A Lifelong ‘Maker’ Tackles a Developer Onboarding Problem

Shanea Leven, co-founder and CEO of CodeSee, shared her journey as a tech founder in an episode of the Tech Founder Odyssey podcast series. Despite coming to programming later than many of her peers, Leven always had a creative spark and a passion for making things. She initially pursued fashion design but taught herself programming in college and co-founded a company building custom websites for book authors. This experience eventually led her to a job at Google, where she worked in product development.

While at Google, Leven realized the challenge of deciphering legacy code and onboarding developers to it. Inspired by a presentation by Bret Victor, she came up with the idea for CodeSee—a developer platform that helps teams understand and review code bases more effectively. She started working on CodeSee in 2019 as a side project, but it soon received venture capital funding, allowing her to quit her job and focus on the startup full-time.

Leven candidly discussed the challenges of juggling a day job and a startup, particularly after receiving funding. She also shared advice on raising money from venture capitalists and building a company culture.

Listen to the full episode and check out more installments from The Tech Founder Odyssey.

How Teleport’s Leader Transitioned from Engineer to CEO

How 2 Founders Sold Their Startup to Aqua Security in a Year

How Solvo’s Co-Founder Got the ‘Guts’ to Be an Entrepreneur