All About Me...
Hi 👋! I'm Ali Spittel, and I create all the stuff you see on this site. I'm a (mostly) self-taught software engineer, who loves teaching people to code. I am currently a Senior Developer Advocate at Amazon Web Services on the Amplify team. I'm obsessed with: my dog Blair, Taco Bell, and building art with JavaScript.
My Learn to Code Story
I grew up in a small town of 3,500 in rural New Hampshire - it doesn't even have a grocery store or stoplight! My high school was also tiny, and I graduated in a class of 90 people - there were only a few computers, and they were barely functional. All that to say - I had no idea what computer science was until I stepped into a computer science classroom my sophomore year of college thinking I was going to learn how to format Microsoft Word documents better 🤦🏼♀️.
I quickly fell in love with Python; I could type something into a computer, and magic would come out. I was having so much fun that I decided I was going to double major in computer science, and I even landed a teaching assistant position for that same intro to CS class.
And then, the next semester, I took data structures and algorithms in C++. I was pulling all-nighters and still getting grades I wasn't happy about. Plus, I felt like I totally stuck out in that classroom - I hadn't been coding my whole life, and I was one of the few women.
So, I quit coding. I thought I wasn't good at it, and that it wasn't for me.
A couple of months later, I ended up in a data analysis internship, where I realized I could automate a lot of my job through scripting. From there, I got a software engineering job. Here we are almost seven years later, and I still write code pretty much every day!
Why I created this Site
This site is for the Ali of a couple of years ago - and all the people like me. The people who have struggled at points while learning to code, and who sometimes feel like they don't belong in the tech industry.
I love teaching code, and have had the privilege of doing so in a bunch of formats - from my student teaching semester in college to community events to teaching full time at a coding bootcamp 👩🏫.
My goal: I want to make learning to code more accessible and fun for everyone. I have years of professional teaching and programming experience, and I want to use it to help you be the best programmer you can be.
I feel so lucky that my blog posts have been in front of well over a million eyes in the past year, and writing has completely changed my life.
Still want to learn more?
You can read my more professional bio with my background, upcoming speaking gigs, interviews on other sites, and more on my portfolio site.
I also have a podcast with two other incredible women: Ladybug Podcast. We talk about the tech industry, our backgrounds, and go in depth on code-topics. I also do weekly Twitch Streams and YouTube videos.