This Frontend Engineer Was the First Woman on Her Team

Reading the news these days as a woman can border on the downright frightening or perturbing, which is why it was refreshing to recently sit down with Emily Jones, a frontend engineer with Zapier who was placed by PowerToFly. Emily was the lone female engineer when she first joined Zapier, a web automation app, where users can build Zaps that automate any and all parts of your business or life. Thankfully, her experience there has been nothing but positive, and several more women have since joined her team. Hooray!

"It's been a really great experience," Emily explains. "Everyone is open and welcoming and there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of judgement or stigma around being a female engineer. We even have a women's channel on Slack where we can vent about being a woman at work and a woman in tech."

Not only has Emily found the environment warm, but she's also equally rewarded by the product and the work itself. She tells us, "This is really my first gig where I'm doing something that people use, which is really exciting. The biggest kick is where I make something people actually use. I say, 'I built that', and that's really cool. And I love the tech that we have. We mostly use it for the workplace. It's automated, so it's awesome. We have something called 'Push by Zapier' and you can use it to collect anything that you want. There are also some really fun Zaps I love using too, so i love being part of that.

"I guess the main thing i like about it," Emily continues, "is with some other integration products I have seen - with Zapier you can really do whatever you want. We support over 800 apps now. Our workflow allows you to completely customize whatever you need. That makes it really powerful because you're not relying on someone else. With other apps, you have to align your workflow to what people think you need rather than what you think is necessary. It makes it really creative and fun."

What's even more surprising when speaking with Emily, is that the whole world of tech is virtually brand new to her. PowerToFly helped place her in her current position with Zapier, but she hasn't been in the game long. "I got into code pretty recently. It's been about a year and a half since I started to learn. With PowerToFly - it was really nice to have a community of women. The remote aspect of my job - promoting the remote aspect for women was really great, because then I could work and travel.

And when not globe-trotting to far flung places like Paris, Emily has some words of inspiration for other women in tech. She advises, "If you want to do something, even if you think you can't, a lot of times, it turns out you can. Don't count yourself out on something before you actually try." She especially thinks that can pertain to working on a team loaded with men. "If you see the team as mostly men, don't be intimidated. They could be really nice."