Bree Hall: From Video Game Enthusiast to Developer and YouTuber

Growing up, Bree Hall found herself fascinated with the educational computer games of the ‘90s -- think Reader Rabbit, Clue Finders and JumpStart. These are the games that spurred her love of technology.

Luckily for Hall, computers were right within her reach. Her father had his own interest in technology at the time, which gave her ample opportunity to observe.

“My dad, at the time, was really good at putting pieces of computers together. So I always liked to sit on his lap and see what he was doing,” Hall said.

Hall followed this interest through high school and college. In tenth grade, she took her first coding class focused on JavaScript. It was an eye-opening experience.

“I realized that it's something that I was really, really passionate about and something that I could do that was really cool to me,” Hall said. “I think everybody in high school had their thing whether it was like band or chorus or art or writing and I found that programming and like technology was just my thing.”

Hall then attended Johnson & Wales University in Rhode Island, where she studied software engineering. She learned an array of programming languages during her time there, but said that the program itself lacked some cohesiveness.

“We didn't exactly learn tools that I could put together to create a full application that I could use on like a resume when I graduated. I had all of these separate skills that sort of fell into different buckets, but nothing that I could use to actually put together,” Hall explained.

Hall moved to Florida with her husband, following school, aiming to find a job in their local tech industry. Realizing she didn’t have all the tools she needed to succeed, however, Hall worked a couple jobs outside the industry. During this time, Hall said she took it upon herself to learn some of the pieces she said she was missing.

When the opportunity presented itself to switch careers again, Hall said she knew she wouldn't do anything else until she found a job in tech.

With this goal in mind, Hall spent about five months learning and searching for the right opportunity. During this time, she came across Revature -- a technology talent development program -- through LinkedIn.

The program acts as a kicking off point for people wanting to enter tech. Participants have the opportunity to complete a 10 to 14 week boot camp-style program focused on learning some of the industry’s most needed programming skills.

Following the program, Hall said participants can be placed in a job just about anywhere and earn a minimum salary. While these features could be a turnoff for some, she said the program itself was the right fit for her.

“I was basically self-taught to that point, and the thing that was most important to me was getting my foot in the door, so that I could learn more and have leverage for commanding a better job or a larger salary down the line,” Hall said.

Open the door, the program did. Revature contracted Hall out to Infosys -- an information technology consulting company -- who places her with different companies looking for developers.

Currently, Hall is contracted to a telecommunications company, which will remain unnamed at her request, through Infosys. As a full stack developer, Hall works on different aspects of creating features on various websites or platforms.

In this position, Hall spends most of her time writing code for a product that manages people’s call records and voicemails. She said the opportunity to code in this position allows her to express herself creatively.

“I like to dabble in a lot of things, and this job has allowed me to code, which is something that I love and also tie in my creative feelings as well,” Hall said. “I can't draw or anything like that, but I feel like when I'm creating websites. It's a way for me to express that creativity and create something that's very pretty and very appealing without having to like put a pen to paper.”

Hall has been working remotely since March due to COVID-19, so her days look a little different than they did pre-pandemic. She explained there are not many meetings anymore, so she spends most of her day coding.

To start off the mornings, Hall always lays out her goals for the day. Her goals are usually based on completing “user stories,” which are small tasks done to work towards one large enhancement or feature. She said these “user stories” must be completed during a set amount of time, around two weeks.

While working on these projects, Hall is constantly looking for ways to improve the accessibility of the technology or site she is coding. On an earlier project, Hall realized a feature meant to help sight-impaired users was not as accessible to its intended audience as it could’ve been. She and her team decided this was necessary to address for future versions of the app.

“For me, making these applications accessible is a way for me to feel like I'm adding something to society that a lot of people are going to get a lot of use out of and to help people… feel more independent and not have to rely on other people,” Hall said.

Bree Hall also addresses accessibility issues on her YouTube channel -- Bytes of Bree -- except here her focus turns to the accessibility of the tech industry.

“There's a lot of people who are interested in technology, but don't know what their path looks like or aren't given the resources to even figure out what their path looks like. I want to be able to help those people because I know that it will better their lives,” Hall said.

Hall started the channel, which now has over two thousand subscribers, prior to her Revature training. She wanted to provide some firsthand insight into the program because she didn’t see much of that online. At that time, she focused on making daily vlogs about what the training was like.

While Hall started the channel focused on Revature, she’s grown to provide even more insights into the industry. She discusses everything from developing key skills for programming to her experiences as a black woman in the tech industry.

By getting more resources to other people, Hall hopes to open the field for people who may not be well represented.

“There's not a lot of people who look like me in technology, so the reason that I am so passionate about my YouTube channel and about helping people get into tech is because I want to see more people who look like me,” Hall said. “When I was a kid, there was no black woman computer scientist that I could look up to, or even somebody that like looked remotely like me. By adding more of our faces into technology, the younger generation has role models that they can look up to and see themselves in.”

In early December, Hall started a new series on the channel titled “Dear Aspiring Dev.” The series, which will include 14 videos total, is meant to act as a guide for people thinking about becoming a developer. She was inspired to create this series in light of how 2020 went for many people.

“Since a lot of people have unfortunately lost their positions where they've been working or maybe are looking for an industry switch, something that I've decided that I would like to do something that I wish somebody would have done for me when I was younger.”

Hall said this was a way of helping her viewers get a head start on 2021 by preparing and thinking about the year before it began.

Hall also focuses on her own goals and aspirations, even while helping others figure out their paths. For one, she wants to continue challenging herself and hopes down the road she will take on a more challenging role. In addition to this, Hall wants to continue growing her content creation skills.

“I've also really fallen in love with content creation, because it gives me a different level of being able to interact with people,” Hall said. “It's a really cool thing to see people start out by saying that they want to be a developer and then maybe a few months, a year later, they've gotten their first role and it’s really sentimental. It really touches my heart and it really makes me so happy for them. That's something that I would like to continue to see myself do maybe like in a larger scale.”

For those looking to enter the field, Hall said one important piece is to stay true to yourself. She said this is especially important for Black women entering the field, who potentially face unique challenges. She’s dealt with some of these issues throughout her own career, like not receiving credit for her work or feeling like she needed to change to fit the mold.

“Something that I struggled with personally was feeling like I was losing a little bit of my identity to please, or feel more acceptable to those who were interviewing me or to my employers and my team or anything like that,” Hall said. “Don't sacrifice any part of yourself to feel like you have to fit into a certain group because more than likely that group needs you as you are, and not the version of you that you think would be most appealing to them. They hired you or they're thinking about you because you bring a different thought process to their team and they want that, so as cheesy as it sounds, be true to yourself.”

Hall also said that if a space wants you to change, then that probably wasn’t the space for you to begin with. There will always be new or better opportunities that allow you to stay true to yourself.