Engineer spotlight

Meet Sarah Rietkerk! She is the engineer responsible for the kiosk feature that we used in the DIY

Sarah grew up with a passion for technology and creativity. Her dad was an internet service provider and her mom loved arts and crafts. She enjoyed school, but she was particularly fond of literature, math, and science because she’s drawn to problem-solving. In her free time, she enjoyed playing basketball, reading, writing stories, playing video games, and going on adventures with her sisters.

Sarah discovered her love for computer science in college after taking a class in Python, where she realized how fun programming could be She was inspired by the cool websites and applications people were building and wanted to learn how to create things like that However, Sarah's journey wasn't straightforward. She pursued mechanical and computer engineering before realizing computer science and digital art was her passion; she graduated with a degree in this passion from Cal Poly, SLO in June 2022.

This kiosk project was Sarah’s first big feature out of school, and she was determined to create a tool that could be used in classrooms to excite students to make games, so she made features like adding and deleting games straightforward With user flows in mind, she took efforts to understand and work with the existing code and interface Although this can be the most challenging part of working with a new codebase, it turned out to be crucial for her initial growth as a software engineer

Sarah advises other girls who are interested in coding not to worry if they don't understand everything right away. That's normal! Jump in and start playing around with different programming languages and frameworks. The best way to learn is by doing, so create personal projects and experiment with tools Remember, your unique perspective and voice are important Don't be afraid to share your story and show off your skills You might just inspire someone else to follow in your footsteps So go out there, be curious, and push boundaries!