#winning: The Road to Sydney Smith’s Emmy Award
/dev/color A* member Sydney Smith is a Senior Software Engineer for CNN. She and her team built the software powering John King’s Magic Wall, winning an Emmy Award for “On-Air Touch Screen for Data Visualization” in January 2021.
Looking for inspiration? Look no further than the leaders, achievers, and go-getters that make up the /dev/color community. For the next issue of our #winning spotlights, we spoke with Atlanta-based engineer, Sydney Smith, on her unique transition into tech, her experience with /dev/color, and winning an Emmy for her work.
In November of last year, hundreds of millions of Americans watched live election updates, anxiously awaiting the results that would round out a tumultuous year. You may have been one of these folks, and there’s a good chance you watched these updates on CNN, through John King’s “Magic Wall.” If you did, you were witnessing three years of /dev/color A* member Sydney Smith’s work in action.
Sydney and the elections team, brought on in 2017, have been in charge of building the software for CNN graphics teams, and the APIs that help John King zoom into every county on the Magic Wall. On top of building the software, they were also responsible for controlling all of the data that went into the Wall. With there being over three thousand counties in the country, this was no small task. “It’s a lot of work to go through all the data and to make sure you have all the votes for every single county in America,” Sydney tells us. Despite the hard work, or maybe because of it, Sydney enjoyed the project. “I loved it. It was very high visibility, and we got a lot of recognition for doing it, and it was just a lot of fun.”
A huge part of the recognition Sydney mentions happened in early 2021 when her team won an Emmy Award for “On-Air Touch Screen for Data Visualization.” Out of all that could have come from her work, an Emmy wasn’t something Sydney had anticipated. She tells us, “I was totally not expecting this at this time, so that was awesome, and a complete surprise.” Sydney admits she didn’t fully grasp the impact of her work until she saw it on air, and “realize[d], hey, that’s all our data!”
When Sydney joined CNN as a senior software engineer in 2017, she was actually returning to the company ten years since her first position with them. She wasn’t always the Emmy Award-winning technologist she is today, and back then, CNN had no idea how Sydney would later win them such esteemed recognition for data visualization. On her unique transition into tech, Sydney shares, “I actually started at CNN in ’07 as a video journalist.” While the position was more aligned with her degree from Virginia Tech in communications, it didn’t feel right for her. After eight years of journalism with CNN, Sydney says she “felt a little stuck in my career, and was hoping to transition into something else.”
Sydney knew that a degree in computer science isn’t the only way to enter the tech field. “I joined a Bootcamp… went to Bootcamp for three months, and transitioned into tech. And I’m now back at CNN as a senior software developer.”
“I joined a Bootcamp… went to Bootcamp for three months, and transitioned into tech. And I’m now back at CNN as a senior software developer.”
Returning to /dev/color for her second year, now, Sydney appreciates the “change of pace” the organization provides from other tech environments. “I love speaking with my other squad members and getting to learn about them and their experiences. It’s nice to be with other Black developers because I’m the only Black developer on my team.” Beyond that, Sydney knows she can rely on her /dev/color family for honest and applicable advice. “Whenever you ask a question somebody always has an answer,” she says.
Learn more about Sydney’s Emmy and the other Technology & Engineering recipients here!
