From Educator to Developer Community Manager: Roxy Rodriguez on Career Change, Community, and Building the Tube Feed Tracker

Lucas Casarez hosts Techie Personal Finance Boot Camp. He interviews Roxy Rodriguez Becker, a Cuban American mother of three in Houston who transitioned from a decade in middle school math education and librarianship into tech. Roxy describes discovering web development during her master’s program, self-teaching through Free Code Camp and the 100Devs community (starting fall/winter 2023), attending conferences to network, and enduring a demanding job search that became Leon Noel’s “Chosen One” series with about 33 interviews over nearly a year, including burnout from intensive outreach and preparation. She ultimately landed a developer community manager role at Torq through her established community presence and bilingual skills, gaining remote-work flexibility and travel. Roxy also built the Tube Feed Tracker PWA to help calculate tube-feeding rates and calories for medically complex patients, iterating features including formula search using the OpenAI API.

00:00 Jamming Her Way Into Tech w/ Roxy Rodriguez-Becker
01:41 Background in Education
03:46 Discovering 100Devs
07:28 The Chosen One Series
12:11 Landing the Job
17:24 The Tube Feed Tracker
21:12 Advice for Career Switchers
25:43 SheShips & Streaming
30:35 Roller Derby Days
35:12 Final Tips & Connect with Roxyhttps://linktr.ee/roxyrodbeckhttps://tubefeedratecalculator.vercel.app/https://www.voxport.live/p/roxyrodbeckhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/roxana-rodriguez-becker/