Summary
Jenn Edge is a proven technical leader with over 18 years of professional experience since achieving her BS in Computer Engineering. With over a decade of dedicated leadership, she is committed to driving continuous improvement within her teams. Jenn leverages systems-thinking analysis and embraces best practices to optimize team processes. Her forte lies in fostering effective cross-functional collaboration, building inclusive teams, and empowering the personal and professional growth of engineers and leaders alike.
Jenn currently manages 2 growing Claims Financials engineering teams at GEICO, which is focused on delivering business value, tech modernization (monolith to Java microservices), and building "touchless" user experiences.
She previously managed the SyncSketch engineering team at Unity Technologies, and directed the AASHTOWare engineering team at Infotech. She successfully scaled teams from startup to enterprise software standards, ensuring compliance with security, data protection, and accessibility requirements.
Jenn has spoken at local meetups to international conferences, including the 2020 Virtual Grace Hopper Celebration with 39,000+ global attendees. Jenn has also been involved in community outreach including recruiting developers, speaking at conferences, and mentoring other women in tech.
Jenn is also a member of the .NET Foundation; she contributed open-source code to improve the performance of Entity Framework 6.2.
In 2019, Usha Suryadevara, Elise Carmichael, Priya Rudradas, Sue Rocher, and Jenn Edge co-founded We Advance Tech Together (WATT), a 501(c)(3) non-profit supporting women in tech through community-building and mentoring. Jenn previously served on the board as Vice President and ran the organization’s social media accounts, cultivating meet-up growth to over 100 members through social media outreach and in-person events.
Public Speaking
Jenn has spoken at many events, with local to global audiences.
“Breadwinner.” “Bringing home the bacon.” “Meal-ticket.” Being the sole income earner for a family is a demanding, stressful, and often isolating role. Come hear from a diverse group of women about their experiences and how you can balance the demands in life.
Represented We Advance Tech Together (WATT) in a panel discussion on local coding groups with Amy Kendig (R-Ladies Gainesville), Ben Toh (R-gators), and Matthew Collins (UF Carpentries Club). Topics included community building, teaching/mentorship, and the future of software development in other disciplines.
Abstract: Development is a journey of failing over and over again at each step until you succeed, and learning how to do something just in time for everything to change. Continuous learning and growth is necessary to keep up with changes in technology and step into new roles in leadership. How can we automate self-improvement and make real progress on our goals? We’ll discuss growth mindset and iterative development, feedback loops, and applying backlogs and minimum viable products to goal achievement. Attendees will learn about similarities between self-improvement and agile development and how to automate self-improvement through habits and environmental design using nudges from UX design.
Co-presented session discussing statistics of women in technology and tech leadership. Announced our new organization, We Advance Tech Together (WATT), an initiative to support women in tech.
Abstract: Development is failing over and over again at each step until you succeed, and learning how to do something just in time for everything to change. Continuous learning and growth is necessary to keep up with changes in technology and step into new roles in leadership. How can we automate self-improvement and make real progress on our goals?
We’ll discuss the commonality between growth mindset and iterative development, feedback loops, and applying backlogs and minimum viable products to goal achievement. Attendees will learn about similarities between self-improvement and agile development and how to automate self-improvement through habits and environmental design using nudges from UX design.
Shared my Grace Hopper Celebration conference experience with approximately 50 EWITS participants.
Mentored attendees one-on-one in 6-minute sessions for 2.5 hours based on their interests and questions. Most conversations related to the transition from individual contributor to manager and how to effectively lead a team.
Abstract: Development is failing over and over again at each step until you succeed, and learning how to do something just in time for everything to change. Continuous learning and growth is necessary to learn how to code, keep up with changes in technology, and step into new roles in leadership. Join me to look at the parallels between processes you may be learning or already familiar with in development and approaches to self-improvement proven to be successful in behavioral psychology. Attendees will learn how to improve goal focus with a sustainable pace and automate self-improvement using habits and environmental nudges.
Volunteered at a local girls’ nonprofit to teach Microsoft Word for two 50-minute class periods, including giving a career-day presentation on software development.
Internal company 1-hour workshop to introduce interns to our division, speak about continuous self-improvement, and create goals for their internships.
Abstract: Do you want to make a lasting change, such as learning a new technology or becoming a better leader? Come learn how to develop a better you and nudge your dreams into reality. We’ll explore ways to achieve goals and form habits.
Presented results for our Cloudera Team to all attendees at the end of a one-day hackathon.
Spoke with local high school coding club (coderGirls) about careers in software development.
Led many workshop and seminar-style training sessions for developer on-boarding covering subjects varying from team culture to project architecture and how-to workshops.
