Johanna Gudmandsen joined Visiba's tech team as a Backend Developer in August 2020 and has since joined the Integrations team. Johanna has had an interest in medicine and has been looking for answers into the way medical issues affect everyday life. She believes that computer science can help medicine advance and started her career around this belief. Johanna is a compassionate developer whose code strives towards security and usability – and there is nothing more aligned with Visiba Care's platform!

Tell us a bit about your background. 

I am originally from Stockholm but when I was searching for a University, I found it more interesting to go to another city for a new adventure. I had some connections to Gothenburg and so it became my choice. I thought computer science and engineering was an interesting field, so I applied for it and I got in! Last year I graduated with a master’s degree in computer science. At Chalmers, I spent a lot of my free time in different groups and associations, and so I got to know a lot of different people and had the possibility to try things I would not have tried otherwise – such as planning a labour market fair.

How did you land at Visiba? 

Around graduation, I started looking for a job – my main interest apart from computer science is medicine, so I tried to find a job that combined both. I searched and applied for many jobs, then I saw Visiba Care and I really liked the description of the job and the company; it felt genuine and like a warm welcome, even via the job ad text, plus it was close to both the medicine market and the tech market, so I applied for it. I really liked the tone and the people that I met during my first interviews and luckily enough, I got the job and started in August as a backend developer.

Where did the interest in medicine come from? 

The main reason is probably my high school project. Since I have Celiac disease, I spent the project studying and writing about it, talked with researchers in the field and learnt about how it works and how it is developed. That was when I became aware of my large interest in medicine.

And how did you choose computer science as a career? 

I enjoy structure and logic and found the field of computer science exciting where these areas were included in combination with a broad education.

How is your average day at Visiba’s tech department? 

We start the day with a stand-up, where we talk to each other and describe what we're doing, if we have any problems or how we are going to spend our workday. We work together, discussing solutions so that they create the most value for our customers and make sure we build them scalable and safe. My day then mainly goes on with developing, together with my colleagues or by myself, and building secure and efficient code.

You mentioned security – what should one focus on to ensure that the platform is secure? 

We handle data that must be secure – there are many things to keep in mind when building secure programs, but to mention a few: Make sure that only people that are allowed to access the information can gain access to it, restrict the information we provide to only useful and no redundant data, and create a flow in the application that is intuitive to follow.

What will your main focus be for the next few months? 

To finalise the new API that we are currently developing and adding more features to it as well. Hopefully also seeing a few integrations towards it – that would be cool!

What do you think the picture of digital health will look like in the future? 

I believe we are moving towards a greater part of healthcare being carried out online and remote meetings being more common. It is easier today than it has been previously to live far away from friends and family while maintaining a close connection with them since communication has become easier to pursue online. I believe this increases the expectations and need for other types of online meetings, such as healthcare visits.

What can help society increase digital maturity? 

I believe we need to make people aware that these things exist and try to introduce them at a speed comfortable for everyone. We must try to keep up at this so that people don't end up being superseded and then tech is moving to the next level and people are left behind. I think we should spend our time educating and helping those that need help with all this new technology and let the people that can help themselves do that even more efficiently.

What is the best thing about Visiba? 

I like the flexibility: you can work from the office you can work from home. I also really like the people – when I meet and talk to people in the office or remotely, everyone seems extremely interested in their work and in what we do. But the main thing that I like about Visiba is that I get to work with a platform that aims to strengthen health care.

What do you do when you are not working? 

I like to be creative. That's why I enjoy developing too, but other than that I enjoy cross-stitching, crocheting, painting, baking – handcrafting in general. It is almost the opposite of what I do for the rest of the day, since everything in my work is very technical, so I like switching to these things.

Tell us something unusual about you! 

I like the fact that when you bake bread, you can go away from it for 30 or 60 minutes and then it has to double the size. I think that extremely cool!