Me and Outreachy

Hi, I’m Qandeel!

Who am I?

I’m from Pakistan and recently immigrated to Canada. I love gardening, hiking, nature, sewing, and cooking delicious food for the people I love.

What’s my story?

I completed my bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering in Pakistan. After graduating I worked as a 2D and 3D Designer for a research lab, where my main project was designing anti-theft systems for oil and gas pipelines for Khyber Pukthunkwa, my home province. I have also worked as a teacher just before coming to Canada, where I taught Mathematics for grades 11 and 12.

Journey to becoming a web developer:

Once I got to Canada and started applying for a job — immediately after the culture shock that is! (I will save that for another post 😀 ). As I was applying and prepping for interviews, I started to realize that Electrical engineering is not exactly my passion. This is where it all started, I started to switch my focus to getting into the Tech industry and decided to become a Web Developer.

Now you will think why Web developer?

So, my husband works in the tech industry as a Product Manager, and when I came to Canada and understand what he was working on and how much fun he was having building products for users — I knew, THIS is something I would enjoy. I felt like working as a web dev would allow me to use the creative and logical part of my brain to build some pretty awesome “stuff” for users.

I wanted to test myself a bit before I dove in so I took freeCodeCamp’s HTML, CSS, and Javascript course to see if this could really spark my interest long term. There were moments where I was completely lost but figuring it out was all I could think about. I loved that you could dream up whatever you wanted and then build it. Once I passed my own “test”, I started looking into boot camps for a more immersive learning opportunity. After some research, I chose BrainStation as the Bootcamp of choice!

BrainStation was an intense 12-week program where we learned foundational concepts of coding and worked with a variety of programming languages like React, Node, and Express. We also worked in Agile teams to help prepare ourselves for the working world. (Side note: I learned quickly that working in teams is important and harder than it sounds, you can be the best coder but you have to work together to build awesome “stuff”)

I graduated from BrainStation and IMMEDIATELY started applying for jobs. I also happen to apply in the middle of a global pandemic. It seems like a large amount of Junior Web Dev positions was gone. I realized that companies were likely taking less risk and looking to hire more experience. There were also lots of tech layoffs so the number of people looking for work was at an all-time high.

Being jobless and being new to a field is the worst feeling ever. After an intense 12 week program, you need great willpower and motivation to keep learning and stay ready for future opportunities.

I didn’t lose faith or motivation, every morning I woke up and worked on new challenges. Some days its attending job hunting webinars, or meeting with a recruiter, or learning more coding techniques on Youtube or — my favorite, coding challenges! Each day I try to ensure I make more progress from the day before.

On one of those busy days, I was talking with my classmate about how tough the job market has been due to COVID-19 and she suggested I check out Outreachy!

Let me tell you about them! Outreachy is a program that provides 3 months paid internships in Free and Open Source Software for people who are typically underrepresented in those projects. Interns are paid a $5,500 stipend and a $500 travel grant to attend any national or international event related to their project approved by their mentors. Outreachy internships are not limited to programming only. They also include UI/UX, documentation, data science, graphic design, video documentation, and illustration. The best thing about this internship is that it is remote and Interns can work anywhere from the world without the differences of color, nation, religion, gender, or culture affecting their work. Hurray!!!!

Many dream tech companies share their projects and accept interns to mentor them and allow them to work with their best developers. Mozilla, Debian, Git, GNOME, Kubernetes, and OpenStack are just a few of the companies they work with.

Previously Outreachy was only accepting Women, Transgender, Trans-men, gender-queer, and some other underrepresented people in Tech but moving forward, it is open for all now.

Being a Women POC and new immigrate to Canada — I believe Outreachy will be a great option for me. Continue to follow me as I share my application journey for the Outreachy internship.