Trailer: Episode 11 with Sheena O'Connell

Cheuk
Tereza
Sheena O'Connell
February 18, 2026

Read Transcript

00:00 uh

00:00 I forgot how we start

00:02 Okay Hi everybody and welcome to the PyPodcast

00:05 Hidden Figures in Python figure

00:08 we are continuing with our scissor see

00:11 Hi everybody and welcome to the PyPodcast

00:16 so yeah today's guest err today's host

00:19 oh my God this is a blooper

00:27 like wrangling volunteers is hard

00:28 there's a lot of just like management challenges

00:30 a lot of the time when people think of Africa

00:32 they think of it as like

00:33 just like a blob and everything's the same

00:35 and it's really not like

00:37 there are very big cultural differences

00:38 between different African countries

00:40 when did you get started with Python?

00:42 so I got started um when I was in university

00:45 I was coding for food I needed money and um

00:49 so I was just taking on these odd jobs

00:50 you read a programming book

00:52 do you still read programming books

00:54 I read a book on PHP once for a job

00:57 um

00:58 I did read the kubernetes book

01:00 I've always been teaching

01:01 when I was a little kid

01:03 I used to teach grown ups Excel skills

01:06 helping people with their homework

01:08 was a good source of connection

01:09 you did that for free I got paid

01:12 if you think about like the business of education

01:14 there's there's like so much stuff that you need to do

01:17 that isn't teaching

01:18 if you have to choose right

01:19 you can either work with Python

01:21 the programming language or people what would

01:24 you choose so I love Python so much

01:27 but I think actually people

01:29 if you wanna build something big

01:30 it's a it's a team sport

01:31 people are getting to a point where

01:33 we're realizing what the uniquely human skills are

01:37 a metaphor I really like is soccer um

01:39 your individual skills as a soccer player really matter

01:42 quite a lot

01:43 a lot of emphasis is placed on passing the ball really

01:47 really well

01:47 hello everyone I'm Sheena um

01:50 watch me on PyPodcasts

01:51 we're gonna be talking about PyCon Africa

01:53 I'm based in South Africa and it's in my hometown

01:56 and we'll also be talking about teaching Python

01:59 and teaching teamwork

02:09 now break cut hmm

Sneak Peek of our chat with Sheena O’Connell, hosted by Cheuk Ting Ho and Tereza Iofciu.

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 eductuoions 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.

Full episode is coming on February 26th, 2026! Subscribe to our podcast now!

Get to know Sheena O'Connell

Sheena O'Connell

Sheena's early career saw her working as a software engineer and technical leader across multiple startups. But it was her passion for education that led her to devote the last 5+ years to re-imagining how we teach people to code professionally. Over the last half decade she has had the opportunity to work in the non-profit space and build alternative education systems from the ground up. Along the way she has learned a lot about how to teach well, how to build organisational systems that teach well, and why traditional education systems fall short. As a founder of Prelude.tech, she provides rigorous technical training, as well as consultating, and coaching for technical educators, and organisations with education functions (for example grad programs and similar). Additionally, she leads the Guild of Educators, a community she founded to empower tech educators through shared resources, support, and evidence-based teaching practices.

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Trailer: Episode 11 with Sheena O'Connell

Get to know Sheena O'Connell

Sheena O'Connell

Stay in touch and support the Python Community

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