Can you share a bit about what you do and what a typical day looks like for you?
I spend the majority of time with client, where I hold the role of Senior Software Engineer alongside an unofficial lead engineer position. My days tend to follow a satisfying rhythm. We kick things off with a stand-up at nine in the morning, which I like to keep tight and purposeful, no longer than fifteen minutes.
After that, I work my way through any open pull requests and respond to questions from the team. Being a trusted knowledge source is a big part of what I do, so I make time to advise and guide colleagues, whether that means talking through a technical problem or helping someone think through an approach.
From there, I get into my own development work, always with an eye on what the current priority is. In the tech world, that can shift quite quickly, so I maintain a running list and communicate clearly with the team about where focus should lie at any given moment. Our broader meetings are scheduled rhythmically throughout the week, which keeps things predictable and leaves plenty of uninterrupted time for deep work. It is a role that keeps me on my toes, and I genuinely love it.
What motivated or inspired you to pursue a career in the software industry? Was it always something you wanted to do?
Honestly, software was not the original plan. As a child, I loved helping my dad fix things, and that hands-on curiosity led me to set my sights on electronic engineering. When my physics marks did not quite meet the requirements, I did not give up on the idea of a technical career. Instead, I sat down and put together a proper action plan to find something that would suit me just as well.
A BSc in IT turned out to be the perfect fit: technical, deeply practical, and full of opportunities to solve real problems. So while software was not necessarily what initially caught my attention, the underlying instincts were always there. A desire to fix things, to tinker, to understand how something works and then make it work better. Looking back now, I am tremendously glad I went down this road. I love what I do, and I suspect I love it even more than I would have loved the path I originally had in mind.
Can you describe your career journey and how you came to be at Entelect?
I am something of an Entelect original. My husband went through the Entelect Graduate Bootcamp the year before me, in 2017, and watching how effectively it shaped and developed talent made me very curious. I was referred, and decided to attend an open day to find out more.
At the event, I ended up in a wonderful conversation with someone whose depth of knowledge and warmth really struck me. It was only later that I realised I had been chatting with Shashi, our CEO, who also went on to interview me. That experience was genuinely inspiring and played a big part in my decision to join the company. It set the tone for everything that followed.
What has it been like working in the Dutch tech scene? Any cultural differences that surprised you or that you particularly appreciate?
I will be honest: it was a tough start. Emigration has a way of quietly chipping away at your confidence, and trying to prove yourself in a completely different country, within a new professional environment and a different language, is no small thing. When I first joined my Dutch client, I was quite shy and struggled with imposter syndrome. I spent a lot of time listening and observing, and with everything around me being in Dutch, it could feel overwhelming.
The turning point came after my first Entelect review period. I sent out eleven feedback requests to colleagues at the client, and every single one of them responded. Not one person raised a concern about my language. The feedback was warm and encouraging, and people were actively inviting me to contribute more. That meant the world to me. It was a clear signal that I was seen, appreciated, and valued, regardless of whether I was having a good Dutch day or a difficult one. I have come out the other side of that period considerably stronger, and I am in a really good place now.
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What is your special sauce? What unique perspectives or flavour do you add to your team and your client?
I genuinely care, and I think that comes through in everything I do. I care about the people on my team, not just the work, I believe that a team performs best when each person is able to pour from a reasonably full cup, and sometimes that means reshuffling tasks so that someone can get a breath of fresh air and work on something different for a while.
I also have an almost instinctive attention to detail. On my very first project, I found that I had quietly begun to notice everyone's shoes without really thinking about it. It became a bit of a team joke, but it is a good illustration of how naturally I pick up on the finer details around me. That quality has turned out to be genuinely useful in software development, even if noticing people's footwear is perhaps a less transferable skill.
Can you talk about a particularly memorable project or accomplishment in your career and what you learned from it?
My very first project stands out most clearly. I had just come out of Bootcamp and landed in a team that immediately believed in us as new developers. A few months in, my Tech Lead asked me to figure out how to build a very specific feature, something he openly admitted he did not know how to approach because it was a relatively new concept in the space. I did not feel especially confident at the time, but he did not question for a second whether I would be able to do it. He simply trusted me.
That belief transformed what felt possible. I tackled the problem and found a way through. Since then, I have been fortunate to work under several excellent leaders who have shaped the kind of leader I want to become. One lesson I carry from all of it is this: no matter how you feel about a project or a team, whether things are going brilliantly or proving very difficult, there is always something to take away. You owe it to yourself to find that lesson and learn it properly.
If you could give your younger self one piece of career advice, what would it be?
You are enough. You belong. You are absolutely allowed to take up space.
I would want my younger self to know that the self-doubt and the feeling of not quite fitting in are not evidence of anything real. They are just noise. The sooner you stop waiting for permission to show up fully, the sooner you can start doing the work you are genuinely capable of.
What initiatives or strategies can organisations implement to foster more gender diversity and inclusivity in tech teams?
True allyship, in my view, requires both sides. Men and women working together, with a genuine appreciation for the different strengths each brings. The emphasis should be on encouraging those differences rather than smoothing them out.
Women are often asked, implicitly or explicitly, to adapt themselves to fit a mould that was not designed with them in mind. Instead, organisations should be asking how women's approaches to building and growing teams can strengthen the whole. Women frequently bring distinct perspectives on collaboration, communication, and people development, and those are enormously valuable in tech. The key is to approach difference with curiosity rather than seeing it as something to be corrected.
What do you envision for the future of women in leadership positions in tech? What role do you hope to play in shaping that future?
At the moment, there is still a tendency to assume that women need to prove they can do the job before they are given the opportunity, whilst their male counterparts are often trusted with that opportunity first. I hope that changes. My vision for the future is one where unconscious bias against women in tech diminishes steadily and meaningfully, where the bar is consistent regardless of gender, and where women in leadership feel like a natural state of affairs rather than an exception.
As for my own role in shaping that future, I hope it is through showing up fully, leading with care and competence, and being the kind of leader I was lucky enough to learn from early in my career. If I can give someone else that same sense of being believed in, regardless of where they come from or what they look like, then I think I will have done something worthwhile.
