Jill Parkinson
International Women in Engineering Day 2022
My name is Jill Parkinson and I am located in the Melbourne (Australia) Dedalus office.
I completed my Bachelor of Computer Science (Mathematics and Computer Science) at Swinburne University in 1996.
Since that time, I have spent the majority of my working life developing the webPAS software (23 years in total).
I am currently the Lead Developer for our product known as webPAS. WebPAS is a Web based Patient Administration System that is in use throughout many public and private hospitals in both Australia and NZ. We have an amazing group of 12 developers that I look after each day and we have a very diverse and supporting culture. I spend most of my time interacting with the team of developers, supporting our product team and of course plenty of coding is involved. I enjoy that at the end of the day that we have always helped out our many customers with either new functionality or supporting and maintaining their existing systems.
What do you like about your career in an Engineering/STEM role?
STEM is a great career opportunity for anyone of any gender. It helps people every day in all sorts of roles and industries to streamline so many tasks. Especially the Healthcare industry where we can help to improve patient outcomes. From storing and finding patient information through to scheduling appointments, communicating with patients and everything else along the way.
What skills do you need for a career in Engineering/STEM?
I believe the most important skills for a career in STEM is a willingness to learn, the ability to change as technology does and also to be a logical thinker.
Why is it important for you to have diversity within your team?
I work with a very diverse team of developers which means each one of us may think differently about problems and that allows us to come up with the best solution for our clients. Diversity and communication amongst teams allow for brainstorming and finding solutions to any problems.
