I am a highly motivated and ambitious full-stack software engineer who enjoys to solve problems, think analytically, and aims to extend their programming knowledge further.
After obtaining a bachelor's degree at the University of Warwick and a master's degree at University College London (UCL), I started working as a financial auditor at a Big4 firm in London. Whilst I was still working full time, I enjoyed working on small coding projects and completing courses on Codecademy in my free time, which made me discover my passion for programming.
As a Makers Graduate, I am looking forward to the new challenge of developing my craft, building meaningful products and solving interesting problems each day. I am excited to bring my passion and curiosity to a team that I can learn from and grow with.
Tech Skills : Ruby, Rails, JavaScript, React, MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Node.js, Express, HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, Heroku, Github Actions (CI/CD)
Please find my CV here: Vanessa Florio CV
Projects | Work Experience | Skills | Education | Awards | Languages | Hobbies |
| Name | Description | Timeframe | Tech/tools |
|---|---|---|---|
| PairPro | I came up with the idea of Pair Pro for the final group project. Pair Pro is a web app where software engineers can connect to pair program together | 10 Days | React, MongoDB, NodeJS, Express, Github Actions, CSS, Heroku |
| Acebook | A webapp clone of Facebook | 10 Days | Ruby on Rails, CSS, Bootstrap, Heroku, PSQL, HTML, Github Actions (CI/CD) |
| Makersbnb | A webapp clone of Airbnb | 5 Days | Ruby, Sinatra, PSQL, HTML, CSS |
KPMG (2020-2021)
Audit Graduate Trainee
- Working on engagements and examining the client’s accounts and financial control system
- Gauging levels of financial risk of the client and preparing reports, commentaries and financial statements.
- Checking that financial reports and records are accurate and reliable, and ensuring procedures, policies and regulations are correctly followed and complied with.
University College London Volunteering Service (2019-2020)
Administrative Assistant
- helped engage UCL students in volunteering projects by liaising with over 400 organisations and charities across London
- organised campus volunteering fairs and virtual volunteering events on Microsoft Teams during
- engaged students and partners with ‘Social Hackathon’ events that improve students’ problem-solving and teamwork skills
- designed student volunteering newsletters using HTML
European Committee of Regions (2019-2019)
Traineeship in the Cabinet of the President
- proofreading and editing letters
- taking minutes of plenary sessions and reporting back to the cabinet
- creating briefings for the president in French, English and German
- conducting research about the political situation of countries the president would travel to
Politics department, University of Warwick (2018-2018)
Student Research Assistant
- worked for my politics department 8 hours per week for 20 weeks by assisting my professor with her research, teaching preparation and enhancing the overall student experience.
- The research included topics such as EU scepticism, Brexit and the migration and the refugee crisis.
German Parliament (Bundestag) working for an MP (2018-2018)
Intern
- Writing press releases and writings in English and German
- Editorial processing of texts
- Research activities on gender equality, the refugee crisis, and the EU
- The creation of fact sheets and speech documents for events
- The content preparation and accompaniment to political events
JP Morgan Spring Insight Week (2017-2017)
Intern
- Networking and presentation skills sessions
- Interview and assessment centre workshops
- Final assessment group presentation on acquisition case study
Milengo Translating German to English (2017-2017)
Translator
- Marketing translations: Translating marketing items and descriptions from German into English
- Using the programme ‘memoQ’ as a database for the translations
UBS Spring Insight Program (2016-2016)
Intern
- Giving presentations on case studies; working in a team as part of the Assessment Centre
- Shadowing various employees from different business divisions such as Trading, HR etc.
- Participating in workshops designed to improve, as well as test, presentation and team working skills.
UBS Internship on the trading floor (2015-2015)
Intern
- Improving the design of the UBS Connections website, by using HTML and uploading content
- Creating a newsletter and a poster for the launch of the new website
- Working on projects and giving presentations about them in front of line manager and campus ambassadors
- Desk rotations every week e.g. FX Sales Rates& Credit, FX Derivatives etc
When working in a team I naturally tend to build a sense of common purpose, be encouraging and empowering and always stay focused on the main objective. I do this by being an active listener, staying positive, building trust with all the members of my team, and having strong time management.
