Humans of NET/WORK: 5 people we met at our annual tech jobs fair in DC

From bootcamp grads to experienced strategists, attendees at Technical.ly‘s annual NET/WORK jobs fair on Wednesday night came from all different points in their careers came to check out tech employment opportunities from local companies.

Alley powered by Verizon DC was transformed into a networking destination where nearly 100 people came out to meet the 13 companies hiring including Capital One, SparkLabs, Aquicore, realLIST 2019 honoree WhyHotel and more. The event included resume reviews, professional headshots and catering from another realLIST company, HUNGRY.

A few shots of #networkdc19 tech jobs fair underway here @youralley pic.twitter.com/iShjjUE6Fc

— Technical.ly DC (@TechnicallyDC) March 27, 2019

Since these type of events can be so fast-paced, we decided to slow things down a bit to highlight five people we met, including attendees and employers:

Josh Daniell started working with WeWork two years ago as a campus manager before transitioning to the campus director of Flatiron School in DC, a coding bootcamp subsidiary of WeWork, in September 2018.

“I love my job. The coolest part of my day is reading student surveys, which we do four times during each course for each student,” Daniell told Technical.ly.

Daniell said he met a lot of people at the event, including some Flatiron graduates. Flatiron was in attendance to review CVs and LinkedIn profiles for attendees as they go out on the job hunt. These are normal perks that Flatiron graduates get when they graduate from a program at the coding bootcamp.

Anna Kanterova said she came to the event to network with professionals and meet the companies hiring to see their requirements for employment since she recently switched her career to IT.

“I’m inspired to see how many women are here representing the companies, which shows that this is really number one in the nation for places to be,” Kanterova said about D.C. being the best place to be for women in tech.

Kanterova had “Front End Magic” written in pink on her name tag as an ode to her love for JavaScript, SaaS and code. She is a self-taught coder, with five months of lessons under her belt, even though she had some experience working with HTML already in her previous profession as a social media marketer.

Jemma Parsons is Zeus Living‘s head of business development in Washington, D.C. Her main objective is to find companies who have a need for Zeus, a new age corporate housing company. The company expanded to D.C. in October 2018 after launching in 2015 out of San Francisco with other locations on the West Coast.

Parsons explained that there are two aspects of the business: one is for property management companies looking to lease out units for a longer period of time and the second is to connect those with housing needs a place to stay. Zeus will lease and manage properties, fully furnish them and is equipped with a 24/7 customer experience team.

Even though Zeus didn’t come to the event to hire tech workers, Parsons had other goals in mind.

“We are here to work on making our presence in the D.C. market known,” Parsons said. “D.C. is a really different market from San Francisco, so we’re rethinking the way we sell ourselves.”

The company is hiring for jobs in other fields in the D.C. region.

Greg Billings came to NET/WORK with 15 years of analytics experience and is searching for contract work in consulting for business planning and analyses. His expertise is in corporate strategy, analytics and technical editing.

Billings hopes to work for a “bigger corporation with very narrowly defined projects.”

Alicia Geller came to NET/WORK with one goal in mind: apprenticeships.

She has experience in data science and UX usability research. She envisions using her background in psychology and human computer interaction in her next position to combine public health with products for users, and to understand what their needs are. Geller currently works as a lab office manager and is taking a Python class. She said she has tapped into local resources like Women Who Code, Hear Me Code and tech meetups.