Alo Salazar

Senior Instructional Associate

Online

Alo Salazar is a Senior Instructional Associate at General Assembly who’s deeply passionate about helping people transform their lives through tech. Alo’s journey into software engineering started in 2021 as a GA student, where they quickly fell in love with the creativity and problem-solving the field offers. Not long after graduating, Alo became a Teaching Assistant, supporting fellow students on their own learning journeys. Since then, Alo has gone on to teach and mentor hundreds of aspiring engineers, always bringing patience, encouragement, and a sense of community to the classroom. Before discovering their love for coding, Alo studied English and Linguistics at UC Santa Barbara and worked as a logistics assistant. While they enjoyed the puzzle of logistics, Alo knew they were meant for something more dynamic—something where they could build, create, and make ideas come to life. For Alo, software engineering is a bit like magic: turning curiosity and creativity into real solutions. In addition to teaching immersive courses, Alo also facilitates AI Strategist workshops at GA, helping students stay ahead in an ever-changing tech landscape. Outside of the classroom, you can find Alo collaborating on a startup with friends or soaking up some sun out on the lake with her paddle board.

What is your favorite technical skill to work with on your own projects and why?

I love working with the backend. I find servers to be exciting and fun as the brain of a fullstack application. Data is exciting to me as it makes everything we make interesting.

I love teaching students git workflow and APIs. I feel like students start to feel like real developers once they have those skills.

Patience! It's easy to get frustrated when you are learning something new. Running into errors and issues can be intimidating. But patience to work through those problems are where the learning happens and makes it all worth the trouble.

Repetition. Code over and over again. Muscle memory is an amazing thing. Sometimes your hands will learn to do something before your brain can really process it. I strongly believe it's a part of the process. Keep practicing.

Outside of teaching, I’ve worked on full-stack web applications, freelance projects, and built web scrapers to automate tasks. Right now, I’m collaborating on a startup with some peers using a tech stack that’s new to me because I’m always eager to challenge myself, learn new technologies, and continue growing as a developer.

WHAT ALO’S STUDENTS ARE SAYING...

"Alo does an EXTRAORDINARY job of understanding how the students are feeling, and how we should best approach a challenging issue with the experience that she has. Countless times I would remember the class breaking into chaos and confusion, but Alo would always quickly come on microphone to "re-base" the class and address our fears and concerns. She would also provide very helpful resources along the way that improved my understanding."

"Alo was another extremely compassionate instructor that brought out the best in everyone she spoke to. It's incredibly difficult to hold someone accountable while also remaining empathetic and insightful. It is harder still to do so tactfully and gracefully. Alo did that and made it look effortless.. I think that speaks volumes about who she is as a human being and her strength of character."