This is a post in our Your Django Story series where we highlight awesome ladies who work with Django. Read more about it here.

Alja is a geek, writer, Outreach at CubeSensors, Rails/Django Girls organizer, CodeCat, and co-founder of Europe Code Week. She’s trying to get more people, especially women, excited about technology.

Photo by: Hana Jošić

How did your story with code start?

Well, my first encounter with coding happened at a very young age, at a Logo workshop. After that, I occasionally meddled with coding, but it wasn’t until a few years ago when I took a couple of Udacity Python courses, started organizing Rails Girls workshops (Django Girls wasn’t around yet) and then co-founded CodeCatz, a coding study group for women, that I started tinkering with code on a more regular basis.

What did you do before becoming a programmer?

I’ve actually never been a programmer. My work varies a lot, but it’s always been related to tech in some way or another. From being a tech blogger to currently doing Outreach at CubeSensors, a hardware startup, where I get to do a lot of fun things. Being familiar with coding certainly helps in such a small team.

What do you love the most about coding?

The moment when whatever you’re coding starts working :) I enjoy the challenge of building something on your own. It feels a bit like doing magic when you can tell computers what to do with just a few lines of code.

Why Django?

Python was the first programming language I got comfortable with, plus there’s a pretty strong Python/Django developer community in Slovenia. So choosing Django for the work we do at CodeCatz made a lot of sense.

What cool projects are you working on at the moment/planning on working on in the near future?

Together with the other, more experienced Catz, I’m hoping to learn some other web frameworks and create an app that would be used at the upcoming WebCamp.si in Spring.

What are you the most proud of?

Definitely our work with CodeCatz! We had quite a year (http://visual.ly/codecatz-year-review-2014), and we’re especially proud of the work we’ve done to support Europe Code Week. I also found some awesome friends in the group.

What are you curious about?

I enjoy learning new things, so I try to be curious about all sorts of random topics I don’t yet know anything about. Working in tech, it’s easy to get caught up in a bubble, so I enjoy meeting people outside “our world” and hearing their stories.

What do you like doing in your free time? What’s your hobby?

Programming is actually a hobby for me right now. And I also enjoy running.

Do you have any advice/tips for programming beginners?

Be curious, and don’t get discouraged if you don’t understand most of what you’re doing at the beginning. And while tutorials are a great way to start learning, don’t get stuck there. Start a project you care about as soon as possible. It’s easier to learn when you’re faced with a practical problem you’re very personally motivated to solve!

Thanks Alja! :)