Nevertheless, julia ferraioli Coded
Tags: wecoded
Published: 2018-03-08 15:46:44

---
title: Nevertheless, julia ferraioli Coded 
published: true
tags: shecoded
---

## I began/continue to code because...

I started to code in high school, in a computer science course that was half geeks and half people trying to fill a graduation requirement. I'm honestly not sure which group I belonged to at the start. We were the last year that computer science was taught in C++ (shoutout to Borland!) and I'm forever grateful for that.

*Coding had me at "Hello, world!"*

When I arrived at Bryn Mawr College, I was still pretty determined to pursue a different path, but took more CS classes for fun. And more. And more. I played with graphics, I caused kernel panics, I built robots and made them zoom around, I did nifty stuff with machine learning.

![julia ferraioli standing at a table with an iron](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/mmfss5l07b8w8e9sdssv.jpg "Ironing Mylar for our robotic blimp")

Before I knew it, this was my path.

I first fell in love with coding because:

1. I could make things, that weren't there before, happen
1. It was a codification of logic, which made sense in a world that didn't
1. Every new project was a new adventure with new problems

I still love coding because of the people. While the technical challenges are still enjoyable, I take deep satisfaction in building things that help other people.

## I recently overcame...

Oh my. Well, I'm not exactly private about my health struggles. The last round of whatever-the-hell-is-wrong-with-me threatened my ability to see. I had no idea how I'd continue to code without my sight. Software bugs I can fix. Biological ones I cannot. Looking at a future without my chosen profession was terrifying and demoralizing.

While eventually I got my sight back, I had also started to develop a personal tool set for coping with low vision, that I think has made me a better engineer. I rely less on what I see, and more on internal reasoning. My mental scratch pad is a lot bigger now than it used to be.

## I want to brag about...

I actually have a couple of things.

### Open Source @ Google

My job at Google is dedicated to supporting open source. Most of the time, this means a lot of internal work to make sure that engineers at Google are supported in their open source efforts, and much of it isn't public facing. However...

While I was only involved in the starting phase for [opensource.google.com](https://opensource.google.com/), I helped with the initial design and beginnings of implementation for the [project explorer](https://opensource.google.com/projects). Not only does this showcase some of Google's open source projects, but it starts to show the depth of involvement of Google in the broader open source community.

I think it looks pretty shiny, too.

### Can I Hug That?

Okay, so I'm still absurdly proud of the [little demo](https://imgur.com/a/T1QNL) I built using Google CloudML, "Can I Hug That?". (You can see a video of it in action [here](https://youtu.be/Ja2hxBAwG_0?t=8m57s).)

![a screenshot of a stuffed octopus which shows that has a .696 huggability rating](https://thepracticaldev.s3.amazonaws.com/i/x3l7zvphjee0lq90wprm.png "This octopus is likely huggable")

From a technical perspective, this isn't hard to do. So I'm not bragging about the engineering side of it (and I really shouldn't; the server code is a bit messy). But I do want to brag about the concept, because the goal was to pick a problem that we couldn't use a pre-trained model to solve, make it clear why a custom model would be the right approach, and make it understandable and approachable without a machine learning background.

In short, I wanted to make machine learning friendly. *I wanted to make machine learning huggable.*

And, based on the feedback I got on the talk and demo, that's exactly what I accomplished. I am super proud of that.

## I look up to...

I'd like to specifically call out [Ashley McNamara](https://twitter.com/ashleymcnamara) for being an inspiration, both for her technical leadership and community leadership. Her path into and through software engineering is a shining example of determination and skill -- one that I hope to follow. And can we talk about her art? I’ve never seen such [cute gophers](https://github.com/ashleymcnamara/gophers) in my life.

Lastly, Ashley reached out to me when I felt so stuck in my life that things seemed lost, and talked me through it. I don’t know if she realizes just how much that meant to me. Thanks, Ashley.