It's a firehose of information, but it's useful. And I've been trying to pace myself so I don't feel overwhelmed.

Pachi: That's good. That's the thing about the DevRel job. It's so flexible in what we can do. That was true for me in the beginning. I want to do everything. [laughs] I'm going to do this YouTube video, and I'm going to write this tutorial. And I'm going to stream, and then I'm going to go to Instagram. And I was like, I can't do everything. Okay, I'm doing too much. [laughs] Slow down. 

Rizél: Yeah, I'm hoping I pace myself.

Pachi: And I feel like lots of people in this already used to write these things, content creation as a hobby, not as a job. And when it turns into your job, you're like, wow, that's my job. I used to do that. Is this still my job? Did I work? The other thing that I used to ask my manager a lot was, "Did I work today? I streamed this thing, and I wrote this blog post. Did I work today?" And he's like, "Yes, you worked."

Rizél: [laughs] That's so true because I was feeling...I'm like, this is too good to be true. I'm on Twitter. I'm writing a blog post. This is fun for me, [laughs] but I'm not sure if I'm working. But yeah, like you said, it is working.

Pachi: You're working. And another I'm not going to forget is I was on vacation, and before bed, I just went on my phone, and I was scrolling Twitter. And then I saw a post about DevRel, and then I tagged my manager. I don't remember what it was about, but it was interesting. And he's like, "Pachi, you're in DevRel, so Twitter is work, and you're on vacation." 

[laughter]

Rizél: And he's like, "Log out."

Pachi: I'm like, oh, I didn't think like that. Because normally, we are developers, so even if you’re on Twitter, tweeting is –

Rizél: Part of it, yeah. [laughs]

Pachi: Seriously, people, who would have thought? But yes, even if we're having fun, we might not even realize that we do tend to work too much. And then we are having fun, but our bodies are catching up. And then you're going to burn out, and you don't even know why.

Rizél: Yeah. I'm like, I don't know how much is too much work or what's going to burn me out. So I'm trying to pace myself, but I'm also excited. People are like, "Want to do the talk at [All Things Open](https://2021.allthingsopen.org/)? Want to do a talk here?" I'm like, "Okay, yeah. Let's see what you're organizing." 

Pachi: I totally know how you feel. I say that. I still do so many things. What helped, though, for me is I have a rigid, not a schedule, but I don't work before 9:00, and I avoid working after 5:00. Even if I'm excited to write a blog post and it's like 5:00, I stop [laughs] because I can go forever.

Rizél: Yeah, I need to do that.

Pachi: And especially because sometimes when you just stop and you sit there thinking, we don't feel productive because you're just thinking. But your brain is working so hard. So you might not feel like you're working, but your brain is working.

Rizél: I didn't think of that. That's so true, yeah. My brain is working overtime. I definitely have the...like you're saying, after 5:00, I'll be like, oh, I could just like finish this really quickly. So that's a good tip. It's a common tip but a good reminder.

Pachi: Yeah, and I just feel with DevRel it's more true because, like I said, I don't know about you, but I'm guessing you used to write blog posts for fun. And your brain's like, I don't even know if you're working. And it's very easy to overwork yourself, especially in the beginning because you're so excited. I'm doing this thing, and it's so cool. I'm helping people, and I'm coding this fun thing.

Rizél: Yeah, that's so true.

Pachi: Your brain is like, yeah, I'm taking tabs of everything you're doing. [laughs]

Rizél: Oh gosh. Yeah, I'm going to try to keep and be aware of that. It's like this is the first time people...I write blog posts. I try to do talks, and now everybody's excited about me doing these. They're reaching out while before I was reaching out, and I'm like, "Please accept my talk." So yeah, I'll try to pace myself. [laughs]

Pachi: I know it's very hard because you want to say yes to everything. You want to do everything. So you want to say yes to everything. Like this week, I had a talk with you today. I'm going to be giving a talk in the [GitHub](​​https://github.com/) meetup tomorrow, and then I have a conference talk on Saturday. It doesn't feel like much, but all the prep work for that...and I'm an introvert, so all the emotional time I need for that. [laughs] It's like an hour of work that people see, but all the prep is like 10 hours. [laughs]

Rizél: Yeah, for real. [laughs] Just writing out the slides and practicing and stuff like that it's a lot

Pachi: Yes, and then to keep worrying about the design of the slides. Are they cute enough? It's not too weird. Just keep it professional. [laughter] And the colors.

Rizél: Yeah, oh my God. Okay, I thought I was the only one. [laughs]

Pachi: Oh no. Half the time making a slide is making sure you change the color palette because I never really -- [laughter] 

Rizél: Oh my goodness.

