Unconventional Backgrounds: The Secret Sauce of Diversity

Presented at All Things Open 2025
Presented by Sharon DeCaro - PayPal Braintree

Title: Unconventional Backgrounds: The Secret Sauce of Diversity
Abstract: A computer scientist has the potential to become an excellent engineer.

But so does an actor. And a philosopher. And a biologist. And a social worker.

In this talk, we explore the non-traditional paths that engineers have taken to become contributors to modern software. We will look at case studies of successful engineers that worked in different careers and have gone on to make significant contributions to their code and their communities. We will also review the challenges these engineers face in the industry and how we can rise to meet those challenges and support a diversity of experiences in our contributions.

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1. Unconventional
Backgrounds
The Secret Sauce to Diversity

Sharon DeCaro

2. What did you want
to be when you
grew up?

3. ballerina
Firefighter

4. The Short, Short Version
a rough timeline
first try
Intro to Java
Intro to Java
"I don’t
program.”
Excel VBA
MS Access
SQL
more SQL
too much SQL
no longer
speaking
English,
only SQL
Full Stack
Engineer
Ruby on
Rails
Engineer

5. Why even focus on
diversity?

6. Why Diversity?
To gather unique perspectives
that can challenge prior assumptions

8. So What’s
“Unconventional”?

9. literally any other path


CS degree

Professionally
centered on
tech

10. Examples

11. ●Athletes
●Teachers
●Food service
●Armed forces veterans
○Vets Who Code - https://vetswhocode.io/
●Incarcerated people
○The Last Mile - https://thelastmile.org/
Other Backgrounds

12. The Challenge
A diverse team will take more work to succeed than a uniform
team.
An unconventional engineer’s contributions may look a little
different from a conventional engineer.
Teams may need to revise what is considered “successful” for
an individual engineer.

13. For the “Conventional”
●Be prepared for different learning styles
●Open up possibilities in your hiring pipeline
●Seek out non-software opportunities in your own life

14. For the “Unconventional”
●Be kind to yourself
●Lean into your strengths
●Lean on others’ strengths

15. All of us
Need
All of us.

16. (me on LinkedIn)