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Women in Leadership Profiles
Name: Tara Ojo
Role: Senior Software Engineer
Company: Financial Times
A bit about Tara: I grew up in the Midlands and went to Aston University in Birmingham to study a Computer Science related degree. When I’m not writing code, you’ll find me in a restaurant or trying a new recipe, I’m a big foodie!
What is it like working in your company? The Financial Times has lots of great people and many opportunities to grow in your career. My team works on the parts of the website that help our readers to find articles and content that matches their interests. I was recently working on a new homepage giving readers a better view of all of our top news stories.
Why did you decide to go into your chosen field? When I was at school I was really interested in both Art and ICT, when it came to looking at options for university I decided to go down the technical route and learned that the tech industry also has lots of creative roles too. I got the best of both worlds!
What qualifications and work experience did you need to reach your current position? While you can do a computing degree if you’re interested in a coding role, there are also lots of other routes to become a Software Engineer. As long as you have an interest in learning to code you’re good to go, I know those who have done coding bootcamps, self-learners who’ve learned code from YouTube videos and those like myself who learned to code at university.
What do you enjoy the most about your job? I really enjoy pair programming at work. Pair programming is when I work with someone in my team, usually at the same computer (pre-COVID!), to create something new or solve a bug. It’s great because we get to learn from each other to solve the problem, while also having some non-work related chat too!
What obstacles have you overcome in your career? I personally feel imposter syndrome regularly! That’s what they call it when you feel like you don’t belong in the role you’re in because you’re not as competent as others think you are, you feel like an imposter. Coding can be difficult and sometimes I have no idea what I’m doing! That’s part of the job though and it really helps to have great colleagues to remind you that you’re not an imposter and to also remember that if you weren’t good enough, you wouldn’t be there!
Why do you think it is important to have a strong female representation in your industry? Software Engineers are building the technology that everyone uses everyday, from the website you use to apply for a new passport to the app that you use to add filters to your selfies. If there isn’t female representation in the technology industry, the things we use everyday will be extremely biased and limited in innovation. We need a variety of ideas from people with different viewpoints to make sure all people can benefit.
It has also been proven that diversity of employees makes businesses more money...
What advice would you give those wanting to take a similar career path?
- Start learning to code and create something.
- Take advantage of websites like Codecademy, freeCodeCamp and even YouTube to get the skills you need.
- Who knows you could create the next TikTok, or at least you’ll learn the skills you need to work on an app you use everyday!
