In this series, we shine a spotlight on the different DEV moderators — Trusted Members and Tag Mods — who help to make DEV a kind, helpful place. Aside from spreading good vibes and helping fellow community members, these folks also assist us with removing spam and keeping posts well organized by adding and removing tags as necessary amongst other things.

If you want to learn more about what these awesome folks do, I recommend checking out our Trusted Member and Tag Moderation guides. There is information about how to apply in both guides if you're interested in joining up as a moderator.

Introducing Christine Belzie 🙌

This month, we're featuring Christine Belzie, who assists us as a Trusted Member and Tag Moderator for #beginners, #opensource, and #writing. Christine's unique pathway into the industry is not as a software developer, but rather a technical writer. Her goals around championing inclusivity and diversity in the open source world very much align with our values here at DEV and make her an excellent addition to our mod team. I had the pleasure of interviewing Christine asynchronously recently and am siked to share it with you all here. Thank you, Christine!

The Interview

Let's jump right into my questions and Christine's answers!

Michael Tharrington: Can you talk a bit about how you got interested in tech as a non-developer and your goals to become a technical writer for the dev industry?

Christine Belzie: A couple of years ago, I was interviewed for an Instructional Designer position for an EdTech company. Everything went pretty smoothly until I was asked if I had a basic knowledge of HTML. I took a deep breath, and told the interviewer “No”. A couple of days later, I received the classic “We went with someone else” email. From there, I found myself seeing more Instructional Design job postings requesting candidates with coding knowledge, so I decided to learn it. I have a blog post that delves more into the story, so I highly recommend reading it when you get the chance. Now, what got me interested in tech writing, in particular, is the fact that I've been doing a lot of blogging about my coding journey and making docs-related contributions to open-source projects in the past year, so I decided to make that my career path.

Michael: I’ve noticed that you like to write about open source! What interests you in open source and are there any particular open source projects that you’re following or would like folks to know about?

Christine: Collaboration and inclusivity. When you’re just starting your coding journey, it can be difficult to find a community of people in technology who are supportive and welcoming, and I thank the open-source community for being welcoming and helping me grow in my journey.

As far as open-source projects that I follow, I am a huge fan of EddieHub. It was the very first open-source project that I contributed to when I started my open-source journey. They have an emphasis on collaboration before code and are open to people from non-tech and tech backgrounds, so I highly recommend it for beginners.

I also love LinksHub. It is a project that my colleague, Rupali Haldiya (@rupali_codes), created to provide resources to help developers from all backgrounds learn new skills. Right now, we’re participating in this year’s GirlScript Summer of Code, so I have been helping people in that program with making their first open-source contributions. Being a maintainer for LinksHub and helping GSSoC members has been a great learning experience for me and has expanded my perspective on open source.

Michael: I saw on Twitter that you list in your bio: “Championing #inclusivity in coding spaces”… Would you please talk about why you believe diversity and representation are so important for us to focus on in the tech industry?

Christine: For a long time, I never thought that learning to code was possible because I have never seen women in tech roles. If I had been exposed to organizations like Girls Who Code during my teenage years and college, I would have had more confidence to learn how to code and pursued tech writing earlier. So, I have created Twitter posts acknowledging womxn in tech during Women’s History Month, started Open Source Queens, and maintain an open-source repository that provides links to womxn-founded open-source projects with Amanda Martin (@amandamartindev), so that young womxn won’t experience the same feelings of imposter syndrome as I did.

Michael How did you first discover DEV and what encouraged you to become a moderator for the community?

Christine: I have been trying to find a way to grow my audience on Hashnode and learned that DEV.to is another platform where new tech bloggers post their content, so I decided to join the community. I have learned a lot about repurposing content and working with Markdown through this platform. After a couple of months, I decided to become a moderator because I wanted to give back to the community that helped me grow and help amplify the voices of other bloggers, especially those who are not as well known and come from marginalized backgrounds.

Michael: As a fellow non-technical person working in the software dev industry, I occasionally have feelings of imposter syndrome. Do you ever get hit with this same issue and if so, how do you cope?

Christine: I have had moments of imposter syndrome, especially when I first started my coding journey. What has ultimately helped me cope with these feelings is adopting Nike’s slogan: 'Just do it!' I know that sounds difficult, but sometimes, you just have to ignore those negative thoughts that swirl in your head. Know that you have skills to offer, and just work.

Wrap up

Thank y'all for reading. Stay tuned for future mod interviews in this series!