14
SYNC NI MAGAZINE
Building leadership around problem-solving, having a family and taking on many roles Puppet is an automation software firm with a (very cool) Belfast base and an NI team full of software engineers, directed by Sinead Heverin. She talks us through her career history and being not only a woman in tech, but a female leader
F
rom a young age I enjoyed problem solving and STEM based subjects at school, and with an older brother following a path in Computer Science, I took his advice and decided to go the same route.
I come from a farming family, so I was used to rolling up my sleeves and helping out where it was needed. There was no gender bias at home, you just had to get the work done. I think this influence contributed to me not feeling out of place as the only girl in school to study Computer Science GCSE and the only female on my degree course. I found something I loved in Computer Science, and I realized it was a world that would allow me to work in any industry - it was a world with little constraints. After I completed my study in Information and Communication Technology at Queen’s, I accepted a Graduate Software Engineering role with Vision Consulting, which was an Irish owned company with offices in Dublin and Belfast. The company gave me lots of opportunities to work with big clients such as BNP Paribas and JP Morgan - I worked predominantly on Trading systems.
Author
Sinead Heverin
Director of Engineering, Puppet
At this early stage, I also realised what a great passport an IT job was for getting opportunities to travel. I spent a significant amount of time working in London with these clients but also