We’re delighted to welcome Massi Tashakori, who will be doing an internship with us over the next three months - an internship made possible of course by the amazing team at Code Like a Girl.

We’ve long been supporters of Code Like a Girl for their work educating, advocating, and supporting women in technology and are so pleased to join as an industry partner.

With a team of learners, and teachers, we always want to be able to support people looking to gain experience in the world of digital. As we do with any investment in our team, we want to be sure that the right support and structure is there so the experience for all involved is a good one.

There are a couple of things that have helped us step into this partnership with confidence. We’ve learned a great deal supporting placements with Swinburne’s Bachelor of IT over several years. We also introduced a coaching framework in our development team last year - teaming people up with more experienced developers - so everyone in the team has the support and guidance for their ongoing learning and improvement.

It didn’t take much to convince Michelle Cao, one of our excellent developers, to step into the role of helping to hire, and now to coach, Massi. She saw it not only as a great opportunity for Massi but for Inlight to give back and help women to re-skill or upskill in tech.

The diversity of candidates was eye-opening for us; some having just started their journey in tech and others with more years of experience than some of our own team but struggling to find work. It’s humbling to know that Code Like a Girl exists, supporting women where they are so much the minority in tech. It’s a wonderful opportunity for women to get a foot in the door and a bit of momentum to propel their careers.

With our interns, we try not to hold any expectations, and instead, we want to provide an environment where they can learn and flourish.

Working with Massi, Michelle’s hope is simply to provide her a chance to learn and to feel supported.

Massi worked as a full-stack developer in software companies in Iran and since moving to Australia has worked in a variety of roles in tech as well as studying and teaching code but it wasn’t until she started building her own website and coding with modern tech that she realised how much she missed coding so started looking for companies that empowered women and somewhere she would feel supported to improve her skills and build confidence.

There have been some big changes in development since she last worked in a dev team about 6 years ago, which has been really exciting. The biggest change she has noticed is the way that collaboration happens in the production of work, previously having done every single thing before it’s reviewed and now, with collaboration on each feature, it feels much more effective for the overall build.

And Massi’s first impressions of Inlight?

To find out more about becoming a Code Like A Girl partner or getting involved in their internship program, visit their website.