Women in Tech Week - Zoë Stephenson on on 25 years in tech, high-integrity software and making quality happen

For Women in Tech Week, we are taking the time to celebrate some of the amazing women working here at Rapita. In this interview series, we will discuss why they love working in technology, what drives them, and the challenges they have faced along the way.

In this blog we will be talking to Zoë Stephenson, Aerospace Quality Specialist, about how her dad inspired her interest in tech, her amazing 25 years in the industry and how to she has stopped her skills being pigeonholed by working hard to keep things fresh.

What first sparked your interest in technology?
Some of my earliest memories involve sitting on the floor of the shed at the bottom of the garden, where my father would be soldering and testing some hobby project or other, probably involving radios. I would look at the components and have no real idea how they turned into the devices we used around the house, so it seemed like amazing wizardry. Knowing how it all works now, you’d think the illusion had worn off, but somehow running a bit of code and seeing it do what you expected still has some charm to it.

Was there a person who influenced your path?
I’ve just been lucky to have access to some of the best teachers growing up. 

How long have you worked in the Technology industry?
Since 2001, and at Rapita since 2011.

How has your role grown or changed since you started in the industry?
I started off in a university department as a Research Associate, mostly on process and product risk, product lines, and the constraints of high-integrity systems. When I moved into industry at Rapita Systems I started off as a Field Application Engineer, taking that experience with high-integrity systems and applying it around the world in customers’ software development environments. When we took on a compiler verification project I was selected to manage the entire project, and that experience helped me to then build up the Software Quality Assurance function within the company. It’s been amazing to have this team dynamic where you are all experts in the same sort of area, all working on similar projects, but day to day you aren’t necessarily all working on the same thing. 

What's your favourite part of working in tech?
Variety, the people, the skills, the tasks, it’s like a new world every day

How would you describe your job in three words?
Make Quality Happen.

What skills do you use most in your role, and are there any that have surprised you?
I can often see connections, trends, and risks well before others do, which is great for a quality role. Spotting issues early on in a larger project means you can correct course before you committed significant effort to it. Most surprising for me is that I am still regularly using my knowledge of compilers, CPUs, and instruction sets.

What's something about your job that people might not expect?
There’s an SDET component to my work, so I’m sometimes creating demonstration material while the developers are implementing the tools. This covers anything from de-risking acceptance testing to feeding into early marketing material.

Which project are you most proud of and why?
Qualification for the RTS language support in our RapiTest product. I had a great team of engineers working passionately to meet this important milestone, and we really pushed hard on how we communicate about features and risks to make good decisions.

Have you faced challenges in your career? How did you handle them?
Sometimes in a role focused on quality, you can get pigeon-holed into running the same checks and the same checklists over and over, and not being able to keep up with relevant technical skills. We’ve worked hard in the team to keep things fresh, allocate the work dynamically, and actively monitor technical skills across the team. 

What advice would you give to a young woman considering a career in tech? 
Technology roles are so varied – try to get an idea of a wide range of options and a wide range of routes to get there. We have backgrounds in electronics, computing, mathematics, even chemistry at Rapita!

It can be hard to visualize these options with limited mainstream representation, so reaching out to women in tech roles can be vital.

What do you think would encourage more women into tech roles?
The challenge with the industry is to provide good representation and develop recruitment strategies while acknowledging that women are still under-represented throughout technical and managerial roles. Our work benefits greatly when people feel able to move between roles and organizations, so anything we do here is best done across industry and education as a whole.

Is there a book, podcast or other resource you would recommend for women entering the tech industry?
I’ve found video essayists are often in a good position to report on relevant issues. Toby Hendy (@tibees) and Angela Collier (@acollier) both talk about mainstream science topics.

Thank you to Zoë for sharing your story. Want to read more? Check out the rest of our Women in Tech Week interviews.