Pachi: But I'm just so excited for you because I was where you were six months ago, so I totally understand you. [laughs]

Rizél: Wow.

Pachi: I started this job in...no, it was a little more. We started in December. But it was my first job with DevRel, and I was like, yay. I'm still saying yes to too much stuff.

Rizél: Congrats. I didn't realize it was so recent.

Pachi: This year just feels weird because it's September already. How did that happen? But it feels like I started yesterday, but it has been more.

Rizél: Yeah. You've been there for like, maybe 9 or 10 months.

Pachi: Yeah, almost.

Rizél: Wow, oh my God. Okay.

Pachi: [chuckles] But yes, I'm just loving that, and now there is a podcast about you, and you're just talking about like...Get yourself a podcast, people, just talking. We're friends now. And my cat is here. You can't see him, but he's here. Hey, hey. This is the other thing about --

Rizél: Great cat. So cute. [laughs]

Pachi: This is the home office thing. He's like, it's petting time. He's like, hey, stop working and just pet me.

Rizél: [laughs]

Pachi: Yeah, it didn’t happen. And he's just clicking on the file that had the things. But yes, so what are you more excited about? I know you have all these people reaching out to find out if you can talk now. But is there something you're more excited about? What in your job description when you saw you're going to do that were you like, yes!

Rizél: I think in the interview that I had...I've talked a lot about focusing on early-career developers. And I think that's where my focus is going to be since more of my team is a little bit more senior. And they'll be advocating more to people who are more senior in their career. And I think I'm excited about that because I'm very passionate about making sure early-career developers have a good experience, making sure they feel empowered, and the ability for them to learn in public. I think I'm most excited about helping build that out at [GitHub](​​https://github.com/), making sure that early-career developers know where to go, know what to do, and feel empowered while coding. That's my most exciting thing because I wish that was more available to me when I first started out as an engineer.

Pachi: Definitely. And that's so important that I always comment about, like, my team, too, the other people are mostly seniors, and I'm the early career, me and [Danny](https://twitter.com/muydanny). And I always comment how...because you haven't been a developer for too long, you forget how to talk the simple beginner language. Even if you try, you have been doing that for too long; it’s so natural that you cannot explain with simple words like, what is an array, for example. You just over-complicate everything because in your brain, that is set. 

So I think it's so important to have somebody that's going to focus on people that are starting because you just got into the area. It's fresh in your brain. So you'll know how to break things down and say, "Hey, this is what it is," and with words that are real words, not technical words. It really matters. It's really, really important.

Rizél: Yeah, I agree. Because even if you think about...similar to computer scientists like how mathematicians are, if someone tries to teach someone one plus one, that seems so easy to us. [laughs] One plus one is two. But you're a little kid. You're not going to pick that up. So you have to be able to remember what it was like to be at that elementary stage and use visuals or use something more applicable that they'll be able to put into. 

Pachi: Definitely, and it's good to keep that in mind, and that is not only for developer advocates but for people in general. After you do something too much, you just forget how to explain it. And it could really make a lot of difference for somebody that is learning. It can make or break you sometimes because sometimes you're just so frustrated with learning. Like, you cannot find documentation about X thing that makes sense to you, then you feel that you're dumb, then you feel like it's your fault, but it's not.

Rizél: Yeah, exactly. 

Pachi: But it is so exciting. And what are you looking forward to? Is there an event happening or a talk?

Rizél: Yeah, I'm going to talk at [CodeLand Conference](https://codelandconf.com/). I'm just going to do a little five-minute talk, though. And then [GitHub Univers(ity)](https://education.github.com/) is coming up in October. I don't know what I'm going to be doing. But my manager said to keep my calendar open because I might be doing something. So I'm curious to see. I've never been on the side of being in [GitHub](​​https://github.com/) while [GitHub Univers(ity)](https://education.github.com/) is happening.

Pachi: That's awesome.

Rizél: Yeah. So I'm looking forward to those. And there are a couple of other conferences I think [All Things Open](https://2021.allthingsopen.org/) where I'm going to be talking about contributing to open source. And [Pulumi](https://www.pulumi.com/) is having a [Cloud Engineering Summit](https://www.pulumi.com/cloud-engineering-summit/), and they recently reached out to me.

Pachi: Oh. Look at you; you’re; people going everywhere now.

Rizél: Yeah, I'm so excited. I'm like, yay, people are reaching out. And I feel like those conferences...I'm very into open source, very into early-career developers, and cloud engineering, and stuff like that. So I'm very excited to be part of those.

