VICTORIA BROAD

VICTORIA BROAD | Software Engineer at ADInstruments | Dunedin

Q. Girls and non-binary children often find it hard to see a pathway for themselves into a coding career. How did you get into coding? What is one piece of advice you have for them?

I got into coding via motivation, skill and luck. I was motivated because I knew it was the career that I wanted and I worked hard at my education to make it happen. I am skilled because I worked hard; I have a logical mindset and viewing things as a set of tasks makes sense to me. I am lucky because I found a job while at university for a company where a friend who could recommend me worked.

My advice would be to make the most out of your community and learn everything you can. Formal education is a great way to have both a community and an education. Learn everything you can and put in the effort, both with people and coding. 

Q. Tell us about a rad piece of code that you’ve written? What piece of code are you most proud of in your career so far?

All of the majorly cool pieces of code I have written have been at work so I can’t get into detail. I feel most proud of my work when I am learning new things. Taking on pieces of work that feels daunting and finishing it is the best and most satisfying feeling. I also feel pretty gratified when I write a complicated regular expression or a complete set of passing unit tests.

“The thing I most want out of my code
is longevity and elegance”

Q. What big dreams do you have as a coder? What are you aspiring to do next?

I want to write a project, look back at it five years after the fact and still think it’s good. This may seem like an arbitrary goal, but as I have learned more and more I look back at my code and think about all the ways it would be better if I did it now! This is great because it means I am learning, but after writing production code for a few years the thing I most want out of my code is longevity and elegance. Victoria codes in C#, Java, Javascript, Perl, Powershell, and SQL.