17.2.7. Eric Espinoza¶

"I don't think that your identity has to be tied to what you do. If anything, the skills needed for the job — learning new ideas and new technologies — identifies an individual that likes to play with things."

Why did he choose computing?

“I love the possibility that with the knowledge and the skills, a small type of computing instrument and the resource of time and discipline, sky is the limit. So I really like the opportunity to create anything really.”

Like countless other programmers, Eric enjoys how programming enables him to build whatever he can think of, whether it’s helping him, his employer, or the world.

How did he pursue computing?

Eric studied at a full-stack boot camp — a boot camp that teaches both front-end (constructing the components that users interact with) and back-end development (building the technologies that facilitate the front end).

What subfield is he working in?

“Yeah, I’m a DevOps engineer — [a role that] basically writes code that works within a company so that a developer can use that pipeline that I helped create. And they can send that code throughout the company so that the customer never sees the test code or the code that’s in work — they only see the final product. The work that I do is creating the pipeline to take the code that the developers use from start to finish.”

Who does he look up to?

“[A big mentor] was a teacher that basically showed me the way to speak. I took more than just the coding skills themselves. I was able to see that person as a mentor beyond just coding and see their accomplishments and what they were able to do beyond it and then also why they code. It was lucky to find a master in the field that not only was a very technically inclined and skilled coder but also just a general good human being that I respected and admired.”