Tackling the major challenges the world faces today requires the best and brightest, which is why each year, the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise's (NHO) Abelia and the women’s network, ODA, recognize new, talented women achieving big things in leadership and technology. Honored among them is Cognite’s own technology lead, Juliana Correa, and the only software engineer on the list.
“I am very proud to represent Cognite on the list, and I see this as a recognition of the importance of diversity — for encouraging more women in technology, but also in seeing the value of having multicultural teams. It’s my experience that Cognite, and Norway as a whole, are welcoming places, where women can feel safer and more empowered in the workplace,” said Juliana Correa.
It’s widely seen that women working in technology are outnumbered by men, and Norway recognizes the need to change this and encourage more women to choose tech careers. Abelia’s stated hope is that platforms such as these will inspire more people, and women in particular, to choose careers in technology and aspire to become leaders in their fields.
Juliana Correa, pictured above, hails from Brazil and graduated in Computer Science at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. She then studied Bioinformatics at the University of São Paulo, after which she went on to work as a software developer at Petrobras, Brazil's largest oil & gas company. She moved to Norway to join Cognite in 2018.
Correa says that she originally went into technology, and specifically computer science, because it allows people to work across businesses and industries. “I first started a degree in electrical engineering, but switched in order to have this career and industry flexibility. It’s given me the opportunity to build products that other people use and love, and that’s very rewarding!” she said.
Juliana finds her motivation from having a clear challenge and vision when it comes to product development. She says that many people want to build sophisticated models and leverage the power of their data, but are blocked because the data is locked, lacks quality or they don't know how to access or clean it. Thus, being able to break that barrier and fill a clear need is her main driver.
On the challenges women in tech face, Juliana notes that many women leave, or don’t consider joining in the first place, because they don't feel represented or under too much pressure. “I would like to have the opportunity to break that stereotype and show that everyone can be technically skilled and contribute to the joy of building a great product,” she says, “It is not the privilege of a few.”