Tonya Sims Joins the Developer Relations Team

Fainting in an operating room during surgery launched my tech career.

Yes, you read that correctly. As a pharmaceutical sales representative for the company I worked for, we observed someone undergoing surgery as part of our training.

When the doctor made the incision, my stomach started doing backflips. Five minutes later, he was doing things that you only see on TV!

I passed out in my chair.

Even though working in pharma sales taught me a lot, I decided to embark on a career that didn't involve surgical instruments. Ha!

I just wanted to get back to my roots.

My Story in 2 Minutes

My parents bought a computer when I was eight years old, and that's when my passion for technology started. My older brother and I would write code following the instructions in the accompanying manual to make the computer do cool stuff!

As much as I loved tech, sports started to consume my life and didn't code again until many years later.

I was pretty much born with a basketball in my hands and started playing competitively at the age of five. I went on to play basketball in college and professionally in Europe and the WNBA.

After hanging up my gym shoes and working in sales, I started to develop an interest in coding again. So I picked up a book and taught myself how to do it. A few coding languages later, I got hooked on Python! I love the supportive Python community, the beauty of the syntax, and everything about it.

Over the years, I have worked in the tech industry as a software tester and developer. I'm super excited to be working in my dream job at Deepgram as a Python Developer Advocate as my passion for AI and nurturing the developer community runs deep.

Outside of work, I enjoy listening to music (anything from Tiesto!) and playing the piano (anything classical!). I also love to read and listen to audiobooks. My favorite thing is spending time with my nieces and nephews. They bring me joy and have coined a nickname for me: Auntie Mama!

Let's Connect

It would be great to connect with you! I'm looking forward to learning more about you and what you're working on! Please feel free to reach out to me on Twitter. I hope we have a chance to connect throughout your journey!