Our Women-in-Web program was a success and resulted in two new hires joining Ledgy’s development team. Mariana was one of them; we had a quick chat with her.
In a few words I’ll go straight to the point: I recently graduated from mathematics in ETH, I love riddles and books, I’m quite small, I like to recycle objects a bit randomly, like turn the cardboard box that contained a piece of furniture into a second piece of furniture, or shrink huge dresses to fit my size. I was born in Colombia and moved to Switzerland when I was five or so, so I love the guitar in boleros, food that contains corn or coriander and green mountains, but I would pay quite a lot of money to get quality chocolate if I had to.
I always wanted to be an engineer. Both my parents studied engineering and I grew up with the idea that it was the best thing you could with your life. The math path was just a beautiful challenge I decided to take. People say that when you study mathematics, you can become anything. Well that’s not true, but I figured I could still become many great things. I got a bit scared as I progressed in my studies, because it seemed like the startup world was reserved for people trained in a very specific subject. But you've got to try and see. I tried: I started coding in my free time during the last semester of my studies. And I saw: coding is broad enough for my taste – not as broad as mathematics, though, but nothing is 😇.
The impression hasn’t changed from day one to day thirty: everyone is welcoming and open. You get to talk to all employees, even working remote. I’d also say it’s quite young and dynamic, and it has a sort of team-spirit, making all moments enjoyable. Work is, at all scales, split, and the good organization allows employees a strong independence on the daily.
That’s a tough question for someone who knows as little as me. I’d say that in general I feel torn apart between the desire of expanding my working zone to all fields and that of digging into a challenging, logical and precise one. Until now I’ve been mainly dealing with front-end tasks, so for sure I hope I’ll learn about the back-end as well. I wish I’ll work on both parts and won't have to choose one.
I hope that I’ll become a constantly-learning-but-also-admirably-well-working engineer for Ledgy (and for myself), and that I’ll keep feeling challenged and motivated. I also hope I’ll become extremely cool with computers, get to see the keyboard as an extension of my hands and the terminal as one of my brain.
I can only imagine how frustrating it must be to hold back from working in your product, as a growing company, because you’ve got to focus on some financial aspects and organization. On a personal level I’m excited about contributing to Ledgy’s expansion, and I couldn’t imagine a better immersion to the startup ecosystem: understanding Ledgy is understanding a key aspect all companies have to handle.
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