At Bitrise, our endgame is making a real impact on billions of devices every day and discovering the experience of working and co-creating together with the brightest minds. There are fantastic folks here making that possible. In our “Behind the Scenes — Women of Bitrise” series we focus on our female colleagues and sit down with them to provide a glimpse into what they do and where their heads are at.
This round we’re talking to Julie from Budapest.
Can you share a little bit about yourself?
When I was 12 years old, somebody asked me what I would like to do when I grow up. I always said, without hesitation, that I would do programming. I selected my schools to achieve this goal, went to university, studied a lot of math (that I have never used since) and gathered all the skills I’d need to get there. At work, I first spent a great amount of time building CSS for websites, then went on to Javascript, then became a full-stack developer, and later a backend developer. I have tried myself as an engineering lead and as a team lead as well.
In my spare time, I like to read and I get ‘green thumbs’.
Did you always know that working in a tech company was what you wanted to do? How did you decide to go into engineering/tech…?
I knew at a very young age that I would love to do coding. My brother, who’s 10 years older than me, was pursuing a similar career — he is the main reason I’m here and doing what I’m doing these days.
Do you notice a lack of women in technology? If so, why do you think that’s the case?
Yes, unfortunately, there is a very common lack of balance. There are way fewer female engineers than male engineers in this field. In my opinion there are two different ways you could get into technology: you either want it from a very young age or you decide to switch careers as an adult. In both cases, the examples you see are very important.
Children, in general, are very curious and there are a lot of ways to get their attention. If you expose them early to STEM, you will most likely have kids who’ll tell you “When I grow up I want to be a data scientist”. Well, at least for a few days…
The other thing I see is that when young people encounter computer science at school, it is not very appealing. Back when I was taught how to work with Word and Excel, how to identify the different parts of a computer, and so on, they didn’t mention that computer science requires a lot of creativity, communication, and attention to detail. There are many great initiatives exposing real computer science to different generations of girls and women but it is not very common yet. And a lot of people who are not entirely sure yet that they want to work in tech get discouraged: they will be either afraid to try or give up after a few months.
What’s your role at Bitrise? What do you do on a typical day?
I am a Senior Software Engineer. My average day includes coding, pair working with my team members, reviewing my peers' work, deploying our code, and fixing any issues we find. I’m actively working on finding time to develop myself, either by reading articles, books, creating proof of concepts, or just practicing my coding skills.
Why did you choose to work at Bitrise, how did it turn out?
The majority of my work experience was at big tech companies. I wanted to try out myself in an environment where I could have more impact on a daily basis. Being able to deliver my first enhancement was a great experience.
What challenges do you have the most at work?
As a software engineer, you are always in a knowledge deficit. It is very rare that you start working on a development and you know exactly what will happen. It could be hard sometimes to face that there are still serious gaps in your understanding. The key is to look at them as opportunities to learn and grow — this helps a lot.
What makes you get up in the morning?
Knowing that I’ll be able to work on something exciting and meaningful. Knowing that I’ll be surrounded by caring, passionate, and talented engineers.
What advice would you pass on to other women to help them progress in this industry? What do you wish you had known?
Just be brave, do your best, and know you can do anything you set your mind to.
Thanks so much to Julie for a great interview and a look into her life as a Senior Software Engineer at Bitrise. Want to work on helping millions of mobile developers build better apps, faster? Check out our current job openings here!
