This week, we welcome Laysa Uchoa (@laysauchoa) as our PyDev of the Week! Laysa is very active in the PyLadies group and gives many talks at various conferences.
You can catch up with Laysa’s work by checking out GitHub profile.
Let’s spend a few minutes getting to know Laysa better!
Can you tell us a little about yourself (hobbies, education, etc):
I come from a rural area of Brazil. Where I grew up, we would face weeks without electricity, and some neighboring cities had none. I guess this is the first technology that changed my life. This motivated me to pursue my Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering.
This was great because it opened my mind to programming – a powerful way to control devices. I started with low-level programming and eventually moved on to high-level languages.
Now, I’m at the highest level with Python.
Besides programming languages, I love human languages. I speak Portuguese as a native, along with English, Spanish, and German.
Why did you start using Python?
I started using it at the university for research. We needed an open-source language that could analyze huge amounts of data. Python was the best candidate back then and still is.
What other programming languages do you know and which is your favorite?
In the university, I learned Verilog, C, C++, and Python. Later, I worked a bit with Rust, sometimes Javascript, but mainly with Python. I use a fair amount of bash in my day-to-day work as well.
Python has been a constant in my life, and also my favorite language.
What projects are you working on now?
- My presentation about Serverless with OpenSearch for PyCon Sweeden 2023
- PyLadies Munich 9th anniversary meetup
Which Python libraries are your favourite (core or 3rd party)?
- datetime because time matters
- os and sys for automation lovers
- requests to be chatty with APIs
- pandas for data science topics
How did you get involved with the PyLadies group?
When I moved to Munich, I used to visit a lot of local Python groups. They are great, but there were not so many women visiting the groups. I thought it would be nice to have a group where we could go and talk about how is our work life and the amazing things we can do in the Python environment. So, together with others, we reactivated PyLadies Munich.
What was the hardest talk you gave and why?
For me, it was when I gave a talk about careers in software development to an educational TV channel in Brazil. It was live-transmitted to thousands of students from the public educational system.
These students were working very hard to secure a place in a public university. For many of them, this is a life-changing opportunity, just as it was for me. This talk wasn’t all about careers, it was about life. It doesn’t matter where you come from; dreaming big is something everyone can and should do. My message to them is that knowledge is this magical thing that can transform our dreams into reality.
This talk holds a special place in my heart because, in the past, I was one of those students too.
Is there anything else you’d like to say?
Absolutely!
I want to encourage everyone, especially those who are just beginning their journey in tech or Python, to maintain their curiosity and keep exploring. Technology is a vast and thrilling field with endless opportunities for learning and creation.
And here’s my message to all the dreamers and technologists out there: If you can dream it, you can make it happen with Python!
Feel free to connect with me on Twitter, where we can chat about all things Python: https://twitter.com/
Thanks so much for doing the interview, Laysa!