black tech pipeline ai and learning to code again w/ pariss athena

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Let's get the people what they want. Who are you? What do you do? We'll go from there. Well, good morning everyone in the chat. My name is Paris Chandler. I'm founder and CEO of Black Tech Pipeline, which is a job board, newsletter and recruiting platform centering black technologists and our allies. We partner with different companies to help them either source through our talent directory or get them on the job board so that people can learn more about what it's like to work out those companies. And I'm also a mobilizer of the hashtag movement and community black tech Twitter, which is a global community of black technologists from all around the world globally.

Yeah, I'm a mom, I'm a fiance, I'm a human. Yeah, I love it. I love it. I tell you again, it's good to see Robert. It's good to see you as well Edgar Arthur got the people tuned in It's wonderful. See y'all. All right. So first off. Let's let let's just talk with the OG story Black tech Twitter talk about it. It's all about the power social media kind of give me kind of the OG story of That whole thing because now I'm gonna be honest. I didn't know that was you so it was really cool to meet you ago and And then I was like after we made I was like damn I gotta get her on podcast and then I shot my shot here So talk about just kind of the story about that.

Yeah, I really love that you said you didn't know it was me. Because that means like that's how much it's expanded. Oh, it's wild. I mean props to you. I mean, it's incredible. That like that makes me very, very happy. So yeah, so I got into tech in 2017. And before that I was like doing something very different from tech. And so once I got my first job in the industry, I was always the only person who looked like me at every single company. every single company and I don't even mean like just on the tech team. I mean, period, like putting a company on.

I was like, this is so weird. Like, I never dealt with that before because every other job I'm always surrounded by people who look like me in a lot of diversity. And so I got on Twitter not to like look for a community. I just got on Twitter to sort of like talk about tech, like talk about my journey in tech. And when I got on there, I started noticing that there was a tech community on there. And then I started noticing, wait a second, like there's a lot of black people in tech on here. And I wanted to know how many more of us were out there.

And so I posted that tweet just to, I didn't expect anything to come from it because I was nobody. What was the tweet again? It was, what does Black Twitter, because Black Twitter is its own ecosystem. What does Black Twitter in tech look like? So I posted that and then I posted my picture with like a caption of like what I do in tech and at that time I was a front-end developer. So I posted that, left my phone alone, came back. I was gonna say, I was gonna say, did you like go to bed and like woke up? and I had to like woke up and I was like, whoa.

Like a regular ass day, like I just went about my life because I don't expect anything from it. I didn't have followers or anything like that. So and it just ended up. You're like zero like very little followers at that point. Maybe 500 could have been less than that. Like I don't, it was ridiculous. So posted that, went about my life, came back. And I'm like, wait a second. Like what's going on? It's like, I'm like, just, it was blowing up. And I'm seeing all these people who look like me and I'm retweeting it so that people can see like, oh look, there's like, there are black people in tech.

We have this big community. And that's really where it all started. Like it just gained so much attention, not just from like technologists, but also different companies, recruiters, the media, some celebrities, like I was like, this is insane. And there you go, black tech Twitter. That's amazing, that's amazing. So, and then that essentially catapulted, I'm trying to talk about the train that so that went viral, right? That was awesome. Did you think about starting Black Tech pipeline then or not? No, I didn't think I didn't want to even when like the tweet was going viral. I wasn't thinking of, Oh, I'm going to create this community.

Like I thought nothing of it. I was just like, Oh, this is like really cool. Like there's all this exposure to black people in tech. Um, and it wasn't until someone was like, wait, I think you just did something and people started commenting like, wait a second, like this is really big, like this is a big deal. And people were like, wow, like the pipeline problem does not exist. It's a networking problem. Ta-da-da. I was like, okay, wait, this is significant. Like, and I didn't think about Black Tech pipeline till the years later. Okay, okay. That's incredible. So talk about Black Tech pipeline. What is it?

And if you can just dive in a little bit there. Yeah. So Black Tech Pipeline, it is an online platform. So it's a job board newsletter and talent directory. We used to be this recruiting platform where we pretty much took all of Black Tech Twitter, all of the job seekers, and they entered their information into a database that I created so that I could source from there to send them to different hiring partners. I feel like I need to give context here. So when Black Tech Twitter went viral, I had a lot of employers DMing me on Twitter. Like I'm not like the biggest companies just DMing you, like out of nowhere.

