Today we’d like to introduce you to Noel Castillon
Hi Noel, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I’m a teacher turned software engineer! I had no intention of doing anything other than teaching for the rest of my life. I thought for certain I would be in the classroom until either I died or retired–whichever came first.
As it turns out, life gets complicated, plans change, and I was left trying to think of ways to pivot when a career in education became less of an option. Reflecting on my time teaching, I thought deeply about my time working through the pandemic. Through these unprecedented times, I recognized that the only things that allowed me to do my job effectively were tools created by EdTech companies and software developers. When I couldn’t meet with my students in person to pass out worksheets or walk us over to the library to pick up a new novel, these tools gave us a sense of normalcy and routine that was sorely missed while learning online. With this, I thought, “If I can help other people like these engineers helped me, I’ll be happy.”
From there, I set down a path to learn as much as I could. The beauty of today’s digital world is that the exchange of information is vast and constantly being updated, with numerous resources for anyone curious about getting their feet wet with coding. Some things, such as HTML and CSS, were familiar thanks to exposure during the golden ages of MySpace and Neopets but I quickly found that the depth of knowledge needed to make similar apps that I used when I was teaching was going to take some serious time and effort.
Recognizing this, I sought two things that I considered key to launching myself into a career in tech: mentors and a community of people as hungry to learn as I was. I needed to lean on the expertise of industry professionals willing to impart their wisdom, and I needed to find folks in my similar situation to keep each other motivated. I was fortunate and forever grateful to find these things online with communities such as 100Devs, however, I found myself eager to experience these things in person as well. With the pandemic dying down and in-person meetups slowly returning, me and a friend decided to meet at a local coffee shop and we put it up as an open invite online as “Columbus Code & Coffee”, cautiously optimistic that anyone would want to give up their Saturday afternoon to talk about programming.
Slowly but surely, people started coming out. From boot camp students to principal engineers, our meetup became a confluence for all software builders in central Ohio, all happy to talk tech and participate in mutual learning. Suffice to say, I accomplished my goal of finding a community to help me kickstart my new career, but I could not have anticipated how this group would snowball and find its footing in Columbus’ rich tech scene.
In the two years since it began, CBUS Code & Coffee has burgeoned into a community of 1,400+ members with over 50 events under our belt. We’ve helped host events such as Google I/O Columbus and Microsoft’s Azure Community Day for our local Azure user group. We’ve partnered with local organizations such as GiveBackHack to give engineers the chance to work with local innovators to come up with solutions to social issues that impact our city. People have founded startups at our events. People have found work opportunities. People have made lifelong friends. And it’s all rooted in uplifting one another as we work toward creating a better tomorrow in technology.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Oh gosh no, haha. There were many events, especially early on, where no one would show up. In these moments, it’s easy to feel like all the work put into rallying people to come out and coordinating spaces is wasted and not worthwhile.
Additionally, scaling a grassroots community organization comes with its own challenges. While we were able to start our meetup by taking over a table at a coffee shop, as our numbers grew and the coffee shop became increasingly cramped, we soon had to figure out ways to acquire our own dedicated space.
Ultimately, these problems were resolved by simply having faith in the community. With consistency, people started coming out regularly, and now each event sees a healthy number of attendees. Additionally, I am indebted to community-oriented companies such as COhatch who recognize the importance of community action and work with us to give our attendees a vibrant and flexible space to host networking and professional development opportunities.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’ve worked as a software engineer in different capacities. I have experience trying to take a product from 0 to 1, grinding to find investment opportunities. I’ve worked at large enterprise-level companies to maintain their services and deliver new features to customers. I freelance when the opportunity presents itself as well.
Principally, my concern is always the end user. My background in the humanities means that I’m hard-wired to consider the audience I am presenting to and how they will interface with the things I unleash unto them. To take that one step further, I think often about a person’s capacity to flourish. There are so many things that can get in the way of a person thriving. As a software engineer, I feel a sense of responsibility to create things that make life just a touch easier and enable a user to feel more empowered and capable than perhaps they did previously.
Do you have recommendations for books, apps, blogs, etc?
While not directly related to the work I currently do, I adore Lynda Barry’s writing. Her work, “Making Comics”, was immensely influential to the curriculum I designed as a teacher, and its principles ring true to how I view my current projects. There is an undeniable humanity to the things we create, and we should be free to play, embrace imperfections, and explore ourselves in everything we do.
I’m admittedly a very scatterbrained individual, so apps like Todoist are essential for me to jot down tasks and keep track of my day-to-day. Products like Notion are also immensely important for me to have a playground to explore ideas, as well as to keep track of projects and documents for Code & Coffee.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://cbuscodeandcoffee.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cbuscodeandcoffee/
- Twitter: https://x.com/cbuscodencoffee
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ColumbusCodeCoffee
- Other: https://www.meetup.com/columbus-code-and-coffee/
