Kajsa is a frontend UI Developer and Designer, a position that makes good use of her logical brain and strong visual skills. She believes in balancing hard work with creativity, and she always finds time to get active or enjoy good food in good company.
I always have a pen and paper; I’m a list person, and I draw and make sketchnotes as well – I’m quite visual.
It’s a lot about using my brain: primarily I write code, which mostly includes a lot of planning, thinking, trying things out, communicating, and then thinking some more. I also advocate for accessibility, which is seriously lacking in our digital world. The web evolved without accessibility in mind, so it’s quite broken and it’s about time we fixed it. We need to own that responsibility; everyone will benefit from the result – if not today, then at some point in our lives. Guaranteed.
I usually make a plan for my day, then get an hour’s work done before we have our 9:00 am daily with the team. Starting early works well for me because I’m a morning person – it also gives me the flexibility to break up the day with a walk or a run. After the daily we usually pair program, which I highly recommend both for code quality and for learning and efficiency.
I live outside the city, so I make my own lunches. I was a cook when I was younger, so I know my way around a kitchen and it’s much healthier to make your own food. I usually make a wrap or salad using whatever I have at home – yesterday’s lunch was a delicious wrap made with roast potatoes, cheese, roasted nuts, beans, onion, pepper, carrot and sriracha.
I always have a pen and paper; I’m a list person, and I draw and make sketchnotes as well – I’m quite visual. On the computer I use Visual Studio Code, iTerm, Chrome, Sketch and Illustrator on a daily basis. I also use Slack, and I’d say Spotify is a tool as well – I like to listen to instrumental music when I’m working as it helps me to focus.
Having my lists, knowing what I need to do and not multitasking. Having a flexible schedule is also helpful for productivity, as is having good people around me, even if we’re all remote at the moment. Not being interrupted really helps too – I enjoy that about remote work as it can be much harder to find that focus when we’re all together. That said, I love being at the office because we socialise a lot and the community aspect is great – it just makes it hard to tear myself away when I need to concentrate!
Every other week I play board games or a video game with my son. Otherwise I might pour a glass of wine and either draw or paint. I have a fascination for birds, cities and women, so I usually incorporate them together with some text in my pictures. My paintings tend to be big and messy, very vibrant, with lots of colours and a mix of abstract and concrete elements.
The importance of a good work-life balance. Lots of people in this business don’t think about it because we’re all so passionate about what we do, but it’s very important. Futurice is like a smorgasbord with lots of projects to pick from and enjoy, but that can be dangerous if you don’t have the ability to limit yourself – we could be having fun at work 24 hours a day! We take care of each other and we have the freedom to jump on anything that interests us, but the flipside is we have to make sure we don’t take on too much. Luckily, Futurice really supports us to find a healthy balance.
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