How I Built Skills I Use Every Day

Not sure what to learn next? Get inspired by other Codecademy learners who’ve been in your shoes. We’re sharing stories from the Codecademy community to show how people figured out which skills mattered for their role and goals — and started using them in meaningful ways. We hope these stories serve as a reminder that there’s no single path to a more fulfilling work life.

Today’s learner story is from Monica Para, a 25-year-old Data Analyst living in Chicago. Read more stories from Codecademy learners here— and be sure to share your story here.

What I do for work

“I’m a Data Analyst in the educational sector and I’m doing my master’s in applied data science. Essentially what I do is build out AI pipelines for our marketing campaigns and prospective applicants. I also do a lot of visualizations and reports for different campaigns that we do and then just general operations for prospective recruiting.”

Where I was when I started

“When I was a teenager, there were headlines non-stop saying that ‘the future is tech’ and ‘if you know how to code then you’re set for life.’ My brother was like, ‘You should check out Codecademy.’ In 2015, I ended up learning HTML, CSS, and JavaScript with Codecademy to make basic websites animations.

I really wanted to pursue coding and computer science, but there were no coding programs in my region. In high school, I pretty much self-studied with Codecademy. Every Saturday I would go to a Girls Who Code program to learn Python and Django, and for the first time I felt like I had a community of other people who were interested in tech.”

What made me want to go deeper

“I was inspired by people building these amazing tools to help societal impact and success stories about young people working in big tech. I knew if I stayed in this path long enough, I would end up as a SWE; and then you get a hot six-figure salary, which was true when I went down this path. I did my bachelor’s in computer science and advertising and graduated in May 2023.

I started off my career as a Software Engineer in banking. When I got my first job in software engineering, I kind of disappeared essentially for like the first year. I was so heads-down trying to adjust to like the industry and really understanding what Scrum was. Working on banking systems showed me how much engineering is a team sport, especially in a fast-paced environment where things move quickly and the stakes are high. After some time, I pivoted from both the industry and role because I wanted to have a more tangible impact and work on more data-oriented problems.”

How I use coding and AI at work now

“My day-to-day is more focused on the business side of things and operational efficiency as opposed to traditional coding. Most of it is trying to find pain points for operations. For example, let’s say someone has a spreadsheet of thousands of interested applicant records. That would take hours to upload to our system. What I’ve been doing is I’ve been writing a Python script that parses Excel and then dumps it into our system. My tech stack includes Python, SQL to some extent, and no-code CRM tools.

In my previous role, I was never allowed to use AI directly in my job, and I guess it was good for me because it actually taught me how to think from a systems perspective and how to write better code. When a Senior Engineer looked at my code, I’d be able to explain everything line by line and understand the entire system.

Last year, I started to learn more about AI properly. There is a push for AI adoption, but AI cannot do every single job. It can automate boring tasks, but if you’re working with sensitive applicant data record, you need to know what you’re doing. There’s more of an emphasis on AI ethics and identifying whether something is an appropriate or non-appropriate time to use AI.”

What it takes to succeed in tech today

“If you were to study computer science in college now, my advice would be to not use AI to cheat yourself into an education. You want to be very serious about mastering the fundamentals of coding, like intro to computer science and data structures and algorithms. Don’t use AI as a crutch to do your programming assignments. However, we’re at a point where you can use AI to help you make a study schedule or you can leverage NotebookLM to create practice exams for you from your notes.

For people who want to succeed and break into the tech industry, there’s a big shift in knowing how psychology works and communication. Knowing how to talk to people, drive influence, and be likable will get you so much farther in your career than just knowing how to code.”

My advice: Start with the problem, not the language.

“When it comes to getting started, the way I would answer this 5 years ago is different to how I’d answer now. Think about it this way: What problem do you want to solve with technology? Which languages do you need to get there? With AI, it’s easy to build this road map. Say someone wants to make an app that alerts them to take medication. They could just ask ChatGPT to build it. Or you could work backwards and ask what to learn; [generative AI] would probably recommend learning iOS development. The big thing is you want to focus on the overarching picture instead of the minor syntax details.”