Jess Ramos is a data analytics educator, LinkedIn Top Voice, and founder of Big Data Energy - a media and education brand with 500,000+ followers across platforms. With an MSBA from the University of Georgia, she turned a corporate analytics career (peaking at $153K at Crunchbase) into a thriving solo business after being laid off in 2023. She runs a Substack newsletter with 45,000+ subscribers, teaches SQL to 50,000+ students via LinkedIn Learning, and has brand partnerships with IBM, AWS, Snowflake, NFL, and Claude (Anthropic). Her origin story - doubling her salary 110% in 11 months - became a viral moment that built her community of data professionals seeking real, human-centric career guidance.
Louie Bacaj is an Albanian-American software engineer turned entrepreneur who climbed from immigrant poverty in the Bronx to Senior Director of Engineering at Walmart, then walked away from it all in 2021 to build a portfolio of small bets. He co-founded the Small Bets learning community with Daniel Vassallo, runs the M&Ms Newsletter on Substack with 9,000+ subscribers, and teaches engineers how to level up their careers and build income outside the 9-to-5. His philosophy: make money with bits, diversify into atoms.
Mehdi Ouazza is a Brussels-based Data Engineer and Developer Advocate at MotherDuck with 10+ years in the data space. He is the first DevRel hire at MotherDuck, a DuckDB-powered cloud analytics startup, where he grew social media by 450% and built a YouTube channel to 900K+ views. Creator of the 'Mehdio's Tech (Data) Corner' newsletter on Substack, founder of DataCreators.Club, and a prolific speaker and open-source contributor, Mehdi is known for demystifying data engineering and AI careers with humor, playfulness, and radical honesty.
NishA Acharya is a tech talent executive and career strategist with 14+ years of experience placing engineers and consultants at Ernst & Young. As US Talent Acquisition Recruiting Lead for EY Technology Consulting, she has built pipelines for some of the most sought-after tech roles in consulting, with a growing focus on AI, Physical AI, and Robotics. She runs 'The Leverage' newsletter, helping tech professionals navigate career growth, and speaks at Women in Tech events globally on recruiting, STEM, and how to build a career that compounds.
Cassidy Williams is a Chicago-based software engineer, Senior Director of Developer Advocacy at GitHub, and one of the most recognizable voices in the frontend developer community. Known online as @cassidoo, she runs the widely-read weekly newsletter 'rendezvous with cassidoo,' builds mechanical keyboards, mentors early-career engineers, and has spoken everywhere from TED stages to the United Nations. She's a Glamour '35 Women Under 35 Changing the Tech Industry' honoree, a LinkedIn Top Professional, and a firm believer that you get a lot by giving.
Dave Anderson spent 12+ years climbing Amazon's ladder from entry-level development manager to Technology Director and General Manager, then briefly served as the first CTO of Bezos Academy before achieving financial independence at 40 and walking away. Today he runs Scarlet Ink, a newsletter with 72,000+ subscribers offering rare insider perspective on big-tech careers, Amazon's leadership principles, and the mechanics of getting promoted without losing your mind.
Patrick McKenzie, known online as patio11, is a writer, software entrepreneur, and strategic advisor at Stripe who spent two decades bootstrapping software companies in Japan before becoming one of the internet's most influential voices on fintech, career development, and software business strategy. He writes Bits about Money, a deep-dive newsletter on the plumbing of financial systems, hosts the Complex Systems podcast, and co-led VaccinateCA - America's shadow COVID vaccine location infrastructure that likely saved thousands of lives. With 4.7 million words published since 2006, his essays on salary negotiation, software marketing, and financial infrastructure have shaped how a generation of engineers and entrepreneurs think about building and getting paid.