Emilia Lundgren: A healthcare worker turned software developer

Little did she know that the IT-system she accessed the journals in would later become her new job.

- After 14 years as a healthcare worker I wanted to explore new opportunities, mostly due to the incompatibility of being a mother and working shifts.

Her choice of venturing into IT was not an obvious one, seeing that she didn’t have much interest in computers.

-Truth be told, I chose an education I feared would be boring, but that gave me good job prospects. Thankfully, I was mistaken.

As it turns out, programming is one of the most fun things Emilia has ever done.

- I’m a creative person, and programming is all about creating code and building things. Troubleshooting and finding solutions is also a creative task, so I have without a doubt found a job where I thrive.

Back to the roots

Even though she changed careers completely, Emilia is in many ways back to her roots within healthcare.

- I now work in the team who is responsible for the development, management and operations of the journal system for healthcare facilities in several regions here in Sweden, the same system I used myself back in the days.

Her hands-on experience with the system has its clear benefits.

- On one hand I know how important the system is, and how vital it is that we make the system as efficient as possible. The better our system, the more time the healthcare workers can spend on patients, on saving lives.

The other benefit is knowing how the system is used I real life.

- There’s always a difference between design and user interaction. From our perspective, there are things we wished the users would do, but I know that some of those things just wouldn’t fly in the hectic day at a hospital.

From people to programming

Emilia’s primary motivation for working at Tietoevry is developing solutions for a wide array of users. In a close second is Tietoevry’s focus on people.

- There’s no lack of employers claiming that people are their most valuable asset, to the extent that it has become somewhat of a cliché. I can’t speak for other companies, but Tietoevry lives up to their claim 100 %.

This manifests itself in the way they approach career development.

- My manager and team lead are very focused on what every team member wants to learn, what direction they want their career to take. I personally wanted to gain experience within Linux, and without question I could attend courses. I also know that some of my colleagues have wanted to work more with testing rather than programming, and their manager has found a project accordingly.

Giving a helping hand is not limited to the managers.

- I have very competent colleagues, and we all work as one team where we discuss and develop ideas together. That being said, there is a great balance between tasks where you can work alone and tasks where you can reach out and get help. And when you ask, you are helped every time. The people here are very friendly, simply put.