Taylor Poindexter - Sr. Back End Engineer, Cofounder of Black Code Collective #94
Taylor Poindexter is the co-founder of Black Code Collective, an organization that strives to provide a safe space for Black Engineers to collaborate and grow their skills. In addition to this, she is a Senior Back End Engineer for a startup called tech co. A company that is working to make a more participatory democracy. Some awards she’s received include: 2019 Power Woman of DC Tech, DC Fem Tech’s 2018 Power Woman in Code, DC’s 2017 Top Technologist, and 2017 Power Woman of DC Tech. In her spare time she enjoys traveling, working out, whiskey tasting, and spending time with her two amazing nephews.
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A note from Grant
Taylor Poindexter is a proud University of Virginia alumni, earning her degree in computer science before launching her career in tech where she’s held down roles like automation engineer, test engineer, back end engineer and now senior software engineer.
Never one to slow down, Taylor also co-founded the Black Code Collective, an organization that strives to provide a safe space for Black Engineers to collaborate and grow their skills in the Washington DC area. She has collected several awards including being selected as one of DC’s Top Power Women as well as DC’s Top Technologist in 2017.
-Grant Ingersoll
Quotes
“The amount of imposter syndrome I’ve felt until the last 6 months has been at times overwhelming and there were genuine times when I thought that I couldn’t make it in tech.”
“On the back end I’m handling all the data that is passed to the front end for you to be able to see and manipulate. I also write the algorithms to potentially be able to save that data to the database and then serve to the user when they come back.”
“I have several mentors I’ve picked up along the way but they’ve all happened very naturally. And I think those are the best types of mentor relationships because they genuinely care about the advancement of my career.”
“While I may have my own tickets to complete, I have to also make sure to be thinking of the broader vision and the implication of the tickets we’re working on now so we’re set up for success.”
—Taylor Poindexter
Key Milestones
- Taylor started college thinking she’d go into marketing or medicine, but decided later to get into computer science. What inspired the change?
- I’m a big fan of starting your career doing test and QA due to the things it can teach you about good and bad code and how others think. What has that experience meant for Taylor and her career?
- Taylor was just promoted to sr. back end engineer! What does that mean practically day to day to you?
- What inspired Taylor to co-found Black Code Collective and what is it about?
- Taylor is a natural relationship builder. How does she think about relationships in her life?
Additional Resources
Follow @BlackCodeCollective
Connect with Taylor Poindexter
Twitter
