Employee Spotlight: Episode 1
In honour of International Women’s Day, we start our Employee Spotlight Series with two powerhouse team members, Liza King and Annette Aben. We asked them a couple of questions about their history, their work at Autoscriber and their greatest inspirations.
Their unique energy and personalities shine through in their answers and highlight why we love having them on the team!
Liza King
Hometown: Cape Town, South Africa; lives in Utrecht, the Netherlands
Tenure at Autoscriber: 2+ years
Role: NLP lead/Product Owner; Hands on development and planning of our NLP engine and collaborating with external researchers on AI research
Something most people don’t know about you: I’m an obscure fact collector
What inspired you to pursue this career?
Honestly? I was first just annoyed that human linguistic analysis didn’t scale very well. There’s only so much a person can do. That changed my track from phonetics to computational linguistics; I fell in love with machine learning and particularly biomedical and healthcare applications thereof. This was before BERT (let alone ChatGPT) (is BERT old enough to require an explanation?!) was on the scene so I’m no longer annoyed about scale.
What sets you apart in your field?
I am endlessly curious and stubborn. The former is vital in such a rapidly changing industry (two weeks is a long time in AI). The latter is required to solve bugs. And useful when things get challenging.
How have you grown professionally while on our team?
The short answer: I can speak better Dutch with my “huisarts” than my “buurman.”
Longer answer: being part of a smaller, fast-paced team means you get to touch everything and witness the impact very quickly. I have grown as an NLP expert through implementing and testing current research breakthroughs, and I’ve gained a deeper appreciation and understanding of the more ‘old school’ technologies like ontologies and knowledge graphs. Shipping these features quickly and seeing the impact thereof is far more informative and rewarding than the usual metric tables. Making all of the above work reliably and in real time has made me a much better programmer.
Where do you think you can have the biggest impact in your role (on the organisation’s success and the team’s culture)?
I am a radical moderate. I’m a perfectionist until it no longer makes practical sense. I’m intrinsically motivated but I also care about the utility of my work and how it makes an impact on others. I think that this balance while still maintaining passion is important.
Quality and attention to detail is important when working in healthcare. You cannot afford a security leak and you cannot sell a subpar product. On the other hand, it’s important to make sure you don’t sink too much time into efforts that are not valuable (but are wonderfully accurate and bug-free). As our org[anisation] grows I think this kind of mindset is particularly important for progress.
How do you spend your ultimate day off?
Sauna and ice swimming
When you are at work, how do you motivate yourself?
I am an obsessive problem solver. And when obsession wanes, there are always filthy beats.
What advice would you give someone considering working at a health tech startup?
You have to enjoy building something even if it might get thrown away/parked for later. Maybe the timing is wrong. Or the use case. Or it is just a bad idea. Build it quickly, find out, learn from it.
What’s your favourite thing about working at Autoscriber?
The work is challenging and meaningful; there’s lots to learn from team mates
To steal one of my favourite interview questions from Tim Ferris: “If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere with anything on it, what would it say and why?”
“The most effective way to do it, is to do it.” Amelia Earhart
Annette Aben
Hometown: Utrecht, the Netherlands
Tenure at Autoscriber: 2 months
Role: Sales Development Representative; I’m the first person potential customers talk to when they’re interested in Autoscriber, and I’m there to help them find the Autoscriber plan that best fits their needs.
Something most people don’t know about you: I can name all countries and point them out on a map.
What inspired you to pursue this career?
I’ve been working in several customer facing roles within SaaS for about 4 year’s now and I love it. It’s fast paced, effective and always has the goal of making a positive impact on people’s lives.
Pursuing a career at Autoscriber is one of the most beautiful opportunities I’ve had the pleasure of pursuing. I experienced first hand what the immense amount of paperwork in healthcare can lead to. It’s the #1 reason for healthcare professionals to get burned out. In 2022 this happened to my partner as well. Working for Autoscriber means I can make a huge impact on preventing this from happening to other healthcare workers and their loved ones.
What sets you apart in your field?
What sets me apart in the field of selling is my genuine interest in people. If I ask you about your vacation, it did not come from a pop up in my CRM system. I genuinely have been wondering if you enjoyed your vacation.
If I send you a Christmas card, it’s not a marketing move. I just truly love Christmas and wish everyone a beautiful time with their loved ones. And I genuinely would never sell anything to someone if I didn’t believe it would benefit them and has a positive impact.
Where do you think you can have the biggest impact in your role?
My impact on the organisations success is very evident. [My goal is to] get as many healthcare professionals to use Autoscriber!
My impact on the team’s culture is creating togetherness where and whenever I can. Whether it’s by organising and preparing company lunches, drinks and game nights or just being a colleague you feel comfortable venting to.
What are some of your biggest influences?
Ines Kostić is a big influence for me. I admire their vallues and the fight they’re fighting for animal rights and equal rights.
How do you spend your ultimate day off?
In a park (preferably on a sunny day) with a picnic basket full of food and drinks, a wide range of games and friends to enjoy all of this with.
Your favourite book?
Poor by Caleb Femi. It’s poetry so it’s definitely not for everyone, but it’s such a rollercoaster and really puts life in prospective.
When you are at work, how do you motivate yourself?
The work is motivating enough! I’f I feel myself getting a little less energy though I like to walk my dog or do a nice brainteaser.
Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
Professionally, I see myself in more of a Key Account manager role at Autoscriber in 5 years. Personally, I see myself come home to wife and kids after work.
What’s your favourite thing about working at Autoscriber?
The energy. The team is small but the amount of positive energy and talent is exhilarating!
To steal one of my favourite interview questions from Tim Ferris: “If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere with anything on it, what would it say and why?”
“Wie goed doet, goed ontmoet”
A Dutch saying that [literally] translates to: “Who does good, meets good” [or: those who do good things shall encounter good things]
Stay tuned for more episodes to get to know our dynamic and diverse team at Autoscriber — automating clinical note taking for healthcare professionals and enabling human-centric data-driven healthcare
