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Alexandra Flores

Entrepreneurship

Alexandra Flores(she/her)

Chief Executive Officer · Purple Hiring · Self-employed

Northern Virginia Community College - Associate's degree, Business Management; Brigham Young University - Idaho: Bachelor's Degree, Business Administration; Coding Dojo - Certificate of Software Engineering

Alex Flores spent over a decade as a Software Engineer and Product Manager at major tech companies, including Microsoft and LinkedIn, before founding Purple Hiring — a company that connects Latin American professionals with remote job opportunities at U.S. businesses. Her path shows that a career in tech can open doors far beyond a single role or company, and that your background can become the foundation for building something that creates opportunities for others. If you're a student of color thinking about careers in tech, entrepreneurship, or global business, Alex's story is a reminder that where you start is not where you have to stop.

Their story

Inspired by Mom. Built Her Own Dream.

17 min

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Key quotes

“I finally found what I love. And finally I'm in the position where I can use all my background and all my skills.”

Alex Flores Greer

“If you have the skills to make that connection between technology and business and the user, you are golden for these big companies because that's the key that glues it all together.”

Alex Flores Greer

“I came to this country with one goal, to be an educated woman and to be very successful.”

Alex Flores Greer

“My own father said, I'm not gonna send you to college, I'm gonna send your brother because I'm gonna make my money back by sending him to college.”

Alex Flores Greer

“I was 28 years old. I enrolled in a software boot camp for people who want to become software engineers. It was intense, three month training and they teach you the basics.”

Alex Flores Greer

“We came to the United States because this is the land of opportunity. We migrated to the United States with $500 and left everything behind. Coming from Bolivia as a woman, I would NEVER have that the opportunity that I received here.”

Alex Flores Greer · 27:06

Career highlights

You don't need a computer science degree to get into product management — but getting some technical knowledge (like a coding bootcamp or certification) will give you a serious edge.

Alex learned to code at 28 through a three-month bootcamp with no prior tech background. She says technical knowledge has made the biggest impact on her career and helps her communicate effectively with engineering teams.

A business background matters just as much as the technical side. Understanding how companies make money, how products are marketed, and how launches work is a core part of the PM role.

Alex has a business management degree and emphasizes that PMs need to understand finance, marketing, and product strategy — not just how software is built.

Being social and curious isn't just a personality trait — it's a job skill. Product managers spend most of their time talking to customers and teams, not sitting behind a screen writing code.

Alex says her favorite part of the job is that even though she works in tech, the majority of her day is spent talking to people and making connections across teams and customers.

Don't wait for the perfect path. Say yes to opportunities even if they're not your dream job — you might discover what you're really meant to do.

Alex worked in customer relations at Southwest Airlines and as an HR recruiter before finding her way into tech. It was watching software engineers at a startup that sparked her curiosity and eventually led her to product management.

Product management is one of the few careers with no single required background — people come from military, consulting, accounting, and engineering. What matters is that you can connect technology, business, and people.

Alex describes her coworkers as coming from wildly different paths, and says the common thread is passion and the ability to bridge the gap between technical and non-technical worlds.

It's never too late to pivot. Alex was 26 when she first got curious about software and 28 when she started learning to code. Career changes are possible at any age.

When Alex wondered if it was too late to change careers at 26, her coworkers told her it wasn't. She took that leap, enrolled in a bootcamp, and eventually made it to Microsoft.

Student summary
Alex Flores Greer is a Product Manager at Microsoft who immigrated from Bolivia to the United States at age 16 with her single mom and just $500 in savings. She didn't grow up with computers, didn't have a tech background, and didn't follow a straight path into her career — but through curiosity, hustle, and a willingness to keep learning, she landed one of the most in-demand jobs in the tech industry. Her story is proof that where you start doesn't have to determine where you end up. As a Product Manager, Alex is the bridge between the people who build software (engineers) and the people who use it (customers). She leads a team that includes software engineers, designers, and UX researchers — but her job isn't to manage those people directly. Instead, she's the one making sure everyone is working toward the same goal, translating customer needs into product decisions, and keeping the project on track from start to finish. Think of her as the conductor of an orchestra — she doesn't play every instrument, but she makes sure the whole thing sounds right. Alex's path to Microsoft wasn't linear at all. She started at a community college in Virginia, earned a business degree, worked at Southwest Airlines, then stumbled into the world of tech while recruiting software engineers at a startup. At 28 — with no coding background — she enrolled in a coding bootcamp and taught herself to code. That technical knowledge, combined with her business and communication skills, is what eventually opened the door to product management. Her advice? You don't need a perfect resume or a computer science degree. You need curiosity, some technical knowledge, and the drive to keep learning. What makes Alex's story especially powerful for students of color is how much she had working against her. Her father refused to pay for her education because she was a girl. She immigrated to a new country as a teenager. She didn't have mentors guiding her early on. And she still made it — not because everything was handed to her, but because she kept moving forward and used every experience as a building block. She credits her mom, who went back to law school as a single mother, as her biggest inspiration. If you're a student who loves talking to people, solving problems, and thinking about how technology can help real humans — product management might be your lane. Alex says PMs at Microsoft earn between $110K–$150K a year, and the field is wide open for people from all kinds of backgrounds. You don't have to fit a mold to belong in tech.