Big news for me: I’m leaving Hacker School and going to work for Dropbox in San Francisco, joining Jessica McKellar’s team. I met Jessica when she was part of the first round of residents at Hacker School in fall 2012, and I’ve had tremendous respect for her work and leadership ever since. Dropbox has an impressive crop of Pythonistas (including Guido van Rossum, of course), and I couldn’t be more excited to join. I’ll be moving to San Francisco at the end of October. If you have recommendations for people to meet, places to go, or things to do, let me know!

This means I’m leaving Hacker School, after more than two years facilitating. My last day will be October 24th. I love Hacker School, and I know I’m going to miss it. Hacker School is entirely responsible for the fact that I’m a programmer at all. I was working in a finance job and contemplating new careers when my brother saw this post about Hacker School’s experiment with Etsy to get more qualified women into the summer 2012 batch. I read the post and the thoughtful, welcoming FAQ, then went home and picked up a Python book. Two months later, I started Hacker School.

Hacker School is about becoming a better programmer, and there’s no doubt that it’s worked for me. For two years, I’ve had total freedom to chase down whatever weird thing catches my eye; I’ve worked with creative, hilarious, brilliant Hacker Schoolers and residents on a dizzying variety of projects; and I’ve been delighted to help build a more inclusive environment at Hacker School, although there’s always more work to be done. (If you’re a curious, sharp, and self-directed programmer, I can’t recommend Hacker School enough.)

I’m thankful that leaving my job at Hacker School doesn’t mean leaving the Hacker School community. I’m trading in my faculty status and becoming one of hundreds of alumni around the world. I’ll still be on Zulip, Community, and everywhere else Hacker Schoolers can be found, and I’ll still have my cape. I may be leaving, but I’ll never graduate.