We are thrilled to share that our Developer Technologies MVP in Sweden, Jessica Engström, was selected as one of Women Who Code's Top 100 Technologists to Watch in 2023. Congratulations, Jessica!
In this blog, we share her achievements in her own words. Let’s learn her story.
Tell us about your community activities and how you help community members.
“Apart from cats, my biggest passions are teaching, giving back to the community, and enabling others to strive. It started with my husband and me founding Coding After Work user group, where we provided a place for anyone with a love for code to join us, bring their own projects, and get help and inspiration from others in the user group. It led to me starting to speak at conferences and events, and I got to meet so many incredible people and have such interesting conversations.
We wanted to share our interesting conversations with other people who are not so lucky to be able to travel the world meeting them, and that’s how Coding After Work Podcast was born.
Organizing conferences is so much fun, I’m one of the organizers of Sweden’s largest .NET conference Swetugg.
When the pandemic hit, we (Daniel Hindrikes, my husband, and I) started an online conference, .NET Frontend Day, focusing on frontend technologies for .NET.
This year I was part of organizing a new conference, .NET Castle conference, which was set in a castle, so not only did we have a bunch of attendees, but we also had (paintings of) Swedish kings and queens in the audience.
Coding After Work moved to be online on Twitch and YouTube.
We went into a hardware store, ordered the greenest wall color we could find, and painted the entire wall in chroma key green. Let me tell you, that’s a lot of green!”
How did you start your career as a technologist?
“I started out studying programming, but I quickly realized that my passion was all about the user, and how we can improve our user experience and include more people with accessibility. Microsoft Sweden Developer Experience saw what I was doing in the community and approached me to consult as an audience coordinator / Marketing specialist (read community manager or developer relations).
After that, I started teaching and doing workshops about everything from holographic computers to AI with cognitive services but mostly UX for developers & Agile methodologies/Scrum.
I think having an understanding of code helps a lot when it comes to improving your UX and accessibility, and especially teaching developers how to think about it.”
How did you feel when you heard the news about you became one of women who codes top 100 technologist to watch in 2023?
“It was very unexpected, and I feel so honored and thankful to be on that list of amazing women worldwide!”
Message to women who pursue careers in technology
“A message to other women or underrepresented people is to try to see your worth!
I have been struggling with that myself, and I have a major case of impostor syndrome, and that, unfortunately, can open up possibilities for people to step on you and even use you. Reach out to other people in the industry and ask them questions like what fair compensation for the kind of work you do or want to get into is. Ask not only other women or underrepresented people, but ask men, ask people who have been in the industry longer, and use the MVP community.
I’m so thankful I got around to asking a fellow MVP about that because it turned out that I was taken advantage of and could increase my consultant fee 10-fold. Nobody even batted an eye about the higher cost because it was more aligned with my expertise and experience!”
Visit her LinkedIn post to find her excitement about being the Women Who Code's Top 100 Technologists to Watch in 2023
We close this blog with her additional message to all technologists.
“Don’t be afraid to reach out to your community. Most of us are happy to help if we can, and I dare to say nobody will be angry about you asking a question. You might be surprised how many of us have or have had impostor syndrome, anxiety, are introverts, and so on.
We’ve all been there, and we want to pay it forward.”