Cami, Suzi and Sophia share their experiences of getting into tech, what makes HelloFresh a great place to start your career and their advice to those following in their footsteps. 

This month, we were so proud to welcome Cami Murgia, Suzi Filipowska and Sophia Sager  as permanent employees in the HelloFresh technology team after they successfully completed a six month Women in Technology scholarship. 

None of them entered into the technology industry through traditional routes and were brought to HelloFresh through the LeWagon bootcamp, an intensive two month program designed to help young women get into coding, development and engineering. They shared their experience with us following their graduation ceremony earlier this month. 

Suzi and Cami pictured at their graduation ceremony on the Fresh Campus in Berlin

A career in technology wasn’t something that our graduates thought was possible

For Sophia and Suzi, the idea of getting into technology and coding was introduced through a friend who was working as a developer at the time. Having spent time working as an events manager, Sophia found herself looking for new opportunities after COVID-19 meant work in the sector dried up. Suzi and Cami also found themselves looking for new challenges after a few years trying different things but not feeling completely satisfied. Transitioning into technology was something all three found an exciting change.

To go far in technology you need to “think the way engineers think”

Sophia described that change as needing to completely “rewire your brain in order to think the way the engineers think”. She explains that that technology is “so much more than sitting down in front of a computer and writing code. It's an entire experience from project management to documentation to communication. Coding is just one small part of it.” 

That change is something Camilla remembers well. Her first task working at HelloFresh was to create a small notification using typescript and unit-testing, a technical process and something she had never done before. Her initial reaction was “oh my god”, and she described how she started to panic when confronted with the complexity of what seemed like a simple task. 

Thankfully, her colleagues at HelloFresh supported her the whole way and reassured her that “you’re just here to learn”. Through giving her the guidance, support and patience required to teach this new skill, Camilla mastered the art of coding and it is something which she now really enjoys. “If I can do it, you can do it”, she told us. 

Sophia described her first day at HelloFresh as “pretty awesome”. For her, working in the technology team is “a big cooperative project where millions of people around the world will see this little button that you put on the website. It’s pretty overwhelming actually”. 

HelloFresh is collaborating with LeWagon bootcamp to offer scholarships for women interested in technology. 

Coming into technology, all three said that they hope to inspire other women to follow suit. Sophia told us awareness is important and “that it’s definitely important to have more visibility for women entering into technology”.

“It’s overwhelming at first, but don’t be demotivated by the things that you don't know but strive to learn.”

We also asked them what guidance they would have for other people looking to follow in their footsteps. Sophia says not be afraid of the new world. “It’s super overwhelming at first, but don’t be demotivated by the things that you don't know but strive to learn. As long as you know that you’re interested in it and you know you’ll spend your days learning and growing and developing then this is the right place for you. It will be a challenge but it's worth it, 100%”. 

We are so proud of the achievements of Cami, Suzi and Sophia and can’t wait to see their careers flourish with us over the coming years. What’s more, they are brilliant role models and we look forward to welcoming more talented young people, from all walks of life, into our business as we continue to grow and fulfil our mission of changing the way people eat forever.  

Suzi is now working as a Frontend Engineer in the New Brands Retention team, Cami is a Frontend Engineer in the Experimentation Core and Sophia is Frontend Engineer in the Pricing team.