My guest today is Shinta Smith. Shinta is currently a Senior Software Engineer at an online travel shopping company. She originally was enrolled as a business major at Oklahoma State University. However, in her second semester as a Freshman, she took a Management Information Science Class. It was designed to be the computing class for business majors, and she really liked it. She expressed her interest in pursuing more of the topics in the management class to her brother, who encouraged her to explore her interests. He recommended Shinta to apply to The University of Texas at Austin because it has a good computing science program, and Shinta decided to transfer.

Shinta’s first job took place at Cooperative Computing Inc as a Software Development Engineer. She wanted the job because she felt that the people there were welcoming of someone with no college experience. She felt comfortable learning and gaining experience from the more senior members of her team. Shinta values inclusivity and feels that it helps people stay passionate and have the ability to learn and explore. In her first job, there was a welcoming attitude that allowed an openness to help each other, which is something that Shinta carried throughout her career. Engineers in Shinta’s current team are all female engineers that Shinta mentors. Her approach as a technical lead is to start from the ground up and show other team members how to fix the issues that arise with her engineers. Shinta does not view leadership as a goal in her career but rather as a means to help her solve problems that her team has. She encourages those interested in any STEM field to find something they are passionate about, even if it takes a little longer, and find a workplace or a college that will allow them space to cultivate that passion and align with their values. If they are just starting to explore the tech field, she advises them to find their passion and use it to drive their exploration into the tech field.