Early years and where you came from?
I finished my degree at the University of Toronto in Canada. Then, back to Hong Kong and started my professional career as a flight attendant, I have also been a high school teacher in Japan, worked for an NGO in China before I was exposed to the tech world. In my previous job as a Customer Success Manager, I often got help from our Support Engineers, where I started developing my passion for tech, my journey started with learning simple regEx.
How were you introduced to the world of the Portuguese tech industry?
Thanks to Cloudflare! We opened our new office in Lisbon around a year ago, I was very lucky to be a part of the team that helps build our new tech hub here.
Walk me through your work and what you are doing now in the tech industry.
A big part of my role is to ensure our team is providing quality support for all our customers.
With that said, I work closely with our Support Engineers and various internal teams to continue to improve our processes and to enhance our user experiences.
At the moment my focus is on hiring multilingual engineers for our new office, and to help build up our Support team in Lisbon.
What part of what you do, you love the most?
On top of my daily tasks — I also help run an initiative call “Proudflare”, a LGBTQIA+ Employee Resource Group to help make sure our community stays an inclusive place for all, it empowers me to open opportunities to many people and to maintain the diversity of our teams. This is equally rewarding as learning new technology.
How do you think that your background and knowledge impact the way you approach your work in the Portuguese tech industry?
Portugal is a diverse and welcoming place, it has a lot of new opportunities for everyone.
If I compare it with Singapore (where I moved from), it feels like the industry is still growing here, a lot of things are relatively new; keeping an open mind allows me better exposures to more cool people and new ideas.
What advice do you have for young women that want to get into tech and don’t know where to start?
Take a step back, find the technology that interests you the most, and GIVE IT A TRY!
You can always start with watching youtube videos, taking online courses etc. The key is: tech is fun and `the wold is your oyster`! You can always find something that sparks your interest and go from there.
Walk me through a day in your life as a Portuguese women in tech.
I think my life is pretty standard like anyone else in tech :) Except I get to enjoy delicious pastel de nata being in Portugal
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
Omoiyari is something Japan has taught me — it’s about thinking about others before yourself, comes in handy and reminds me to always think about other involved parties’ experience first
What apps/software/tools can’t you live without?
my command line
Any links that you want to share? In what are you working on…
Yes! https://www.cloudflare.com/careers/jobs/?location=lisbon
Anything else you would like to share?
If you want to join us and help build a better internet here in Lisbon, please do!
👉Find Justina on LinkedIn
