Rhea: I had heard about the AthenaHack for the first time through my previous company. They had asked if I wanted to go as a judge for the challenge we had submitted. I was also welcomed wonderfully by everyone there, had a great time doing a small seminar before the competition on pivoting into tech. The main reason I was interested was to because I had never been to a hackathon before, and I wanted to meet a community of women + non-binary people who were in the same industry as me.

Keldra: I came across the AthenaHack through Coding Black Females. It was a chance to push myself a little bit outside of my comfort zone and network. It was also a great opportunity to meet other Black women + non-binary people who already work in tech/were looking for a way to break into tech.

Rhea: We are so few in STEM, it was so empowering to see people trying to pivot into tech or who have been there for a while share their experiences. The networking with companies and everyone who attended the Hackathon was such a wonderful experience. The different people I met, the backgrounds they came from all it was such a learning experience and fun time.

Keldra: Collaborating with the people in my team. I had a really good time getting to know them all, I especially enjoyed brainstorming and executing our idea. Also, we were all on the same page when it came to why we chose to attend the hack, which was nice.

Rhea: I had met Valtech at the hackathon while I was an analyst in my previous company... At the time I had lovely conversations with both Ed and Tony, from the Talent Acquisition Team, who explained what it means to be a part of Valtech. My first thought was interesting community of people, second, they have a lot of career options in this new age digital transformation era which was a new concept to me. The interview process was probably one of the more interesting aspects as I had to not just speak about the technical ideas but also who I was as a person. This helped me kind of decide on how they were trying to create diversity through different areas of this firm. There is a lot of scope and career progression, so many opportunities I felt like it was a perfect fit with my personal goals.

Keldra: I had a good talk with Valtech employees at the event, everyone was extremely open and positive about their own experiences at Valtech.

After doing some research on the company, I could see that Valtech had some really great initiatives like ‘Tech Girl’ and were keen to change the current landscape by encouraging young girls to consider tech as a viable career path.

During the interview process, I could tell that there was a lot of room for professional growth within Valtech and they had the infrastructure to aid me in achieving my long-term career aspirations.