Sara Inés Calderón: Never Give Up Who You Are

Sara Inés Calderón worked as a professional journalist and in digital media for 10 years. As her career progressed she noticed that technology was starting to dominate the industry in important ways. More and more she found herself dealing with digital platforms, and adjusting HTML and CSS in order to format her work. Being a savvy professional, she realized that if she wanted to stay at the top of her game she was going to have to learn a more substantial set of technological skills.

While working at a startup in Los Angeles, she met Liliana Monge and Gregorio Rojas, co-founders of Sabio.la
, a code school geared toward women and minorities. At the time, she had no idea that the conversations she had with them would change her life.

After she left the startup world, relocated to Austin and began consulting, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity presented itself. “Sara, we have a spot for you,” Liliana told her on the phone one day. Because she was freelancing, and had the flexibility to pursue code school, Sara decided to move back to LA short-term to attend Sabio. Soon after she enrolled in Sabio.la, and upon graduation three months later, she became a bonafide software engineer.

But that’s where the challenges started. Sara Inés Calderón was a well known name in the world of marketing and media, and that was the field she knew and understood. Taking the leap into the technology industry was hard, and initially she found it difficult to find work.

In her own words. “Over the course of 4 months I did about 40 interviews (in person, phone, recruiter interviews), a dozen in-person interviews, 60-plus online applications, dealt with one racist recruiter, a few sexist ones, and had to explain to one potential employer that it wouldn’t be a problem that I brought a ‘feminine touch’ to the office.”

During this time she almost gave up the hunt and actually started searching for marketing jobs again – with the plan to continue her tech projects until she could find a developer job. The technology field was so male dominated that it didn’t seem worth it for her to put in the effort and break through when she knew she could get another marketing job in a snap. Luckily when she was still searching and frustrated, she found Women Who Code Austin one night in February, which gave her a community of peers that understood her frustrations, and could give her support, guidance, and inspiration.

It was a long, difficult, and terrifying path that had her questioning her goals and saw her living off of savings. But eventually Sara got a job offer. And then she got another — in the same day! Her perseverance had paid off, and she was going to get to do exactly what she wanted, what she knew she was meant to be doing.

Today Sara is a software developer at a consulting company in Austin, where she’s been working with new technologies like Boostrap and Angular to build products that will eventually find a global audience. In her spare time she has been working on a variety of other projects, a period tracker app with Women Who Code Austin Founder Holly Gibson, a multimedia project with another Sabio.la graduate named Julia Wells, documenting the history of Latina civil rights activists in Texas, She is also the founder of Más Wired, an online publication focusing on Latinos in tech and STEM.

Sara Inés Calderón was able to find success in one field, but she saw that the world was changing and she wanted to change with it. So when the opportunity arrived she seized it, and despite fear, hardship, and adversity, she has overcome every obstacle in her path. Today she is doing what she loves, and is a role model for women and Latinas everywhere. Feel free to reach out to her on Twitter: @SaraChicaD and follow Women Who Code Austin @WWCodeATX.