And they're like, hey, we see that, you just harness this new community of black technologists. We really wanna diversify, we wanna do better. Can you recruit these candidates into our companies? And I was like, sure, but I didn't think of like making it a business or charging them. I was just like, I'm like, you just wanna like help. Yeah, whatever. Cause I was a full-time software engineer anyway. So it wasn't like a thought of mine. So that's why I started like recruiting. I was like, okay, let me create this Discord community. From the Discord community, I'm gonna create this air table, like database where people can enter the information.

And from their all source. And so that's what I did for two years for free. And then that's when I was like, okay, wait a second, this is taking up a lot of my time. I feel like this needs way more attention. Let me create a business, I can create a business out of this. And that's what I did. And that's how pretty much Black Stick pipeline came to be. amazing, amazing. So talk about, I love to have some like learning lessons from you, especially for people who may want to start something on the side or what not. Like what was that journey like at a super high?

I mean, obviously, like we could talk about literally just probably founding Black Tech Pipeline just in one episode, but talk about just the journey and what you've learned as you've grown with that business. Yeah, so just how important like relationships are and When something is a fit and when it's not and when it's not that's okay. Don't be afraid to say no I mean, I swear I've learned like so much. It's really hard to like right here and like tell you okay Well, then let me ask you a second. What would be one piece of advice you have for somebody who wants to start something?

I don't want to give the whole validate your idea like Like, honestly, it's weird. Like I feel like if it's something that you are like passionate about, there's something about not intentionally starting a business that makes a really good business, right? Yes. So true. Yes. Like it's like, because if you don't, yeah, I'm trying to like think about how to say this in words, but that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Like I was not trying to start a business. I wasn't even trying to start a community. It kind of just happened. I don't know, like maybe start off with a passion project, something you really like, and maybe you can build a community around it.

There are the people who also have that sort of passion, and it can somehow become a business. Like, I don't know, there's a lot of pieces of advice I can give. I think one piece right now that I'm learning though, is that, so that virality from Black Tech Twitter, that virality does not like last in terms of a business sense, right? Like eventually, you know, all these clients are coming to you, but eventually you're gonna have to do outreach and making sure that you have these sort of systems and processes in place to make sure like there's always a flow of people coming in and reasons why they're leaving knowing those things, like being really organized and collecting data.

Like those things are really important in business. Talk, I wanna dive in a little bit more cause I know I talk about something about social media and community and obviously you technically started Black Tech Pipeline off of a social media post you've talked about community a lot, can you try to unpack how social media is so important to building community and maybe some advice to people who are scared about posting or thinking people are gonna judge them or they don't have enough followers, they don't have an impact. Can you kind of talk a little bit about that? And again, I know it's a lot of information.

Yeah, I mean, the internet is like, it's like a whole bunch of collective thoughts and ideas and there's no reason why you shouldn't be contributing yours. And if you can contribute yours in a way where you're sort of engaging with someone else. So commenting on their posts, maybe giving your perspective and maybe they'll disagree and it's okay to like kind of go back and forth, but hopefully like in a really positive way. And I think it's always better to like listen. I know this is like over social media about like listening to understand versus listening to debate with someone. Ah, geez. Yeah, like try to understand their perspective, see where they're coming from.

Even if you still disagree, it's like, okay, like, you know, We can agree to disagree that's totally fine. They can meet your side of the story or whatever. Yeah, somebody came at me this morning with like three paragraphs on LinkedIn and I was like, I just don't have the time. I don't have the time. Yeah, it wasn't that big of a deal, but at least I'm used to it now. But so talk about building community. It's really hard to build community. I think there's many different nuances to it. How have you built community? Like what do you think maybe your superpower is when it comes to building community?

You know what, I don't feel like I'm the, I don't know how to phrase this, like I don't think I'm like the greatest person when it comes to like the community stuff. So for me, I think because of how Black Tech Twitter started, I was always like, there is no, I don't want Black Tech Twitter to ever have like a designated leader. Like you can find out how it started, right? And why it started, which is my story. but I don't ever want it to be like, oh, Paris is in charge of Black Tech Twitter, like it's a community, right? We're a collective of people.

And so we should be helping sort of like raise this community and make it a positive experience for everyone together. I feel like that's always what community is about. It's not like one designated person making all of you together. 100%. Yeah, I mean, I have a discord, right? And like I want other people posting. Like it's not, it's not just me. And I think encouraging others to speak up and voice things I think is I think huge. Joyce comes in and goes, I love that Paris is listening to understand. I think everybody everybody needs to. I think so people so many people in Paris, you're obviously very vocal on Twitter.

I feel like so many people jump and try to argue just for the sake of arguing. It's like, why are we arguing about this? You know what? I agree. And I'm not even going to lie. I've been one of those people who like I'm outraged because everyone's outraged. Yeah. I'm mad. Why are you mad? I'll go back and be like, wait, was that really wrong? Was there something really wrong with that? Why am I mad? Like those are things I'm starting to like, before I say anything now on social media, I really reflect and think, am I actually upset about this? Or am I just jumping the train with everyone else?

