Episode 11: With Sheena O'Connell

We interviewed Sheena O’Connell.

Sheena began her career as a software engineer and technical leader across multiple startups, but her passion for education led her to spend the last five years reimagining how people learn to code professionally. Working within the nonprofit sector, she built alternative education systems from the ground up and developed deep expertise in effective teaching, educator development, and the structural limitations of traditional education models. Sheena is the founder of Prelude.tech, where she delivers rigorous technical training alongside consultation and coaching for technical educators and organizations with education functions. She also leads the Guild of Educators, a community she founded to empower technology educators through shared resources, support, and evidence-based teaching practices.

In this episode, Sheena O’Connell tells us about her journey, the importance of community and good practices for teachers and educators in python, organizational psychology and how herself has become involve in this journey. We talk about how to enable a 10 x team and how to enable the community through guild of educators.

Topic discussed

• Introductions
• Getting to know Sheena
• Her involvement in the community
• Sheena’s journey and her passion for education
• Re-implementing effective education system for learning how to code professionaly in python
• Importance of communiy
• Organizational psychology
• PyCon Africa cool badges

Links from the show

• guild of educators: https://guildofeducators.org/