Our Mission
YNA plans to help an infinite amount of minorities break into tech by providing professional guidance and resources through personal development, community, and open source.
FEATURED MEMBERS
Dorothy Gilchrist
Software Engineer
Carlos Luevano
Software Engineer
Brittany R.
Software Engineer
Mario Rojas
Software Engineer
About Us
Who are we?
We are a diverse group of tech enthusiasts who began coding together in the summer of 2019. We come from a wide range of backgrounds, but we all bring something special and unique to the Tech Industry, which sets us apart. While many of us are bootcamp grads, Computer Science students, and/or have come from other IT related fields, we each have something in common. We are Young And Ambitious and we attract like minded individuals who have the same goals, and plan to leave a mark on the entire tech force.
THE TEAM
Founder
Sydnee Sampson
Engineering Manager
Sydnee is the Founder and CTO of YNA. They have a background in building technical communities and managing engineers and products. Sydnee grew a passion for leading people to success through their experience with entrepreneurship at a very young age. While managing this open source community, they were able to lead a team of engineers through coding bootcamps, teach them how to contribute to open source projects, and help them secure jobs in the end. Sydnee has turned YNA into a community building ecosystem that has proven results. From Custom Engineering as an Consultant at Accenture, they have widened their exposure to different tools and technologies that play a huge role in how they maintain a big community with a wide range of talent.
Founding Members
Danielle Madry
Project Manager
Danielle Madry is mainly a self taught software developer with experience in the gaming and technology industry. Her specializations include Data Analytics and Project Management.
LaNice Powell
Software Engineer
LaNice Powell is a former Junior Highschool Teacher that began her trandition to tech in 2019. Through hard work and dedication with the continued support of YNA squad she was able to achieve her goals and was employed as an Associate Software Engineer in April 2021 at Newsela. Currently she has been promoted to mid level Engineer and is also a boot camp instructor at BrainStation.
Diarte Jeffcoat
Associate Consultant
Diarte started out working on his pursuits in the media industry, but soon found the world of tech through YNA. Since then, he has been growing as a tech consultant with a specialty in software testing and quality engineering.
Nicole Lucien
Software Engineer
Developer with a solid foundation of object-oriented programming, strong communication skills, efficient research skills and extensive experience with collaborative, data-driven projects. Committed to learning new technologies and maintaining a strong professional network.
Anika C
Customer Success Manager
Anika Christopher is a Customer Success Manager in her second year working in the data ecosystem. Combining past experience from a 12 year career in client facing roles, with acquired technical skills, she pivoted into the tech industry working in a non-development role where she engages with and strategically advises customers in the mid-market to enterprise segment.
Chaya Deaver
Software Engineer
Chaya started her tech journey through Career Karma in 2019. She graduated Flatiron School in 2020 and landed her current role as a software engineer at SharpSpring (now part of Constant Contact) in 2021.
Stefanie Davis
Senior Data Engineer
Senior data engineer with experience building data products for Nike, Amazon, and the U.S Government. Passionate about continuous learning and building in community.
Why us?
What we do
Our community started with like minded individuals wanting to learn and nerd together in May of 2019. It has truly become one of a kind. We started by hosting live study sessions daily, and holding each other accountable as we went through bootcamps and wrapped up other IT courses. Since then, our founding members have landed multiple tech jobs, started teaching classes, and began mentoring others. We have decided to continue to pay it forward and create this project to help more folks like us break into the tech industry. We continue to host weekly study sessions, resume review workshops, job referrals, give educational advice, work on open source projects, and even career coaching; all for FREE! Many people try to navigate a new career and find a community on their own, but in the YNA family you will always have someone and/or something that you can not find anywhere else. We are a close tech family, all starting from zero and now working together to reach the stars. If this sounds like a community that you can either thrive in or want to recruit talent from, come join us!