Pachi: So, as a person that works in [GitHub](​​https://github.com/) and loves open source and [Hacktoberfest](https://hacktoberfest.digitalocean.com/) is coming soon, what is your advice for people who want to start contributing to open source but they're scared? Because open source can be scary. 

Rizél: Yeah, for real. I actually just wrote a blog post about how scared I was because I will go into the codebase, and I'll be like, what is going on here? Or the documentation will be outdated, and I will just give up because I'm like, I just spent an hour trying to figure this out, [laughs] and now I realize this doesn't work. 

But I will say some of my advice is one, try to join their...usually, open-source projects have a [Slack](https://slack.com/) or a [Discord](https://discord.com/) or something like that. Try to join that and introduce yourself. That way, you will feel more comfortable knowing who to reach out to and ask questions to because they might be aware that their documentation is not up to date. And they might be able to better lead you and be like, "Oh, this is a good ticket to pick up." Also, looking for good first issues. 

And then another thing is pacing yourself. I keep talking about that. I used to get so overwhelmed. I would jump into a project, pick up an issue, try to install my environment, and I'll be like, oh my gosh, what's going on? I think just doing it on day one, and you're like, all right, I'm going to just read the documentation today. Then tomorrow, I'm going to set up my environment. Then the next day, I will explore the codebase figure out what's making what happen. And then, after that, pick up an issue. I think pacing yourself like that is really helpful and less scary [laughs], if that makes any sense.

Pachi: Yes, it does. It's like these kinds of things; giving the first step is the hardest part. After you're over that, things get a bit easier. But the first step is really scary, especially because you're exposing yourself and your code to other people's judgment. But next month is going to be fun because of [Hacktoberfest](https://hacktoberfest.digitalocean.com/). 

Rizél: I know. [chuckles] 

Pachi: Anyways.

Rizél: I'm super excited for that.

Pachi: Yeah, I can't imagine how exciting it is to work at [GitHub](https://github.com) in October. [laughs] And you talk a lot about people starting. My last question for you...it's not a question. Like, what is your best advice for people starting? What would you have liked somebody to have stopped you and told you, even before you started studying, like when you were still considering working in tech?

Rizél: That's a good question. I will say it's okay...I feel like this is a common theme of what we've been talking about, too, just knowing it's okay that you don't know things. It's okay that you're not sure what software engineering is or product management or DevRel or whatever. But the good thing is Google has the answers. And there are so many resources for you to find those answers. There are people and communities for you to join and reach out to from the beginning of your tech career or just exploring to like...when you're actually in the job, you're not going to know all the answers, and that's okay. Keep pushing through. Use the fact that you don't know something as an opportunity for growth. Don't be like, oh my gosh, I don't know it. I feel sad. Be like, oh my gosh, here's something I don't know. That means I'm going to get to learn something and know something. Get excited about it.

Pachi: That's a good mindset because it's very easy to be like, I don't that. I suck. I don't know what I'm doing. And like, hey, I don't know this. There's something new to learn. Yay. 

Rizél: Exactly. [laughs]

Pachi: And that's going to happen in your entire career. It doesn't matter where you hide. [laughs]

Rizél: Yeah, especially in tech.

Pachi: Especially in tech, seriously.

Rizél: [laughs]

Pachi: Things just change so quickly. And there's always some new things, some new meme. And you have to keep up. 

Rizél: [laughs] Yap.

Pachi: [laughs] I love that, though. I do.

Rizél: Me too. It's fun. It's so fun, and you're never bored. That's one thing I can say; you're never bored.

Pachi: You're definitely never bored. Those are the questions I had for you today. Thank you so much for coming to talk with me. I had so much fun. 

Rizél: Yeah, of course. Thank you. Thanks for interviewing me.

Pachi: And where can people find you online?

Rizél: Yeah, you can find me on Twitter [@blackgirlbytes](https://twitter.com/blackgirlbytes). You can also find my blog at [blackgirlbytes.dev](https://blackgirlbytes.dev/). Basically, anywhere just look up [blackgirlbytes](https://www.google.com/search?q=blackgirlbytes&oq=blackgirlbytes&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i60l2.580j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8), and I'll be there.

Pachi: I love that. It makes life much easier. [laughs] Okay, so that was it for today. Thank you for listening. This was [Launchies](https://twitter.com/LaunchiesShow). And have a great rest of your day, People.

Jonan: Thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate it. You can find the show notes for this episode along with all of the rest of The Relicans podcasts on [therelicans.com](https://therelicans.com). In fact, most anything The Relicans get up to online will be on that site. We'll see you next week. Take care.