--- title: How a 25-Year-Old Former Coder Landed in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue description: Allie Ayers went from software programmer to in the pages of Sports Illustrated. authors: - name: Mike Ayers role: Executive Editor url: https://money.com/author/mike-ayers/ bio: Mike Ayers is the executive editor of Money. Previously, he’s held editorial roles at the Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone and MTV. education: BA, Sociology, Virginia Tech. Masters of Arts, Sociology, Virginia Tech at_money_since: 2017 articles: 29 covers: - Lifestyle - Career Advice - Credit Cards - Economy and Politics - Health and Wellness - Housing - Insurance - Investing - Money Archives - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Shopping also_seen_in: - The Wall Street Journal - Rolling Stone social: - https://x.com/themikeayers - https://linkedin.com/in/ayersmike published: '2018-02-16T21:00:11.000Z' modified: '2018-02-16T21:00:11.000Z' section: Lifestyle tags: - SI Swim - work word_count: 223 canonical: https://money.com/allie-ayers-model-sports-illustrated/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![Allie-Ayers-Sports-Illustrated-Swimsuit-Model](https://img.money.com/2018/02/allie-ayers.jpg) *Model Allie Ayers attends the 2018 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue Launch Celebration at Magic Hour at Moxy Times Square on February 14, 2018 in New York City.* This time last year, 25-year-old Allie Ayers had recently quit her job as a software programmer and moved to New York. She was teaching herself to sew by watching YouTube videos, with the idea of launching a swimwear line one day. But also around that time, she submitted a [casting call video](https://www.si.com/swim-daily/2017/08/11/allie-ayers-si-swimsuit-open-casting-call-top-15) on Instagram for [Sports Illustrated’s 2018 swimsuit issue](https://www.si.com/swimsuit/). She ended up beating out 5,000 submissions to become one of the chosen ones for the annual issue. Ayers grew up in Oklahoma and before delving in coding, she embarked on a string of odd jobs that you take when you’re young: Bartender, spray girl at a tanning salon, an administrative assistant for the Weatherford Oklahoma Economic Development office. Today, the Sports Illustrated gig has launched her into modeling full time, along with developing that swimwear line — [Bissy swim](https://www.instagram.com/bissyswim/), set to launch this spring. She says she's still working on how to budget her pay and time, though, something she admits she was never good at. “The worst part of being a model is it takes 60 to 90 days to get paid,” she says. “Everything’s messy because I’m trying to be all hands on deck to make this work. It’s hard to say. I don’t have a routine for budgeting because everything is so new and crazy.” Watch the video above. ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/allie-ayers-model-sports-illustrated/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Lifestyle", "item": "https://money.com/lifestyle/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Fashion", "item": "https://money.com/fashion/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "How a 25-Year-Old Former Coder Landed in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/allie-ayers-model-sports-illustrated/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/allie-ayers-model-sports-illustrated/", "name": "How a 25-Year-Old Former Coder Landed in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2018-02-16T21:00:11.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/allie-ayers-model-sports-illustrated/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/allie-ayers-model-sports-illustrated/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2018-02-16T21:00:11.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "How a 25-Year-Old Former Coder Landed in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue", "articleSection": "Lifestyle", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2018/02/allie-ayers.jpg", "width": 2003, "height": 1336, "caption": "Allie-Ayers-Sports-Illustrated-Swimsuit-Model" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Mike Ayers", "url": "https://money.com/author/mike-ayers/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/mike-ayers/#author", "description": "Mike Ayers is the executive editor of Money. 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