Today’s Woman in Tech: Shannon Dennis, Director of engineering at LogDNA
Shannon Dennis is a technical leader with decades of experience supporting enterprise software products and the teams that build them. She’s currently a director of engineering at LogDNA, where she leads the teams responsible for developing and testing all of our products. In the last year, she’s spearheaded a new employee resource group at the company for women in tech, called WiT. With her partnership, the group has become a community for women in the company to share their experiences, advocate for the causes that are important to them, and build skills to grow their careers.
When did you become interested in technology? What first got you interested in tech?
My dad was highly engaged in math and, as a young kid, he blew my mind with how quickly he could calculate in his head. As a result, I was always interested in math and had two really great friends — also women — who were in the STEM-type classes offered, including the programming course offered at the high school, and my interests grew from there.
How did you end up in your career path? What obstacles did you have to overcome?
I was working at a magazine fulfillment house to put myself through college — they would pay for my courses. I was slow and too meticulous at opening mail, so they moved me into a different area, where I worked with two older women who didn’t know anything about technology. It’s a funny story that I noticed it was taking hours for Joyce to complete a change of address for a subscriber. Once I asked her a few questions, I helped her build a query to search quickly based on zip code, last name, etc., and she thought I was a hero. At that point, the rest of the organization noticed I might be better doing something else and I started programming the payment remittance machine and data entry system a few months later. I didn’t expect to start programming professionally at 19, so it happened a little sooner than I thought it would, but it’s where my career was headed anyway.
Continue reading: https://jaxenter.com/women-in-tech-dennis-176563.html
Shannon Dennis is a technical leader with decades of experience supporting enterprise software products and the teams that build them. She’s currently a director of engineering at LogDNA, where she leads the teams responsible for developing and testing all of our products. In the last year, she’s spearheaded a new employee resource group at the company for women in tech, called WiT. With her partnership, the group has become a community for women in the company to share their experiences, advocate for the causes that are important to them, and build skills to grow their careers.
When did you become interested in technology? What first got you interested in tech?
My dad was highly engaged in math and, as a young kid, he blew my mind with how quickly he could calculate in his head. As a result, I was always interested in math and had two really great friends — also women — who were in the STEM-type classes offered, including the programming course offered at the high school, and my interests grew from there.
How did you end up in your career path? What obstacles did you have to overcome?
I was working at a magazine fulfillment house to put myself through college — they would pay for my courses. I was slow and too meticulous at opening mail, so they moved me into a different area, where I worked with two older women who didn’t know anything about technology. It’s a funny story that I noticed it was taking hours for Joyce to complete a change of address for a subscriber. Once I asked her a few questions, I helped her build a query to search quickly based on zip code, last name, etc., and she thought I was a hero. At that point, the rest of the organization noticed I might be better doing something else and I started programming the payment remittance machine and data entry system a few months later. I didn’t expect to start programming professionally at 19, so it happened a little sooner than I thought it would, but it’s where my career was headed anyway.
Continue reading: https://jaxenter.com/women-in-tech-dennis-176563.html
