Shilpa Shah
Application and Integration Engineer
What inspired you to get into software engineering?
I had always been fascinated by technology and would be repairing our first National Panasonic "2-in-1" (Cassette Player and Radio in case it's too old a terminology for current memory :-)) with screwdrivers, and cassettes using pens, scissors and a bit of glue. When an opportunity came along to study Engineering, I chose it over "safer" options like Lab Tech or Librarian (yes!)." Love of Binary and Boolean mathematics and Programming Logic set me on the path to Software Engineering.
What, if any, challenges have you faced along the way?
As in most cases, stereotyping was the biggest challenge. What society deemed as safer career for women and what I loved to do. Also, the myth that women and engineering or hardware do not go together! Contrary to that traditional "wisdom", my whole class was made of girls! Back in those days in India, it was almost unheard of.
What’s your advice to girls and young women entering the industry?
Listen to your inner self, be ready to put in the hard work and above all, enjoy what you do.
What do you like the best about your role?
To see the effect of coding/programming in real life. Recently, I did a course in TinyML and its application for AI, it just blew me away. Technology, like anything else, can be used for both greater good as well as for a selfish purpose. The possibility of using TinyML and AI for agriculture is an example of the former.
Please describe a day in your life at work.
At the moment, in my support role, I am not doing much programming, but I try to decode the code in order to help libraries customise their sites. Typically, a day at work would involve taking care of customer issues, requests, which would involve backend work, where my background in Engineering and Programming come in handy.