Hi, my name is Flora Worley and I’m very happy to be joining the engineering team here at Sprint.ly! A little about me: I arrived in the tech industry after making the difficult decision a couple of years ago to leave PhD studies (media/cultural theory) at the University of London. If at any time in my student life someone would have said, “you’ll end up in computers”, I would have laughed; but I’ve found that working in code is more like an extension of my research work than a departure from it, and in all the best ways. It’s analytical, challenging, and a tremendous growth experience, and the open source and startup communities offer many opportunities for engaging in meaningful ways.
I’ve been co-organizing the Portland chapter of Pyladies (our mission is to bring more women into the Python and open source communities) since its founding a year or so ago, and it is through this group that I met Justin Abrahms. Justin has become a friend and mentor, and I’ll admit that I’ve experienced workplace envy around him on more than one occasion. Who wouldn’t want to work on a super-talented team that cares as passionately about their product as the team at Sprint.ly does? Justin took note of the fact that after some months of happy hacking on Django projects I’d wanted to work closer to the user experience, and so he brought me in to talk to Joe Stump.
Joe’s passion is infectious, and his vision for the future of Sprint.ly is exciting, deliberate, and grounded in experience building successful products—a rare combination. Add to that all of the little things that make Sprint.ly an exceptional company: transparency in process (as this blog attests), prioritizing diversity, an emphasis on collaboration and skills-enhancement. I’m really looking forward to being a part of the future here, and to working on creating a seamless experience for our users. I may be an engineer now, but I still consider myself a user first and foremost!