Sure. I want to stop doing that. It's something I'm working on too. I love that. I love that. All right, let's talk about, you made a post stay on LinkedIn about AI. Yes. Talk about it. Um, so it, I guess it depends. So for my post on LinkedIn, I was talking really about resume review. I talk about AI a lot though, but for resume review purposes, it's like talking about an ATS with your resume in terms of resume design. So people will put like colors and headshots and tables and charts and whatever. They'll put the most random things on their resume because they really want it to stand out, especially in this job market because it's so freaking competitive and wild.

And I'm like, okay, wait a second. It's nice that you wanna stand out, you wanna make your resume pop, right? So you can catch someone's attention, but that's you normally not how it works because people are using an ATS, which is the applicant tracking system. And that itself is AI and it's using, like it's matching your resume to a job description to make sure that you are a good fit. And using those things like putting in logos and all these unnecessary items and elements on your resume can kind of like create errors, right? And it ranks your resume really, really low to the point where it won't even send your resume to a recruiter.

And that's what I was talking about. It's more like the resume design aspect. Yeah, absolutely. What do you think I got to comment on TikTok here, see job description and post on chat GPT, then tell chat GPT to make the resume and then post the resume on the job boards. You get to slipper slope. I think it's a slipper slope. Like my thing is, I think chat GPT can give you a good outline. Like if you don't know how to start a resume, I think that's good. I think maybe throw a job description up and maybe say, Hey, help me write a resume Facebook and like see that, use that and then modify it on your own.

But I think if you're just like dumping into chat GPT and then just posting that, I think, I think that's a very slippery slope. Oh, risky because, yeah, he is not, listen, you know, much I argue with chat GPT because it doesn't follow directions. It literally, I'm like- There's just angry all the time. On Twitter because of chat. There we go. It's chat GPT. Right. I'm like, what did I just tell you? You didn't even follow my instructions. Like, I'm honestly arguing with it, but no, make sure you're always reviewing whatever, you know, it's generating for you. Even within the Black Tech Pipeline Talent Directory, we have this feature where, because we've integrated with chat GPT, where it can take your resume and sort of form this like introduction or blurb about you.

And we're like, okay, like even though it's done this, make sure to review it and make sure it's correct and sounds good, right? Yep. Cause you just, you never know. It's not right. Yeah, you don't, you don't. So I want to, so I want to kind of dive it. Oh, and then real quick. So AI, but you're about to release like a cohort or like a class or something, right? Oh, I'm in one right now. You're in one, got you. Okay. Okay. Cool. Sweet, sweet. So, so let's talk about kind of your journey in general, right? for the last half of the interview, let's talk, you know, bootcamp grad to develop or to founder.

First off, let's talk boot camps for a second, right? Do you like, do you like the idea of boot camps? Do you think people should go that way? Like, just let's talk about boot camps as a high level real quick. What are your thoughts? And what was your experience as well? Okay, so I went to resilient coders. And it's a bootcamp that pays you to learn how to code. You don't, there's no tuition or anything like that. And what they do is they, so they can take anyone into their bootcamp, but they're really securing people of color from underserved communities. We take you, they pay you a stipend.

I think it was weekly or biweekly, I can't remember. And they taught me, my cohort, they changed since then, but I learned HTML, CSS and JavaScript for six weeks. And then they put you into their apprenticeship program where they continue to pay you and you work on their client website so that you're getting real world experience. And from there, like you're connecting with their network, they're sending you to like networking events like crazy. You have to collect business cards. This is all part of the career. Really? Yes. This sounds incredible. It's literally, it was one of the best experiences of my life. That is unreal.

Yeah, it was amazing and it worked. I mean, it was what was crazy was that before I joined resilient coders, I was in getting my associates degree to eventually go into marketing. And there was this internship that I really, really wanted at this very specific advertising agency. And so I didn't get it because then I went into the boot camp. So it turns out that that advertising agency was connected with resilient coders. And so I told them, I was like, wait a second. I was like, I overheard them talking, a conversation at a desk. I was like, did you just say the company's name? I was like, I'm dying to get an internship there.

I want to go there so bad. So they connected me with someone at that agency. I went and got a tour. At the end of the tour, we had a conversation and they were like, so do you wanna join our summer internship? And I was like, yes, like that's it. It was amazing. I mean. Yeah. Um, we got to get a lot of comments like shot resilient coders while Christina loved this program. How do I learn more? Yeah. Message pairs, I don't, yeah. Yeah, you can DM me on LinkedIn and it's resilient coders. I believe.org. If you go there that you can sign up for their bootcamp.

