About

My name is Jessica Ete (pronounced "eh-tay"...you may see this written with accent aigus elsewhere because no-one knows how to say it). I was born and raised in London. Languages, frameworks and tools I've worked with in the past include:

  • Ruby/Rails
  • Scala
  • Akka HTTP
  • Go
  • Javascript
  • RSpec3
  • Cucumber/Selenium
  • PostgreSQL
  • Heroku
  • AWS (S3, EC2, Route53)
  • CSS3/Sass
  • Redis
  • Elasticsearch
  • TSQL
  • Linux
  • Devise
  • Cobra
  • React
  • Git

...and of course, jQuery!

Employment History

  • (Freelancing)
    Nov 2022 - Present

    Will be continuing to do contract work alongside personal projects for the foreseeable future

  • ItsMyCargo
    Aug 2022 - Nov 2022

    Briefly worked as a senior backend engineer for ItsMyCargo, a Hamburg-based start-up that creates bookings and quotation software for freight companies. Whilst there, I contributed to their Ruby on Rails monolith. Though my colleagues were very co-operative, I felt the role wasn't the right fit for me and left during the probation period.

  • (Freelancing)
    Mar 2022 - Sep 2022

    Whilst taking a break from full-time work to improve my German and work on a personal project, I did some part-time work as a freelancer. Much of the time was spent working on open source ruby gems for the lovely people at Rayyan.ai though I did some CSS work for other clients as well.

  • Adjust
    Dec 2021 - Jan 2022

    Joined as a backend Ruby developer on the Dashboard team but left during the probation period as it wasn't a good fit.

  • FutureLearn
    Apr 2020 - Nov 2021

    I worked as a backend software engineer at FutureLearn, an online education platform partially owned by the Open University. Whilst there I contributed to their Ruby on Rails monolith and some of the React/Typescript code. As part of FutureLearn's Search and Browse team, I worked on the Open Steps implementation, our internal Grape API and parts of the ExpertTracks product line. Whilst on the LX team, I worked on our Code in Comments feature, the new Left Hand Navigation and the Facilitation Dashboard.

    Left shortly after I relocated to Berlin as it wasn't possible to obtain the necessary permit and continue working from overseas.

  • The Royal Pharmaceutical Society
    Feb 2019 - Nov 2019

    Worked as a senior backend developer on a toxic team that rarely got anything done in a worthless organisation. Whilst at the RPS, I was expected to pick up the pieces left behind by the violent, misogynistic, prick who'd originally built their shitty infrastructure and tolerate physical harassment from an idiotic karen. I raised an Employment Tribunal claim against the RPS over the discrimination and whistleblowing victimisation I'd experienced. After I dropped the case, I was publicly libelled by trolls claiming to be associated with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society - something that seems to happen to a number of the RPS' critics. It is my belief that their problems are institutional and that they are incapable of reform.

  • Deliveroo
    Jul 2017 - Feb 2019
    I worked as a backend software engineer on the Growth team and worked on a variety of projects, mostly older Rails applications though our more recent services were written in Scala. I also had the opportunity to coach at Rails Girls, get involved with the Tech Org's Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging committee, participate in the Functional Programming in Scala reading group and I even gave a short tech talk about the work we had done in Scala during our Consumer Engineering Conference.
  • Tyk
    Sep 2016 - Jul 2017
    I worked as a developer and support engineer in the Shoreditch office. Whilst there I gained experience with Go and some AngularJS but also helped to write the Rails app that powers Tyk's status page.

I'm actually on LinkedIn but I still haven't really worked out what I'm supposed to use it for. I worked in IT for a few years after sixth-form but, like, I don't anymore.

Miscellaneous

You may or may not be interested to know that:

  • I'm not French (sorry)
  • I tend to score as an INTP when I take MBTI tests but it's been a while
  • I listen to music sometimes - mostly just alternative or whatever passed for punk back when I was thirteen. Increasingly, I find I listen to far too many podcasts
  • Back in late 2017 I took up dance, specifically Zouk. I apparently no longer suck at it which, considering how rubbish I was at PE as a kid, is pretty good!
  • I know a mouse-hunter named QT. Saying that I own him makes me feel guilty but, like, I did pay for him once. I think he likes me
  • In 2015 I thought doing this to a laptop was a good idea
  • I change my hair. A lot.
  • I have a Twitter account if you'd like to follow/tweet.
  • Back in 2015, I would occasionally follow corvids (#CorvidsNotCovid) and take pictures of them running away on my phone. I sort of miss it a little
  • If you're feeling generous, I have a paypal link and a monzo link for payments/donations