Perficient Latin America senior software developer, Ximena Echeverri, joined us for a chat about the evolution of Perficient Latin America’s Software Girls into Women in Tech and what she likes most about working with Perficient Latin America. She’s got some great advice for anyone thinking about working at one of Colombia’s premier software development outsourcing companies.
Being part of the Perficient Latin America community is an adventure in constant learning, solving complex tech challenges, taking part in different community engagement programs, and so much more. We like to say we are inspired by people and driven by values. Those values are a key component of everything we do, especially how we define the impact every person can have at Perficient Latin America and on the broader community. At Perficient Latin America, there are a variety of ways for people to contribute and create meaningful impact, and we love showcasing individuals that are an integral part of those programs.
Community Development Programs and the Power of Constantly Learning
In this next video of our employee interview series, we talk with Ximena Echeverri, Senior Developer at Perficient Latin America. Ximena was instrumental in starting Software Girls, a Perficient Latin America initiative started to reach girls at all ages and encourage them to enter STEM careers, through partnerships with a variety of local organizations. The program has since evolved into Women in Tech, incorporating different activities and initiatives at Perficient Latin America and with the community, with a focus on inclusion and diversity.
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The Evolution of Perficient Latin America Software Girls to Women in Tech
One of Perficient Latin America’s founding values is to always positively contribute to our employees, partners, clients, and the communities in which we are engaged and working. While we strive for the company to succeed as a business venture, our work will always be conducted with the clear purpose of making a difference by contributing to the communities where we operate, our employees, our clients, and our partners. We have a variety of corporate social responsibility programs focused on achieving those goals.
Perficient Latin America Women in Tech program is the most recent evolution of Perficient Latin America’s Software Girls. The idea is to bring together a community of professionals committed to creating an inclusive environment from which to drive the discourse and implement solutions for gender equality in tech. We want to create a world where women play a larger role in technology, positively impacting the world in profound and tangible ways.
Most recently, the group partnered with international and local organizations, like EAFIT University, Medellin CSS; and Avanet to host Codebreakers, a hackathon with the goal of breaking the world record for the most number of girls coding in multiple locations around the world, and introduce high school girls to web development in a fun and accessible way. Medellin CSS’s leader, Estefania guided the girls through the workshop to provide the technical concepts to create a site in HTML and CSS, which they then used to build their own websites on various topics ranging from animals, sports, food, fashion and more.
In the future, WIT at Perficient Latin America will focus on community development, Perficient Latin America recruiting, career support and development, advancing the discussion around gender parity, and increasing the participation of women and underrepresented groups in Perficient Latin America events.
Transcript:
Interviewer: Today we are going to sit down with Ximena. How do you like working at Perficient Latin America Ximena?
Ximena Echeverri: Working here is great. Perficient Latin America is a wonderful company, they worry about our happiness at work and they are always teaching us new things.
Interviewer: I’d love to talk about Women in Tech.
Ximena Echeverri: We have had, for 2 years, a small group called Software Girls. Right now, that’s undergoing a change, and is no longer Software Girls. Right now, it’s Women in Tech. We are working on the initiative to be available to everyone at Perficient Latin America, not just women, but to involve the men as well.
Interviewer: That’s great, so it’s very inclusive. And, so, do you have community programs that you do with Women in Tech?
Ximena Echeverri: Yes, we are partnered with several community women and programs, like Codies, that and several women’s programs with the same purpose.
Interviewer: What would you say to someone considering working at Perficient Latin America?
Ximena Echeverri: Come here! We would be glad to have you here at Perficient Latin America. You’re going to learn a lot and you are going to be with great people.
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Does Perficient Latin America sound like a good fit for you? Check out our job opportunities.