That sounds incredible. Yeah. So how did you, and then it looks like, sounds like some of the Richmond too, max potential. That's cool, that's awesome. Yeah, that's amazing. Paris, that's an art of things for dropping that information. So talk, so how did you find your first job? Was it networking? Was it like an event, business card event? It was through someone from resilient coders again. So resilient coders had a lot of people come in to mentor boot campers, and these people were coming from different, you know, big tech companies. And there was one that I was frequently meeting with. And when I was on the job hunt, during that year of me graduating the boot camp, I was on the job hunt, I finished my internship.

He emailed me and he was like, hey, I have this friend hiring at a startup. They're looking for a junior engineer. Are you looking for a job? And I was like, yeah. And so, Yeah, he connected me with them. I went and talked to them. They gave me a really short interview. And I got the job. And yeah. I love that. Talk about the power of boot camps from a community. Like, why do you think people should look at boot camps? I think the most important thing is that boot camps are a more equitable route to an education. whereas you're going a four year degree and needing to pay a whole lot of money.

And I, but I think that overall people should be looking at free or cheap resources before deciding that you're going to spend all of this money. A hundred centigrade. A hundred centigrade. Um, and I know that it, I know it's tempting because a lot of, especially right now, people are like, you have to get your degree in this job market. So competitive. That's not true. Like it looks like there are hard, there was just a recent article about, um, Harvard master's grads can't get jobs. Like it's really hard. No one can get jobs right now. Like it's really hard for everyone. So with that in mind, please like save your funds.

Please look at what is free, what is more accessible and if all of that fails, then go ahead and think about a degree if you really want. Yeah, I mean, this is a bigger conversation. I just think degrees are like, I think college, I think not college is going to be obsolete. I don't think college is ever going to be obsolete, but I think it's going to be very different in the next 10 to 15 years. I think we're going to go back to trade schools. I think we're going to go back to boot camps or more emphasis on boot camps. I just, the idea of putting people in major debt, starting their career just as, I mean, to be honest with you, I think it's the biggest marketing dupe ever that colleges have.

Yeah, yeah, a lot of promises were made and those promises aren't being kept. So Put yourself first do yourself a favor do your own research and do what's best for you 100% Lawrence here for that Paris wisdom shot to I love Lawrence of that The mentorship during boot camps is great Yes, and I think I think my biggest thing with boot camps too is that there's Communities that you can lean on to find the job right? So I do a lot of or I did a lot of volunteer at Nashville software school in town who has a great program and they have just this massive community now of grads.

There's like two or three thousand grads on LinkedIn that went to an MSS and you can hit up all of them and try to get in the doors. I think it's huge. I think it's huge. So you were so you were bootcamp grad, then you moved to the development and then founder and then you talked about how you're moving back into learning how to code. So talk about because I feel like that's a a little bit of a humbling experience. Like you did it, you got it, and then you got to go do it again. Yeah. So there's a few reasons. So when I became a founder, so I've been running Black Tech Pipeline for three years now full-time, and it's been great, but because of that, I've been leaning more on business versus like anything really technical.

And I think that's going to hurt me in the long run, especially now that we are in this era of AI, and I don't want to be left behind. So I'm I'm trying to gain my technical skills back. And it is a bit easier now because things are coming back to me. Sure. But I don't want to put myself at risk. And I think the other thing, too, if I had to be honest, is this current political climate with DEI being removed from various organizations and institutions, it's scary, especially with a business that centers black technologists. I want to always be prepared. I hope nothing ever happens.

but I want to keep prepared. That makes sense. 100%. If people watch this now in the future, what can, I guess, what do you need? How can people help with black tech pipeline and in your business right now? It's always getting the word out, letting people know that we exist, that we're a job board newsletter and talent directory. We help people get jobs, we partner with various companies. We're not some job board that like scrapes jobs. we actually partner with these companies. In our newsletter, we're constantly providing various resources, not just jobs or things like scholarships or events, things like that. So just getting the word up, people know we're here.

I love that. All right, so, should we wrap up here? Four questions for you, four questions. First question is, if money was the same or better, what would you do outside of tech? I would live in a cottage on a open field and I would make ASMR food videos. Are you serious? Yes. I love that. I love that. That's awesome. I saw you post, I think, on Twitter about a white porch or something like that. Is that just, you just want to get out of a city, I guess. I want to get out of a city. I just, I enjoy aesthetic and small things. Like I love my kitchen and I put little small knickknacks everywhere and I love cooking.

