Life and Work with Ariana M. Davis

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ariana M. Davis.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Ariana, So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I kind of had an “ah ha“ moment during my freshman year in my digital design class back in high school (shoutout Mr. Olvio). From that moment on, I knew that technology was going to be something I did for the long haul and would be a part of my daily course of life. I didn’t see it as something just to do to get class credit for but an actual outlet to test out my creativity and see my ideas essentially come together. Being the go-to tech wizard in my family when I was young & still to this day, essentially helped me give reassurance that I kind of knew what I was doing to a certain extent.

Once graduating high school in 2013, I took the year off and traveled a bit along with reevaluating exactly what I wanted to do when it came to college & if it was really for me. In the summer of 2014, I started attending classes at Florida State University. Looking to take graphic design as my concentration, I found out that the college took away the major entirely and merged it in with Studio Art. Not being the best at drawing, I always had an interest in websites, so I decided to pivot slightly and study Computer Science & Information Technology.

While making lasting memories and lifelong friends in college, fast forward four years I currently live on the West Coast in Oakland, CA as the Lead Software Engineer for the Golden State Warriors. Waking up and truly loving what I do isn’t something I take for granted whatsoever. Looking back and seeing how I got here was the exact motivation I need sometimes as a reminder to why I started in the first place.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
There was a lot of tears and late nights getting to where I am now, but I see that as defining moments in my life where I wanted to quit but kept going. There were moments of self-doubt at times, thinking if I actually knew what I was doing and seeing if being in the tech field was actually my thing. My advice I would give to other women would be to lock in on what you want to achieve and don’t let anything else get in your way.

Sometimes we tend to start off pretty inspired and motivated during the first couple of days, then around week 5 or 6 we’ve either given up on ourselves completely or placed our project on “hold“ to focus on other things for a very long time. One thing that helped me get to where I am today is that I never slowed down and kept creating/building to my heart’s content.

Please tell us about your work.
Career-wise, I’m a software engineer (full –stack) so I basically look at code all day whether on the server or client side. Tying back into having an eye for design, UI (user interface) is something I enjoy doing on the side to keep my design skills heightened and also helps me with making different projects user-friendly and not difficult to look at. Since an adolescent, I have had a passion for sports, specifically basketball. I have been fortunate enough to combine my passion for sports and technology and turn into a lifestyle.

Being involved within the tech community and going to a few meetup events has also kept me up to speed and inspired on what’s going on in the development realm. Wanting to always stay on top of what’s the newest feature or what I can integrate to use in my job helps me challenge myself to always improve as a developer and create seamless products.

Are there any apps, books, podcasts or other resources that you’ve benefited from using?
Two books that I’ve read at the moment is ” Becoming ” by Michelle Obama & ” No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work ” by Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://yourmobilegeek.tech/
• Email: hello@yourmobilegeek.tech
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yourmobilegeek/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/YourMobileGeek
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arianamdavis

Image Credit:
D’ana Nunez, Christian Peláez-Espinosa, Self

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