I was able to utilise my experience of leading during my time with Makers when we would have project standups and retros. These meetings would often require some direction and governance to ensure key points were drawn from the discussion. I would often take the lead in these meetings and guide the discussion to maintain productivity and participation by all members.
I am always open to learning new things and always try to better myself in any way I can in both my personal and professional life. From personal experience, for example, when a manager or colleague gives me a task and a brief explanation, I am quick at understanding which steps I need to take to complete that task in an efficient, independent, and timely manner.
I came up with the idea for Pair Pro for the final group project at Makers. I learned React, Node.js, Express and MongoDb without it being taught on the course and used it to build a fully-functioning website that inlucded a real-time chat in 10 days.
When working on a challenging problem, I am someone who will not stop working until that problem is solved. I am always focused on the main goal and can spend hours working on a task until it is completed. When a task seems impossible at first, I do not give up because I believe that if you work on something hard enough, you will always be able to achieve it.
For instance, one day before the presentation deadline for the Acebook project, the team was still facing deployment issues with Heroku. I took the iniative to continue researching the errors and to try and understand what was going wrong. On the next day, half an hour before the presentation, I realised that the database was not set up correctly and linked to Heroku. I quickly researched the commands and was able to deploy our app just in time for our presentation.
I am passionate about self-development and self-improvement in both my personal and professional life. I always like to challenge myself with tasks, whether that is with a task at work, or with sports that I do in my spare time. I believe that this is the only way one can truly work on themselves and become better at anything. I get excited when I start a new task that seems daunting at first because after a while I always realise that nothing is truly impossible if you are fully committed and are open to learning new things.
Working as a software engineer, I will have to solve problems on a daily basis, which I love doing. Having studied maths and further maths at A-Levels as well as working in the financial services sector has honed my problem-solving and anayltical skills.
I’ve always had a keen eye for detail and it played a crucial role in my previous employment with KPMG. As an auditor I inspected the company’s internal controls to manage risk exposures as well as ensuring the effectiveness of operational and financial reporting. My ability to pick up on precise detail transferred excellently into programming and my journey through Makers. During my pairing sessions, I would often solve blockers by spotting innaccuracies in our code and overcoming errors, allowing us to progress further through the research materials.
During my role at KPMG, I built a strong rapport with people that I worked with. These included the clients, the top management, co-auditors, and other staff within the business. This enabled me to hone my communication skills further as well as ensuring a harmonious working relationship in a fast-paced environment. This experience and knowledge was very beneficial during Makers, since it allowed me to build rapport with other members of my engineering team when working under pressure nearing project deadlines.
- TDD: Applying outside-in Test Driven Development and Behaviour Driven Development
- OOP: Application of OOD and SOLID principles
- Agile & XP: Running stand-ups, retros, sprints, creating MVPs and user stories, to deliver maximum value
- Databases: Relational and non-relational: SQL and PostgreSQL
- REST APIs: Building APIs using Ruby and Rails
- CI/CD: Using Github Actions to automate automate builds, run test suites and generate coverage reports
- Pair Programming: Highly effective at collaborating and pairing with other developers
International Relations of the Americas
grade: Merit
Politics, International Relations and German
grade: First
- Frankfurter Translation Prize for German Translation 2018/19 from the University of Warwick
- St. Paul’s Way Trust Foundation Award 2013 for ‘Vision’
- Native in German and English
- Fluent in Italian
- French B2 level
- Fitness: going to the gym and filming workout videos hoping to empower and motivate others.
- Music: I enjoy playing the piano and the clarinet. I used to play in the University of Warwick Orchestra.
- Tennis: I love playing tennis with my friends and family. I used to play competitively whilst growing up in Germany.