The IntraFind team is diverse: colleagues of all ages work together effectively and benefit from each other. Of course, the German software manufacturer also attaches importance to a balanced proportion of women.
Software engineer Ursula Seisenberger talks to HR manager Lisa Oberhofer about opportunities and challenges at the search and analytics software specialist.
Ursula, tell us what you do at IntraFind
Currently I am part of the Search team at IntraFind as a software engineer. This involves actively contributing to the software with the development of new features in the areas of search, information retrieval and natural language processing. My work is a good mix of concrete development work close to the core of our indexing kernel Elasticsearch and professional development by dealing with new technologies and their implementation. In addition to developing new software, I also optimize it. So it is also part of it to help the running operation at the customer and its support.
That sounds pretty varied. What kind of educational background do you have?
I studied computational linguistics with a secondary subject in computer science at the Ludwigs-Maximilians-University (LMU) in Munich. Already in high school, I was fascinated by everything that is behind a language, where it comes from, how the grammar is constructed, etc. During my time at the CIS (Center for Information and Language Technology) at the LMU, I gained experience in many areas of software development in addition to majoring in linguistics and computer science, and worked on several projects both at the university and at various companies as a student trainee. From the development of a toolbox for language processing methods and their UI to iOS apps development, there was a lot included. This colorful mix has always been fun for me and has also proven to be an advantage at IntraFind.
What role did you start in at IntraFind and how have your responsibilities evolved?
IntraFind is my first employer after university. In the beginning, I was heavily involved in computational linguistics-related topics, especially search and named entity recognition. Over time, various topics were added as needed: connectors - i.e. connecting data sources for search, working on the core product iFinder and its administration, frontend, plugin development for Atlassian Confluence - to name a few examples. There are really versatile topics at IntraFind and contributing and building up your own knowledge and experience is always welcome - so I never got bored, even after nine years of working for IntraFind.
What is it actually like to work as a woman in software development in a world dominated by men?
Yes, it's true, already during my studies and to this day I work predominantly with men. For me personally, that has never played a role. The team and the team spirit have to fit. That's how it is lived at IntraFind. It is important to stand confidently behind what you can do, not to hide, and to actively participate. Gender does not play a role here. By the way, the proportion of women and men in the Search team is currently balanced!
