My lecturer in school, Andreas. I was amazed at how he could intertwine art and tech.

I still find it challenging to juggle my role as a mother, friend, jiu jitsu practitioner and a career in tech. To top it off, the imposter syndrome hits hard sometimes. I do not have a computer science degree and neither did I go for bootcamps, and this makes me question myself a lot. In some sense, I am my own biggest hurdle.

I used education as my stepping stone into a tech career, starting with teaching new media (photography, design and basic coding) as a freelancer. My first job in tech was with an educational tech (ed-tech) start-up where I taught kids how to code and developed coding programmes. I also assisted in the Google coding community programme. I even had an opportunity to build a start-up from scratch when I moved on to another ed-tech start-up.

It can be daunting if you are the only one in the team who is a minority woman. You find yourself inadvertently always trying to prove your worth. Having said that, I must say I am lucky to be in a diverse team.

I am now in a technical role at GovTech, and I can see that there have been improvements in the recruitment process to hire more diverse profiles. We consider qualifications as one possible criteria during recruitment, but would very much value relevant skills and experience, the disposition to learn continuously and also a candidate’s alignment to our purpose and values. In my team, there is a good number of males and females from different backgrounds.