Engineering Profile: Meet Jenny

Meet Jenny, one of our Software Engineers at SafetyCulture.

Jenny spends her free time being creative with hobbies like drawing, painting and crafting. She also loves animals, is an avid traveller and a foodie.

What inspired you to take up a career in Tech as a Software Engineer?

Growing up I never thought I was going to work in tech. I thought I was going to pursue a more artistic role such as a designer of some sort, however at the same time, I didn’t want my hobbies to become too stressful which can happen when it becomes one’s job. I looked into becoming a teacher and wanted to do something related to science but I didn’t feel like I had strong foundations within these fields. Furthermore, I had constantly moved across different countries whilst growing up which made it challenging to understand the foundational scientific concepts in different languages which I wasn’t always fluent in.

I was not a technically savvy kid growing up but I knew I was good at troubleshooting and solving problems. I was always able to find ways to solve problems on my own which led me towards pursuing a computer science degree at university.

I think software engineering is amazing because it isn’t tied to a specific industry. You can use your skills to implement technology across so many industries.

When did you join SafetyCulture? Why did you choose SafetyCulture at the time?

I joined SafetyCulture in March 2020. In terms of what made me choose SafetyCulture, there were a few things:

• When I was going through the interview process, I really felt that the company culture was one which I wanted to be a part of. Everyone was very approachable and I really felt that there was a strong team culture. It felt like there was a bigger purpose that the team was trying to achieve and the company really valued their people and customers. I then watched and learnt more about the company through the company stories and was amazed that such a simple idea like a checklist could make such a big impact on people’s lives.
• At the time, I thought SafetyCulture was also growing at a rate where the problems that were being solved were ones that I was very interested in working on. Understanding and working through scalability problems has been interesting to me and I really felt like I could learn a lot during this phase of the company’s growth.
• I learnt about the amazing food that SafetyCulture’s in-house chefs serve every day which is just a bonus for me!

You’ve been working on some interesting projects at SafetyCulture, what is the biggest takeaway you’ve learnt and how have you found the experience of working on these at SafetyCulture?

At the beginning, I was working on a project that I was not familiar with at all in terms of the technologies and systems used which was a little scary, but I was paired up with someone who had more experience with such systems and had great support from the team to get the project completed. The project was very rewarding as it had a big impact on improving the workflows of other internal team members within our Customer Success teams.

After that I was given the opportunity to work on a new project from scratch which involved steps such as requirement gathering, design, implementation and deployment which was such a unique opportunity for me. Since then I have worked on quite a few different projects. Each project has allowed me to build a different set of skills within software engineering as there is so much to learn. I’ve been happy that I have been given such opportunities to learn, grow and add value to both internal and external customers.

In terms of learnings, I would say the biggest takeaway from all these projects would be:

• Building rapport and seeking help from others within the business is crucial when working on projects that span across multiple parts of the system. As an individual it is quite hard to know the intricacies about all the systems and how they work, but everyone within the business has in depth knowledge about the systems their teams are responsible for. Lots of engineers have specialised knowledge within their teams and it is important to ensure they are involved in the conversation about the projects early. Teams who are able to work well together will achieve so much more than what an individual could achieve.

You’ve also been quite involved in mentoring at SafetyCulture both as a mentor and a mentee. Can you tell us a little more about that and what your biggest learnings from these experiences were?

As a mentee initially, I learnt a lot about our infrastructure which was the initial focus area with my mentor who was a member of our Foundational Engineering team. Prior to the mentorship, I felt like I was mainly focussing on the services themselves, but having a mentor to teach me more about the surrounding infrastructure for running services really helped me when I was working on a project that involved building out a new stack of services from scratch. The timing of this mentorship was also really helpful as it helped me put the learnings into practice.

Since the initial mentorship, I have been able to mentor others and share my knowledge of what I learnt to others who are new to my team which has also helped me solidify my understanding of how things work as well. It’s been a very rewarding experience to see engineers I have mentored grow and become better engineers in such a short period of time.

In terms of key learnings I got from being both a mentor and mentee, there are a few that come to mind:

• It is not always about knowing the answer to everything as a mentor. A key role I played as a mentor was to guide and help my mentees get on the right path by helping them reach out to SMEs in specific areas.
• When you’re in a mentorship, you do not always need to focus on the technical topics as a Software Engineer. It was very helpful to have someone who you could talk to and get different perspectives from on a wide variety of topics such as documentation skills for different audiences, career planning options and problem solving.

What advice would you give others who are interested in pursuing a career in Tech?

Don’t be afraid to just try it if you are interested in pursuing a career in tech. There are now so many resources out there that can help people get started and build and refine their skills. There are also several communities that you can join where people are always willing to help.

I would say it is best to start by building something small and you’ll realise how satisfying it can be when you bring an idea to life. At first it can be challenging and you may have some doubts early in your career, however over time you will become more confident and competent with whatever projects you work on.

At SafetyCulture, we are excited to come to work and the value we bring to the business. We are hiring!