Luisa’s creativity and desire to make the world a better place can be seen in both her work and her hobbies, with the social impact of technology and the animals of South America both high on her priority list. She thinks people should do one thing at a time if they can – ideally something that makes them happy.
If you need to work on too many things in parallel, take the time to organise and prioritise so you can focus on one task at a time.
Not really! I wasn’t sure what I wanted to become. I was quite artistic as a child – I used to love drawing, dancing and reading. Then at high school I was interested in architecture. My main concern when thinking about a career was avoiding chemistry – I hated that in school! I always enjoyed maths though; that was my passion since I was very young. It was actually a maths teacher that introduced me to electronic engineering, which is what I studied at university, and that led me to software engineering.
I’m a Senior Software Engineer & Tech Advisor, which is a very wide role that includes everything from being a hands-on developer working on many different technologies to leading multidisciplinary teams building solutions for our clients. The advisory component of my role also has me working side by side with clients to transform their organisations and help them get the most out of the constantly changing digital landscape. There is scope for creativity too – I find myself drawn to the creative side of designing code, ensuring it accurately represents the abstract concept required. There are many ways to write code, and I’m passionate about ensuring my code is high quality and flexible enough to evolve.
Try to avoid multitasking as much as you can. I don’t believe multitasking is a good skill at all – it hinders productivity in the long run and can be a major factor in burnout. If you need to work on too many things in parallel, take the time to organise and prioritise so you can focus on one task at a time.
It has delivered on everything, but I’d say the best thing is the people. I felt really welcomed from day one – by my second week I felt like I had been here ages! It was a real sense of belonging.
In terms of hobbies I’m very random – I change my hobby every second month! I still draw and read, and I like to knit. I do have one long-term passion project that I started a while ago while still in Ecuador. It’s an open source application that attempts to help non-profits in South America that work with abandoned animals and reunite lost animals with their families. My app is still a work in progress, but it combines two of the things I love the most, animals and coding.
I really want to make an impact on society through what I know best, which is technology. Technology is not neutral, it can have both a negative and a positive impact – in fact, if not well thought through it’s likely to have a negative impact on society in lots of ways. I would love to leave my mark on the world with something sustainable that helps society move in a positive direction. I’m still figuring out what that will be, but in the meantime I’m learning as much as I can about social inequality, systemic oppression, the negative impacts of technology and how to make unconscious biases explicit. My hope is that I can address some of these tough ethical questions while building digital products.
Whatever makes them truly happy. That’s the only thing that really matters!
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