Rags to Wireframes | Young Janitor Finds Female Scholarship & Becomes Developer

The startup world is full of tales of great triumph. Stories of entrepreneurs succeeding against the odds are commonplace; yet, few evoke similar emotions as that of Charlotte-based Erin Hinson. Following personal challenges, Hinson was forced to drop out of college, move back in with her parents, and work as a custodian. After a year of cleaning, Erin was down on her luck. But, she recently uncovered an opportunity in tech that changed her life forever. We spoke with Erin to learn more about her inspiring story.

Hinson was first intrigued by technology at a young age. “When I was 19, I taught myself HTML back in the days of AOL. I was making corny websites on LiveJournal,” she recalls. “I’ve always played around with computers, but it was just sort of a hobby back then. When I started college, I was majoring in education, but decided to switch to technical communications. However, it wasn’t as much coding as I wanted. I was really craving to do more ‘under the hood’ kind of stuff and code.”

“In the middle of my junior year at the Metropolitan State University of Denver, I had some health issues and was forced to move to Charlotte to live with my parents. I was working as a janitor and quite honestly, I wasn’t sure I’d ever go to school again,” continues Hinson. “I stumbled upon Tech Talent South and thought that their coding boot camp would be pretty cool. I was even more excited when I saw they had a sponsored scholarship for women. I applied, but didn’t actually think I was going to get it. A short time later, Abby, Betsy, and Andrew called me and said, ‘you got it.’ It was truly a great phone call.”

Erin dove into the eight week bootcamp head first and was determined to soak up as much as she could. “Bootcamps will attract certain types of people. Everyone there was extremely driven and excited about what they were going to learn,” she says. “At Tech Talent South, there is such a variety of people at different levels of ability, so you can learn from those around you. I think one of my best talents is being able to watch someone do something and repeat it. I’m a quick learner. With technology, you have to check your ego at the door because it’s going to be smashed. I’m just fired up to learn more.”

Today, Hinson works as a developer at Technekes, a Charlotte-based marketing company, where she updates clients’ websites and apps. Going forward, she wants to capitalize on her educational hunger and expand her coding repertoire. “I want to revisit JavaScript a lot more. The more I read about Java, the more I feel I need to learn more about it. I’m excited to learn as much as I can about different languages and how they connect with each other.”

Although she wouldn’t have envisioned it for herself a few years ago, Erin is now engrossed in technology and entrepreneurship. She credits Tech Talent South for exposing her to people in tech and the startup mentality. “The more entrepreneurs I meet, I think it’s actually possible for me to pursue my own business ideas,” she says. “Before, when I saw a problem that needed solving, I thought, ‘somebody should do that.’ Now, I think, ‘you know, I should do that.’ I don’t have anything firm in mind, but I know I definitely would like to pursue something.”