What has been your path to Inlight?

I studied design and visual arts (with a year of web dev) at James Cook University in Queensland but have been coding / playing around with websites since high school.

I moved to Melbourne the week after I graduated and freelanced for a little bit until I landed my first gig at a consultancy firm called Collabforge, working on the frontend of their collaboration platform (mostly in Drupal but with some Rails). A lot of their clients were in the government, and so I worked closely with DFAT for a while which was super interesting!

After this I joined a small studio called Malt Creative, working in a fast paced environment where I would own and lead multiple projects at a time, mostly in Wordpress and Shopify but I was exposed to a little React as well.

After a couple of years there I helped my boyfriend set up a small development studio for a couple of months, helping to get some initial projects off the ground and to shape the dev team there, as well as dipping my toe in app development. I wanted my next role to be in a larger dev team and where I can rapidly improve my Javascript skills, which is where Inlight comes into the picture.

Awesome! Lots of dev experience there, how have you found settling in to a new team? Anything more challenging than expected?

The first thing you’ll notice when starting at Inlight is how supportive and patient the team are here. From the first day I felt comfortable that I made the right decision. The only challenge was a personal one - sharpening my Javascript and general coding skills took a massive priority in my life since joining Inlight (for the positive!).

Ah… the warmth of that answer, <3. Good to hear it has been a positive challenge, how have you approached sharpening your javascript/general coding skills?

The quality of code I’m exposed to at Inlight helps a lot, as well as tapping into the knowledge of the developers I’m working with. Aside from this, lots of self directed learning.

Sounds like an incredibly solid foundation, always good to know the team is there to help! Bit of a change in tact, tell us something interesting about you...any unusual talents or interests? I mean, they can be ‘usual’ as well.

I can make a pretty good batch of baklava ;D. Apart from that, I like painting / drawing and try to attend life drawing classes as often as possible, although this has taken a backseat as I bought a house recently, so renovating / fixing broken things is my primary “interest” right now haha

Hey, you and Lauren (our resident intern) have a shared interest in drawing, she’s pretty good...maybe you guys should collab. Congratulations on your house, what’s going to be on your bookshelves?

Bit of a mix - from Peter Hamilton to David Sedaris to Tad Williams to comics (One Piece, The Manhattan Projects etc), some illustrators like Shaun Tan and the odd coding book.

Quickfire round

Favourite country/place to travel?

Anywhere my friends and family are. I try to visit Brisbane a few times a year.

Favourite movie?

Lost in Translation

Favourite song (right now)?

Just discovered of Montreal, so Gronlandic Edit by them is up there at the moment

Favourite Collingwood/Fitzroy food spot?

Shawcross Pizza

Mate, awesome to hear more about you, thanks for the chat!