Introducing Ebonie Butler

Ebonie Butler has her BS degree in information technology from Drexel University. And in 2015, she became interested in WordPress as a platform to start blogging about metal music. She recently started her first developer position with YIKES, Inc. as a WordPress developer.

Show Notes

Website | Ebonie.me

Podcast website | http://metalandcoffee.com/

Twitter | @metalandcoffee_

Episode Transcript

Liam: This is Hallway Chats, where we talk with some of the unique people in and around WordPress.

Tara: Together, we meet and chat with folks you may not know about in our community.

Liam: With our guests, we’ll explore stories of living – and of making a living with WordPress.

Tara: And now the conversation begins. This is Episode 46.

Liam: Welcome to Hallway Chats. I’m Liam Dempsey.

Tara: And I’m Tara Claeys. Today, we’re joined by Ebonie Butler. Ebonie has her BS degree in information technology from Drexel University. And in 2015, she became interested in WordPress as a platform to start blogging about metal music. In late 2016, she participated in the interactive mechanics fellowship program, focusing on creating a custom WordPress theme as her final project. At the conclusion of the fellowship, Ebonie started her first developer position with YIKES, inc as a WordPress developer. Hi, Ebonie. Welcome.

Ebonie: Hi.

Liam: Hi, Ebonie. Thanks for joining us on the show. Can you please tell us a little bit more about yourself? More than what Tara just shared?

Ebonie: Sure. I’m a 30-something and I feel like mentioning my age as a new person in tech is like– people don’t think that you can get started in tech later in your career but I’m only a developer and I just turned 30 so it’s never too late. Yeah, I’m a 30-something WordPress developer and I’ve been a developer professionally, full time for about nine months. And I transitioned from being a tester in a big company but it wasn’t fulfilling at all. I finally took the leap and took the challenge to become something I thought I wouldn’t be able to do, something I wouldn’t think I’d be able to become. But with high work I definitely made it there, obviously. But yeah, I think that’s a little bit more about myself.

Tara: Have you always been interested in technology and is that thing that you’ve been passionate about? What kind of sparked that for you to pursuit that?

Ebonie: Well, I grew up in a very tech family. My dad has his degree in computer science and he always exposed us to a computer. From early age, probably around six, I had my own computer which is a good and bad thing. Because with my generation, I definitely grew up in the height of chat rooms and talking online and all that stuff. I think actually that definitely played a huge part in what I’ve become today, just having access to that information right from the getgo and having a computer at that age. I was being able to learn how to reinstall my OS when I screwed up the viruses or malware. Because my dad wasn’t going to do it for the 10th time, he’s got tired so I had to learn how to do that. That ended up just being something I do yearly, not knowing what the skills I had. I know a lot about system admin stuff just from being forced to do it myself when I was growing up starting from when I was six. It was good, I definitely had a lot of fun, had my own computer, but I definitely feel like that contributed to my introvertism, too Because I had a lot of online friends. I still do have a lot of online friends friends. [laughs]

Tara: That’s really neat that your dad kind of did it for y...