At Understood.org, we’re living our mission by creating a world and a workplace where everyone can thrive. We support and challenge each other to make an impact, embrace difference, set the standard, and act with purpose so that we can thrive together as a team. Each and every employee plays a foundational role in helping us achieve our mission and strengthen our culture. 

In our “Employee Spotlight” series, we interview employees from across the organization about their background, their work at Understood, and why they are motivated to shape the world – and our workplace – for difference.

In this Q&A, Ilknur Eren, a Senior Software Engineer at Understood, shares a bit about what brought her to Understood.

Tell us about your career path. What brought you to Understood?

I wanted to learn how to build tech after seeing my younger brother, who is on the autism spectrum, use an AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication device). He is non-verbal and he was using AAC to communicate with my family. After seeing AAC give my brother a voice, I saw how powerful tech can be and I wanted to learn how to build things myself. After college, I completed a coding bootcamp and learned frontend and backend development, and then started looking for organizations in this field, which eventually led me to Understood.

What is your role and what does your day-to-day look like at Understood? 

I am a frontend developer and I am now getting my feet wet and diving into backend work (slowly). In tech, we work in two-week sprints. We each get a certain amount of points and tickets to complete each sprint. Day to day, I work on tickets that can be a bug that needs to be fixed on the app or the web, or it can be to build a new feature or experiment. 

What’s one misconception people have about what you do?

I looked up some misconceptions about developers and one misconception that came up over and over again is that only men are programmers. Not true! At Understood.org, we have so many great female senior developers who I learn so much from. 

What’s the best career advice you’ve been given?

I think the best advice I've heard is, "Think of yourself as a lifelong learner." That's the only way to advance at anything!

Interested in joining our team? Check out our open roles here.