And I just wanna record that and edit it and show it to people. I love that. So that it makes them happy. You know what, please. Also, whatever you cook last night looked amazing, by the way. And again, it's just Twitter people. I'm not creeping, she just posted on Twitter. And it was amazing. It looked good. It looked good. I was gonna say, I was gonna say, you send me some, we can eat it live in the morning. Next question. What tools, technologies, trends are you reading right now that are interesting, maybe outside of AI? Or you can talk about AI too, but is there anything you're looking into at all frameworks, languages, anything?

React. I was a React developer. So what I'm doing is I'm relearning vanilla JS, then moving into React so that I have the fundamentals that I can just kind of... Do you think people should do that? I feel like people just like jump to react immediately. They, that's what I did when I first sort of started learning. I didn't get as much, I didn't put enough time into vanilla JS. And I think that kind of hurt me. Okay. So yes, I think start with the fundamentals, vanilla JS, then move into react. Yes. Love that. Love that. Found my other question. What outside of tech brings you joy?

Take talk. Girl, say it. Girl, say it's my favorite pastime. Yeah, it's my favorite pastime. Okay, love that. Last question. So we had guidance counselors at Mill School, high school and college, but now as adults, we don't really necessarily have them. So that's why the show is called guidance counselor 2.0. What would be your biggest piece of career advice to young Paris? Ooh, ugh, like, it's really hard. Put yours so firm. I don't know, that's really hard. I'm gonna talk about it, to publish it first. What do you mean by that? I feel like, I guess I'm trying to think about like all these transitions I'm going through because I used to be one of those like hustle hustle, like let's get this bag, let's get this money.

And now I'm like, I'm so tired of this. Like I feel like I'm constantly recycling the same information, I'm seeing the same people say the same things, like we're all trying to like get noticed, get money. And I'm like, I'm tired. Like, I'm gonna put myself in a place where like, I just wanna do what I wanna do and I don't wanna feel pressured to like, be the center. I don't know if that makes sense. No, that makes sense. I think prioritizing you in the sea of everything that's going on. So, no, I totally get that. I totally get that. Any last words of wisdom for folks?

Any last words of wisdom for people on the job search right now? That's kinda what I like to do too. Ooh, don't like look at like really small companies. Yes, yes, no one said that. No one said that. Okay, so I feel like I say this all the time, but just look at really small companies. And when I... They're hiring, I promise. I know a small company. Yeah, like look at local startups in your area. You can look at startups elsewhere as well. And I think like just looking at various brands in your house that you like and Google their careers page and see what they're hiring for.

Like, I've always shown this example of, I saw Conair, it's like a hair brand in Target. I went to their careers page and they were hiring for a junior engineer remotely. And I was like, what? Like, no, I would have never thought of that a hair brand. But it's a technology company too, because they're building these products, right? So you never know where you're gonna find a job. Don't just look where everyone else is looking, because that's just gonna up the competition for you. And it's okay if it's a company that you start at, you don't have to stay there your whole life. If you can start there, then move on, especially if you're looking for your first tech job, you know, what you need to worry about is getting your foot in the door.

Like get your foot in the door and then move on. Like I wouldn't make like having this massive salary like the goal, I guess, like your priority when you're first trying to get in. Just get in. Just get in. Yes. You can go for the big salary. Yes, yes, absolutely. Also, funny you brought this up, Taylor Poindexter interviewed Monday. She brought this up too. She was like a fan of gusto, like the payroll app, and like looked up gusto. And so yeah, I think that's brilliant. Look at small companies, go to, I think TechCrunch has like a startup, go to product hunt. Yeah. Look that up.

And then yeah, walk around your house, be like, what brands do I really resonate with? And then look up them and see if they have jobs open, which they most likely will. So love that. All right, Paris, thank you for joining me. I appreciate it. y'all thank you again for hanging out with us today. Stay on real quick, sexy body, you off air, but y'all have a great one tomorrow. I'm off and then Friday will be back just me, myself and I talking about a few things. So y'all have a wonderful hump day and we'll see y'all Friday, peace. Hey, you did it. You listened to an entire episode and I am very grateful, because you know why?

There's a lot of podcasts out there. There's a lot of episodes and I myself rarely finished an entire episode. So I appreciate you so, so much for listening. Quick reminder, please rate and review this podcast in the App Store. I want this to be discoverable to others. And the only way that happens is if you take the time right now and rate and review it, please, like right now, unless you're driving, then don't do it. So thank you again. If you need to reach out to me at Tdastin on all social media handles. And I hope you have a fantastic day.