Meet Zsófia. She's a Senior Software Developer.

Code and board gaming guru

Despite the size of Novo Nordisk, the company doesn’t feel huge in my every day. Especially the Digital Accelerator, the department in which I work, has a good community and vibe that makes it feel really personal – I have the sense of belonging to a family. I have good connections outside my team as well, it’s easy to find someone to have lunch with even when I’m on a different site than my homebase. 

Joining

Wired differently

I joined Novo Nordisk a couple of years ago, because I was intrigued by a specific recruitment campaign that emphasised the opportunities in Novo Nordisk for skilled tech people who were “wired differently”. That spoke to me, as I have always felt that I can easily drive diverse perspectives forward and paint visions that others can feel engaged with. Also, I am focused on improving the lives of people with diabetes and other chronic diseases as I have people in my immediate network who are impacted by it – including myself to some extent.

Before joining, I knew about how Novo Nordisk inspires its employees to work together to create life-saving products. I knew the company values a good work-life, balance and I could see smiles on the faces of people working for Novo Nordisk, smiles that can tell many good stories. I knew I would be part of something important regardless of what project I would participate in.

Please pass me the soup? … Tessék

⟡ At our family dinners, four languages are spoken: Danish, English, Hungarian and Japanese.

Work

I could tell you, but… 

I’d love to tell about the most interesting project I’ve worked on. But, unfortunately, I can’t talk about it as it is confidential. That happens sometimes, but it’s safe to say, it was really intriguing and fun.

Something else, which I can talk about, is how we get first-hand experience of how the things we make come to life. When my fellow developers and I want to understand more about how our software is used, say in the production lines, our managers organise guided tours for us. A bit like school field trips. These are quite fun and we learn about exciting things. On one of our trips, we learned about the challenges of using a Boston Dynamics robot dog as a messenger inside a factory.

Explain the rules for 7 Wonders in 5 seconds

🁇 I used to be a board game guru at Bastard Café in Copenhagen.

Tech

The bridge

As I am currently working with frontend, I use Vue as my JS framework - though it is OK to use other frameworks if the use case needs it. Our Backend Developers and Data Scientists use Python, and the Typo runs on AWS. In general, I find it super exciting how Novo Nordisk approaches the digitalisation of life sciences and pharma. I work on software solutions that enable automation both for production and research using the same application. One is highly regulated by nature and the other requires flexibility for the researchers to find new compounds and medicine. I find that both my technical and soft skills are used fully when bridging these two ends of the scale, and I can see myself acquiring new skills and tech stacks to develop further. 

Challenges

Let’s document the issue

As I am working on a web application that is used in the production of medicine, the production processes are highly regulated to satisfy the requirements set by international medical agencies, like the FDA. We must document and strictly test our application before releasing it to production, and this requires a lot of focus in ensuring that we don’t miss important details that could cause issues with the medicine people will eventually use. But it’s also very exciting to know that my work contributes to improve the lives of people living with diabetes and other chronic diseases.

Communities

Chapterhouse

I am part of the Frontend Chapter in Novo Nordisk where all the frontend developers across the different product teams in the Digital Accelerator can gather and share knowledge. Outside Novo Nordisk, I used to participate in workshops and open hours as a mentor to teach HTML, CSS and JavaScript to beginners. 

Style icon

❦ I sewed my own wedding dress.