Office Hours: I’m the CEO and founder of the largest community of Black women in tech in the UK. I’m Charlene Hunter. AMA!Featured

charlenehuntermbe·May 09, 2022

Hi everyone!

I’m Charlene Hunter and I’m the CEO & Founder Coding Black Females, a nonprofit organization created to inspire, provide opportunities, and showcase the talents of Black women in tech.

I am also involved with two other tech communities. I’m a co-organiser of Black Devs UK and the the co-founder of Meet Up and Code, both communities bring developers together and code together.

Before Coding Black Females, I started my career as a Technical Consultant at BAE Systems Digital Intelligence (used to be Detica). It was great to have access to a range of projects, and work on different parts of the software development lifecycle. I was lucky enough to work around people who let me have the opportunity to be a tech lead and technical architect pretty early in my career, whilst also putting me forward for training and certifications.

I was fortunately taught to never perceive my identity as a barrier to my success; my personal goal is to help remove barriers to the success of black women in the technology industry. I’ve always loved working I was keen to see more Black women excel and experience the benefits of the industry. I also knew there were already so many extremely talented Black women in the industry, and this is something that I wanted to highlight and showcase these women so that more people could be inspired.

Ask me anything about learning to code, being a tech lead, evaluating company culture when job seeking, preparing for a technical interview, or anything else!

ElphaStaff·May 09, 2022

Thanks so much for joining us @charlenehuntermbe!Elphas – please ask @charlenehuntermbe your questions before Friday, May 13th. @charlenehuntermbe may not have time to answer every questions, so emoji upvote your favorites 🔥👍🏾➕

skylarhughes·May 09, 2022

Hi Charlene,I am impressed and inspired by your background! My name is Skylar and I am a recent grad and now Jr. Technical Recruiter working on hiring lots of engineers (and focused on diversifying the pipeline). I share your passion of removing barriers to the success of women in technology and am grateful to be in the position to do so as a recruiter! I would love to connect about any insight you may have about how to reach more women and how to use my power for good. I am currently located in San Diego, CA but also assist with our recruiting efforts in the UK. I am so excited to connect!

charlenehuntermbe·May 13, 2022

Hi @skylarhughes, lovely to meet you! It's great to connect! It's definitely worth connecting with communities like Coding Black Females to reach a varied audience when advertising your roles. Happy to be connected so that we can make it happen!

sophiakoehl·May 10, 2022

Hi Charlene!I'm Sophia. I've heard of your community and was excited to see your post here. I love what you said above about seeing black women experience the benefits of the industry, this is a large focus in my work on the Partnerships Team at Hired - a global marketplace for tech talent. We partner with communities like Coding Black Females in an effort to bring access to jobs & create equity in hiring. We should chat about a partnership! I'd love to connect, my email is - [email protected]All the best,Sophia

charlenehuntermbe·May 13, 2022

Hi Sophia, very excited to be connected, and I'm really looking forward to exploring partnership opportunities!

erysanchez·May 11, 2022

Hi Charlene what an inspiring woman you are! Thank you for sharing this with us, I would totally appreciate some help from you, Im originally Fashion Designer, then Manage a Construction Company in Mexico (Where Im from) I live in Netherlands with my man and son now, and after being entrepreneur I develop n App to help generate jobs in Mexico, since economical crisis there is very bad. I know nothing about tech! I have a full App now on IOs and Android but was done by agency, they no longer have the capacity that I need to launch it big in my Country, I don't know how to search for the right Tech person to take over and more over to trust them. Im the entrepreneur woman that every man in Mexico can't handle to be more successful than them so they always try to take advantage of everything possible, at first I try to get a mexican business partner but thats obviously didn't work. As you can read I stuck and a bit desperate now hopefully you can help me out to make this dream happen. Big hug!

charlenehuntermbe·May 13, 2022

Hey! Thank you so much for your question, firstly, congratulations on the completion of your app!! I can think of a couple of options. 1. Try to find a CTO to join your business, that's essentially someone who will look after the technical elements of your project including finding the right technical people to get involved. You could look at a range of tech communities including Elpha, Coding Black Females, Women Who Code etc where you can find people who can provide you with technical support. 2. Take a look at some more agencies who may be able to support with the updates you need to your app, you could start with Fiver or Upwork to find individuals, or take a look at digital agencies like Techtee. Hope that helps!