Who is Dr G?
Hey there! I’m Sarah, aka “Dr G”.
I absolutely love teaching and learning; specifically the science behind it. In starting computer science in college (and meeting Dr Beth Simon) I discovered I could combine education & tech!
I earned my PhD in computer science with a focus on education, created a startup, wrote books, and now I spend my time finding ways to improve the developer experience.
What is DevRel or Developer Advocacy?
I explore developer tools through an authentic lens and then provide feedback or fixes to make that experience better. I also develop content to make adopting tech easier for developers.
What do I do for fun?
And for fun I have a podcast with Chloe Condon called “Salute Your Skorts” where we revisit some of our favorite movies and shows from the 90s.
If you want to catch up with my 90s content, tech content, or just life you can check out any of my social channels linked above.
Happy Coding!
The long version.
I’ve been teaching since I was a child - it’s true! The moment my sister was old enough to participate in my pretend school, I was designing lessons and homework for her. I’ve always loved learning about how people learn. My mom started community college when I was 2-years-old and she became a single mother. I witnessed her educational journey through getting her teaching credential, earning her Master’s in Education, teaching fourth grade, and finally retiring in 2020. Witnessing a single mother, immigrant, achieve so much through the power of education made me realize how critical learning is.
But, I always wanted to be a doctor. Why? Because it was a stable job, that paid well, and was nearly universally respected. And I never wanted to feel unstable, houseless, or scared for my future again. Plus, I had asthma and participated in various research studies throughout my childhood and thought research was the single-most exciting thing you could do. Reality set in my freshman year of college when I was taking Calculus, Chemistry, and other general elective courses and sat there the most alone I’ve ever felt. I was working three jobs to pay for college, living on my own, and every course felt like a competition of who could memorize the most and regurgitate facts onto a test. I wanted to RESEARCH and DISCOVER, not memorize. I nearly dropped out, but discovered my first computer science course.
Dr Beth Simon was my first computer science professor, and I was so incredibly lucky because she was doing research on how people learn computer science! I fell in love with the discipline. I fell in love with the discovery, the opportunity to try and fail, the potential me to build almost anything. I switched into computer science, and when I got towards the end of my undergrad decided I wasn’t done yet! I was lucky enough to do research in computer science education, get into the Master’s program, and ultimately earn an NSF Award which paid for my PhD in Computer Science with a focus on education <3
During grad school I started a company focused on teaching kids to code through various languages. We taught Arduino, Scratch, Alice, and JavaScript. After many children started telling us how much they loved Minecraft, we decided to create a software where kids could mod Minecraft, in the browser, with JavaScript or block-based programming. I stayed with my company as the founder/CTO 2012 - 2016.
After I graduated from grad school, I did co-teach and teach various courses at University of California, San Diego in both the Educational Studies and Computer Science Departments. I created a specific course for computer science majors called “Teaching Computer Science in Informal Learning Spaces” that was one of my favorites to teach! Throughout my part-time teaching I also consulted for various ed-tech companies, including building a GitHub for kids under 13-years-old.
In 2017 I decided to shift to working full-time at traditional tech companies and started as an Engineering Manager at GitHub. I grew my team from 5-10 people and the engineers that I had the pleasure of working with built the GitHub integrations into Visual Studio, VS Code, Atom, and Unity. In early 2019 I moved over to Microsoft to become a Program Manager/Developer Advocate/Content Creator focusing on machine learning and data science.
My 2.5 years at Microsoft is when “Dr G” came out a bit as a persona - one rooted in exactly who I am. I had a “Learn with Dr G” show that was pre-recorded about half the time and live the other half. On this show I walked through various lessons in Python, machine learning, data science, PowerShell, git, bash, and so much more.
To me, “Dr G” is the experience of learning together, learning through practice and through inquiry, and not being afraid to “fail” because if that is just a step along the journey then you will have learned something!
For a couple of months I was a Developer Advocate Engineer at Coinbase. I briefly explored the world of Web3, Cryptocurrency, and Blockchain.
In Spring 2022 I joined Sentry as the Director for Developer Relations.