Rhia Dixon

a career woman in street clothes

Kansas City native, Rhia Dixon is a software engineer at a global brand and experience agency where she creates backend software applications using Java, Python, and a variety of other tech. While she has always been a STEM girl and holds a B.S. in Physics, her journey to the world of tech kicked off in the summer of 2017 during a full-stack web development bootcamp at the University of Kansas-Edwards Campus. Rhia has immersed herself in the KC tech community by volunteering -- both as a mentor, and as Diversity & Inclusion Director -- for Kansas City Women in Technology , a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing women in technology together and encouraging more women and girls to pursue careers in technology.

Rhia is passionate about encouraging underrepresented and underexposed communities to take advantage of the opportunities available in tech. She visits schools, and community events to share her story about how she launched her career in hopes that she might encourage even one child or woman to make the jump. Currently, Rhia is available to speak at national and international conferences. Her talks include a wide variety of topics from professional networking to application monitoring, DE&I, and getting better at code reviews.

When she’s not writing code, volunteering, or speaking across the globe, Rhia is chasing her toddler, building Roblox with the second-grader, binge-watching Marvel and Harry Potter movies, finding great mom & pop eateries with her husband, or spending time making memories with family and friends.

EXPERIENCE
Nov 2020 - Present

Associate Director, Technology

VMLY&R
Kansas City, MO

What I can tell you is that I lead a team of awesome devs who kick-ass and take names. We build cool sh!t. We test our code. We collaborate. We have fun. And we do it with Java, AEM, React, TypeScript, Python, and whatever else you can throw at us.
Aug 2019 - Oct 2020

Software Engineer

C2FO
Leawood, KS

As a marketing automation engineer, I contributed to making things better and less time-consuming across the company, primarily for the benefit of our Marketing, SRM, and Product teams. I Collaborated with stakeholders to determine pain points and worked to fix them using Python/Django solutions. I also worked on a fast-paced team responsible for maintaining and improving our flagship app utilizing Angular 1, React, Kotlin, and TypeScript.
Jan 2018 - July 2019

Software Engineer

VeriShip (now Sifted)
Kansas City, MO

My team developed and maintained back-end software applications using C#/.NET, Python, AWS and other technologies to gather information for our customers in CSV and PDF formats, transform the data into programmable formats, and push that data to databases for use by other teams We were also responsible for testing all of our applications and creating m aningful metrics (with logging) to monitor the health of our apps.
Nov 2016 - Jan 2018

Reporting Analyst

Physician Office Partners
Overland Park, KS

I generated, manipulated, and formatted large sets of data for client and company finance reporting. I analyzed data in detail to find discrepancies and detect trends in the data to aid in recommending solutions to these discrepancies, such as additional training for payment processors or IT bug fixes.
July 2012 - Oct 2016

Quality Associate

Black & Veatch
Overland Park, KS

I helped to redevelop a SharePoint application that recorded user responses, locations, and departments and displayed the participation status of each user. I also assisted in the development and administration of a web application designed to gather all information specific and relative to the Energy business line in one place, ensuring Energy professionals have the most updated information.
EDUCATION
December 2017

Full-Stack Web Development

University of Kansas-Edwards Campus

An intensive 24-week long certificate program dedicated to designing and building web applications. Skills learned consisted of HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, jQuery, Bootstrap, Firebase, Node.js, MySQL, MongoDB, Express, Handlebars.js, & ReactJS.
May 2009

Physics, B.S.

University of Missouri-Kansas City
SKILLS
Front End
Back End