Sam King

Sam King

Founder & Director


Code the Change


I view my work as a software engineer and my values as somebody who wants to make the world a better place, as deeply interconnected. Every person, myself included, should have a job that aligns with their values.

Milestones

My road in life has been direct.
Before college, I thought I would end up in politics or medicine because those were the paths that I saw available in public service.
I decided to try out a computer science course. I loved that it let me be creative and that there were so many different job opportunities.
I started Code the Change in order to figure out the connection between computer science and social good.
I'm based in California, but being in tech has led to me traveling all across the US and to Cambodia.
After graduating from college, I worked on diversity and education at Google.
When healthcare.gov was in crisis, I worked on the fix-it team.
I later went to a start-up and worked with Medicaid and other health plans.
I'm currently exploring how to use technology to help politics and social justice.
Keep following my journey

Career

Founder & Director

I work as a software engineer to make the world a better place.

Career Roadmap

Roadmap
My work combines:
My work combines:
Technology
Non-Profit Organizations
Helping People

Day to Day

I am somebody who likes wearing a lot of different hats and doing different things on a day to day basis. One day, I might spend a lot of my time programming as well as working with the rest of the people at my company to understand their code. It can be a lot about helping more junior members of my team to understand what the direction of the organization is and should be. I facilitate meetings to make sure everyone is using the same language and talking things through.

Advice for Getting Started

Here's the first step for everyone

Try not to cultivate regrets and wonder what if. There are so many people who start computer science in middle school and you can feel like you're competing against those people. Just take some computer science classes and see if you enjoy it. Even if there aren’t courses in your school, there’s a lot of good stuff online to help you. There is room and opportunity for you to enter this field, even if you’re from a nontraditional path.

Recommended Education

My career is related to what I studied. I'd recommend the path I took:

undergrad
Bachelor
Biocomputation

Hurdles

The Noise I Shed

From Myself:

"They're depending on you, but you don't know what the answers are."

Challenges I Overcame

Work Stress