I Want Her Job:
Alice Steinglass, Vice President of Product and Marketing, Code.org By Brianne Burrowes This article originally appeared on IWantHerJob.com. Alice Steinglass always knew she liked math and science. Bigger yet, she loved understanding how the world works. With a knack for taking things apart to figure out how they worked, Alice was a lover of the logic of math and science and how neatly everything fit together. But, at the same time, while growing up she also was a creative, making whatever she could out of construction paper found around her childhood house. She felt a pull. She would have to choose between creativity and the concrete logic of math and science.
When Alice discovered computer science, however, she realized it was a magic field, allowing her to combine her love of creativity and logic.
Now the vice president of product and marketing for Code.org, it’s her mission to help introduce others to the world of computer science and the power it holds.
How did you discover coding? What prompted you to learn to code?
I first discovered coding in second grade. They taught Logo in my class. Logo is really simple computer programming. The idea is that there’s a turtle on the screen, and you’re moving that turtle around. You can make the turtle move forward, turn and draw. With a few simple instructions, you can turn simple triangles into amazing spiral patterns. It’s like the old Spirograph toy, but you can break out of the plastic to create your own designs.
Again, it was that combination of art and computing that I loved. After that class ended, I didn’t pick up programming again for years.
I think the fact that I wasn’t programming from a young age is something that made me different from many others I saw in computer science. I’ve been working in an industry where some people have been taking computers apart since they were 4 years old. I started really learning computer science in high school through formal education. I enjoyed the logic puzzles, but it can be intimidating to be surrounded by students who know so much more than you about how to hack a system or build a network. Outside of class, I made some video
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“Two-thirds of computer science jobs are outside of the tech industry. This makes sense: almost every industry today uses technology – from marketing to medicine to shopping or entertainment. No matter what you want to do with your career, knowing some computer science amplifies your opportunities,” Alice says. “It's amazing how much opportunity there is and how little we are teaching it.”
games and tried to break into my little brother’s account to see if I could embarrass him. But, it wasn’t until I was in college that I realized I could take my experience outside the classroom and go create an entire product on my own. Some classmates and I worked with a professor to build a startup. Like many tech startups from 15 years ago, it isn’t around anymore. But, knowing I had the skills to build a real website and product with paying customers was extremely empowering. Another aspect of computer science I love is that it actually goes much faster than the other sciences. For example, if you’re doing biology, you design an experiment, and then you wait, and wait, and wait. You wait for chemicals to react, or bacteria to mutate or for something to grow up. In computer science you can have an idea, try it out and then see it that day. If it doesn’t work, you try something else right then. The speed at which you can play and try things is amazing.
After college you worked at Microsoft for years. What prompted you to leave Microsoft for Code.org?
I loved my job at Mircrosoft. Before I left, I was the group program manager on HoloLens. In this role I spent my time focusing on how to build a UX
platform, a user experience and a shell for placing holograms in space. I thought about things like, “Where do your apps go when you can put them anywhere?” It was a fascinating project.
While I loved my job and the people I worked with, I couldn’t help but notice the lack of diversity in my industry. I attended conferences that were 95% male and often there was not a single African American or Hispanic coder in the room. And, I’d find myself outside of work (when I had free time) volunteering in the classroom teaching computer science. After one class, I had all the little girls in the room coming up to me to show me their heart robots and tell me they wanted to make their own apps when they grow up. When the product and marketing job opened up at Code.org, I interviewed immediately. I believe in the mission of Code.org: that every child should have the opportunity to learn computer science. I want to give third grade Megan the same chance I’ve had to spend her day at work building and creating cool products. We need to increase diversity in tech. There are a lot of things we can do to support women and minorities in the workplace and improve retention. But, the first problem is educational opportunity. If most African Ameri-