Improving Diversity in the Elixir Community: Insights from Alexandra Chakeres

In this episode, Alexandra Chakeres, a software engineer at Blinker, discusses her journey in coding and her experience in the Elixir community. She highlights the community's diversity issues, supported by findings from the 2020 ElixirConf community survey, which revealed that only 2% of Elixir programmers are women. Alexandra explains her career path starting with her education at the Turing School and her learn-by-doing approach to acquiring Elixir skills. She shares her first job expectations and current work at Blinker, noting that the small Elixir community size makes it less ideal for beginners. Chakeres provides insights into making the community more inclusive, such as refining hiring pipelines and engaging with diversity-focused organizations. To conclude, the episode features a mini-interview with Instinct Science's Bill Peregoy, who talks about his team's use of Elixir and onboarding new hires. Key points covered include Alexandra's views on her coding background, her thoughts on the Turing Boot Camp, Elixir vs. Ruby comparisons, and strategies to enhance inclusivity in the Elixir community.