Maggy Burns – Conversion Rate Optimization Specialist / Front-End Developer- Space Between

Space Between is a company founded in 2016 that specialises in eCommerce growth. They are based in Kent and work closely with their clients making sure they provide the best results possible.

After Shelley Grierson introduced me to the company and her amazing work, I wanted to hear more about the women working there. So today I’ll be offering you an interview with their Front-End Developer and Conversion Rate Optimisation Specialist Maggy Burns.

A little bit about how you got into your role

I have been at Space Between for a little over 3 years now, joining as a very junior developer that was very keen on the front end side of web development. I had just finished my apprenticeship in software development and had decided that working on the front end side of websites, using HTML, CSS and Javascript, making them look beautiful and seeing the clients face light up when shown a brand new webpage was where I was happiest. Since then, my role has changed slightly as I am now starting to work with the CRO team, bringing my front end skills to help write CRO experiments. The psychology and data analysis involved in CRO is what has really drawn me to it.

What do you love about technology?

I love that it is constantly evolving and (arguably) making everyday life a lot easier. I can’t imagine a time where Google maps didn’t exist to guide me around, and I would have to order a takeaway by calling someone and speaking to a human, and I am grateful for that every day.

How you have been supported and found opportunities as a woman in tech?

I am incredibly lucky with the amount of support I have been given in my career. Starting from when I was in college I was supported by my amazing IT tutor Karen Scott and women’s safety organisation PinUp Payback to work on a women’s safety app. It was this opportunity that got me into coding outside of my college course, and really made me passionate about web development and started my career. I am a true advocate for giving young girls the opportunity to write code, and breaking the stigma that it’s a career path meant for a specific type of person. The world of technology is becoming more diverse, and the more people that join from diverse backgrounds the more inclusive technology will become.

Can you tell us about some of your most exciting projects?

At my voluntary job, being a tech lead at futureCoders SE, I am currently building an app with the team for the art exhibition Duende – ‘the mysterious power of art to deeply move one’s soul’ – a celebration of artwork by women. It’s so exciting I can’t give any more away – but we are launching the app at the art exhibition and I can’t wait to show off all of the hard work that the futureCoders team have done. It involves QR code scanning, semantics analysis and is built using React JS, Django and Amazon Web Services.

Tell us a bit about your award nomination and volunteer work in the technology and education sector

I was so fortunate to be nominated for the Medway Youth Awards Youth Worker of the year for the voluntary work I do at futureCoders. Every Monday evening and Saturday I am with the brilliant futureCoders team. futureCoders aims to create great coders and to link them with employers. We work with young people, aged between 16 and 24, helping them learn to code through our education programme, hackathons, coding workshops, project workshops and careers events. We help them to become more skilled and more employable through our work experience programme. Karen Scott and Emily Groves are the co-founders of futureCoders, and I thought that what they were doing was absolutely brilliant and I had to be a part of it. I have now been volunteering there for 2 years, bringing my front end development expertise and helping the junior developers gain confidence in writing code.