Fellow:Sabrina Stangler

Smiling headshotpost-thanskgiving dinner

About Me: Sabrina Stangler

Hi, I am Sabrina! I'm 24 years old, and I studied Software Engineering at the Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE), graduating in 2020. I'm currently employed as a Senior Software Engineer at RokkinCat where I build products for startups, mostly local to Milwaukee, WI.

I did my training for UIF in the winter of 17-18 and went to the Silicon Valley Meetup in Spring of 2018.

I make YouTube videos, play the drums (as of 2021 lol), and I got into reading fantasy novels over 2020 - I recently finished reading all two dozen-ish of the Brandon Sanderson novels (within the Cosmere).

I ALSO very recently got diagnosed with ADHD (at age 23), as well as experiencing Anxiety for most of my life to this point. I've been on quite the journey through umm ... well ... suffering, finally being able to 1) afford therapy and 2) muster the courage to start therapy, and more recently starting medicinal treatment for both (which has overall been positive). I bring this up because reading these Wiki bios probably makes former Fellows seem like the most high achieving coolest folks around, which is true of course, but I want to portray at least a little more wholistic version of myself.

UIF Activities

My Cohort includes Tara Rahmani and Nick Hennigan, and they are truly the coolest people I know hands DOWN. We held it down, worked together, and I feel extremely lucky to be so close to them.

Innovator's Toolkit Workshop at Startup Week MKE, Fall 2018

In November 2018, myself, Tara, & Nick held a design thinking workshop during Startup Week MKE. This event garnered 50 entrepreneurs & change makers from the Milwaukee area and was hosted at Northwestern Mutual. It was a blast doing a workshop on a larger scale and in front of primarily non-students who were all surprisingly receptive to learning a new way of thinking!

South by Southwest, Spring 2019 (SXSW)

In March 2019, I attended SXSW with a dozen other fellows and our own first cohort from MSOE. This was one of the most amazing weeks of my life! We engaged a few different crowds in stokes before sessions began, we talked between fellows about navigating opportunities and road bumps at our campuses, and we tried all kinds of different foods from around Austin, TX!

MKE Meetup 2019, Spring 2019

In May 2019, our campus held a 3-day long meetup at our MSOE campus! I played a role in orchestrating the flow of many of the events, reaching out to community partners to acquire space and find content, and learning a lot about getting a team of 6 that turned into 10 halfway through to make a big event happen. There was lots of learning leading up to the meetup, and there was lots of fun while the meetup was happening! We're looking forward to holding something like this again.

MSOE UIF Things

Revamp of dorm floor study spaces
Design thinking workshops with student groups & classes
Innovator's Toolkit Workshop during Startup Week Milwaukee 2018 & 2019
Reimagined the freshman welcome week experience, #uifresh 2018 & 2019

Outside of UIF

President, Society of Software Engineers (SSE)

As the President, I lead all of our meetings, put myself in a lot of uncomfortable (but really fun) public speaking and community relationship maintenance positions. Through this, I have learned a lot about leading a team of students, maintaining industry relations, and providing a service that benefits our target audience: software students at MSOE! What's been really interesting is finding out how to draw lines of value between students, industry partners, and professors so everyone benefits and has a value proposition. I have tried and failed a lot in this position, and I have also seen a lot of success with my team. Next up is figuring out how to hand the 3 year-old organization down to a new group of students!

VP + Senator, Student Government (SG)

I was a senator for the duration of my sophomore year and the VP for my junior year. Now I'm taking on a "loosely but actively involved student" role which is new for all of us. Who doesn't like navigating new territory?

My experience with SG has shown me what it's like to navigate administrative road bumps within MSOE. It's also given me another opportunity to lead by example and figure out how to motivate very busy and involved students. In all honesty, I learned a lot of ways NOT to motivate busy students! There were a lot of conflicting priorities that made getting all 12 senators on board challenging, but nevertheless: we were able to achieve a lot of amazing things over two years.

SWE + STEM Outreach

Through SWE and our STEM Department on campus, I have had many opportunities to reach young girls in Milwaukee to show them what opportunities & challenges lie in a career in STEM. The message I always share to young students is one of resilience: no matter who you are or what you do, someone is going to undervalue your worth, and someone is going to put you down; don't let that person be you!

3rd panelist from the left: https://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/news/2019/03/21/women-should-be-direct-curious-as-they-pursue.html

Work

Software Development Intern, Torq Labs, Inc.

Summer 2016

Learned some basic Android development, mostly got a good warm feel for startup culture, community involvement, and problem solving with a customer in mind (probably for the first time!).

Tier 1 Technician, MSOE IT Department

September 2016 - February 2018

Learned rapid problem solving, customer service skills with frequently angry customers (and consequently conflict resolution), and this is also where I learned to stand up for myself and my worth as an employee and a person.

Innovation Fellow, The Commons WI

Summer 2017

Worked with a team of 3 rockstar recent graduates (while I had just graduated my freshman year ..) and learned how to be a reliable teammate. This was one of the first times I consulted with a larger corporation (Briggs & Stratton and Manpower Group).

Product Development Intern, MacGregor Partners

June 2018 - March 2020

Software Engineer, Direct Supply

June 2020 - July 2021

Learning to be a better full-stack web developer and engineer, working in a new team within a larger organization. My prior jobs to this point were teams of less than 5, and Direct Supply's engineering department was 150 people.

I ended up leaving because 1) RokkinCat reached out to me (see below), 2) when I challenged things, I was met with "yeah that's a good idea, sounds very innovative, but ...." and then met friction at every turn when I actually tried to take action, and 3) we never got to interact with and understand the users of our product, which was very frustrating, but also just "the way things were."

Senior Frontend Engineer, RokkinCat

July 2021 - December 2022

Bringing startups' product visions to life, mostly building mobile apps with Ionic & React. I also serve as the Product Manager for our website and helped develop our vision for content. I get to wear many different hats, and it's a blast.

I jumped ship from Direct Supply to this job with very little hesitation because:

I knew a few of the current employees (small company, 10 total)
Working with startup founders
Get to interact with our clients directly
Only frontend development (I was formerly doing frontend & backend, and I don't fancy backend development)
Better culture - employee happiness driven, if you want to change things - make it happen, and work from anywhere anytime attitude