Margherita never imagined turning her passion as a little girl into her job, which she has now been practicing for almost two years with the world leader in developing software solutions for the travel industry. With her team, she has created the first lines of code for a product that will soon allow air passengers to choose a new flight in the event of cancellation. Discover her portrait and her career path.

“My two older brothers have always been computer enthusiasts, an interest that they very quickly passed on to me. For my tenth birthday, they gave me a book on HTML, this language which allows you to create the content and the structure of a web page… a revelation! After reading it, I told everyone that when I was older, I would create websites. But I had no way of knowing at the time that this childhood idea would lead me to obtain a master’s degree in computer science.”

A few years later, it is on a life-size product that Margherita applies her knowledge. Within her team, she worked on the development of a system which will be brought to life in the form of a website and application, and that will soon be tested in production with airlines.

Margherita follows its implementation with different clients, and recalls with a certain pride all the steps completed with her team to get to this point:

“We participated in the entire development phase of the back-end part of the product. Specifically, it is the construction of its structure, of all the computer logic that allows the product to work, but which the end user does not see. I loved watching it come to fruition in our hands, and it’s so amazing to realize that it will soon be used by real passengers!”

Creating the perfect code

“Everyone associates computers, and in particular code, with something cold and mechanical. As a Software Developer, I feel completely different. Whenever I write a new code, it’s as if I were painting a picture: I make sure to create an elegant code and I make it evolve, always making it more mature. I write it not only to make it work, but also for the beauty of its writing.”

Curious and with an appetite for the latest technological advances, Margherita describes another source of satisfaction in her daily work: ” I like what I do because I’m always creating. Seeing a project be developed from scratch and participating in its evolution is extremely motivating. It is very challenging to write the best possible code for a given problem, because there are a thousand and one. I always strive to create a code that will not only work, but will be efficient and understandable, not by those who have written it, but by those who will have to use it.”

Coding in front of a computer is not synonymous with loneliness, on the contrary: ” In addition to my role as Software Developer, I also wear a Scrum Master cap. In other words, I guide my team applying agile and collaborative methods, which help us to develop our product in the most productive way possible. So I have a great deal of relationships in my work with all the project stakeholders, which allows me to have an overall perspective and not be confined to its technical aspect.”

 

Writing a code: put a little bit of yourself into it to make sense

If you love what you do then you will s쳮d. The unbelievable advantage of my job is that the code cuts across all areas. I traveled a lot as a child, because of my father’s work. My family is from Italy and I spent a good portion of my schooling in French schools abroad. Traveling has greatly impacted my life; it has taught me an open-mindedness that I continue to develop even today. Working on a travel-related project therefore makes perfect sense to me: I’m working on a product that speaks to me.”

Margherita aims to always create codes that will improve the daily lives of those who use them. “The first project I set up alone from start to finish was my graduation project. It involved coding an exercise to re-train, through a website, the cognitive functions of people suffering from multiple sclerosis. I was even able to customize the exercise; being from Rome, I created a code so that these people can practice planning a whole weekend in the Italian capital: timetables for public transport, museums, routes… everything had to be taken into account to organize the trip.”

This project was decisive in the perception of the profession in which Margherita finds herself today: using her skills and therefore her creations to help the community.

“Whenever I write a new code, it’s as if I were painting a picture”

Discover all the portraits of ALTEN’s women consultants
in the Portfolio “Tales of Women Engineers” n°4.