Here at MuleSoft, we are committed to providing a workplace where everyone has equal opportunity and is fully supported to do their best work. We’re proud signers of the Equal Pay Pledge, and today, in honor of International Women in Engineering Day, we’re excited to celebrate by introducing you to one of the many women on our global Engineering team, Ana Felisatti from our Buenos Aires office.
How did you become a Senior Software Engineer?
I actually started working at MuleSoft as an intern during one of the early Colts Programs in Buenos Aires. After the internship was done, I started as an Associate QA Engineer, but then realized software engineering was a better fit for me, so I transitioned into a Software Engineer role in the Mule Runtime team where I’ve been working for the last 4 years.
What is your favorite thing about working on the Engineering team at MuleSoft?
Learning from all the brilliant people around me. Muleys are smart and dedicated––a great combination. Being a part of such a talented team means being constantly challenged to do better, while having the opportunity to learn from the best. That’s something I really appreciate about working at MuleSoft.
What is the most interesting problem you are working on solving right now?
Everything Mule 4, which is our next major version release. Specifically, two interesting problems come to mind:
- Making sure our TLS solution is broad enough to work for most connectors, but tight enough to be easy to use–– thus standardizing how we handle all TLS and securing our connectors.
- Significantly reducing the numbers of things to learn when using our platform, and making the experience simpler.
Why did you choose to come work for MuleSoft?
I was still in school and had a few semesters of classes left. I decided I wanted some experience actually working as a developer. I heard great things about MuleSoft and the Colts Program, especially the opportunities for growth and learning, from several classmates that had participated in the program and were currently working here. So I decided to apply for the program too!
Take us through a typical day in the life.
I usually start my day pretty early and check for important emails and messages while on the subway. Once I am in the office, I start by checking the status of our builds to see if they are stable, or if someone needs to take a look at our tests. I then focus on the tasks for the current sprint, both the tasks assigned to me as well as those that require code reviews from me.
Our team has a daily meeting where we communicate our status and then work to help others or seek help. Each day always ends up being different! I might need to help someone from our Support Team, the team might have a bug triaging, or we might have brown bag meeting where someone from the team shares their knowledge around a new technology or module (our latest one was about reactive streams and project reactor, for example).
What 3 things are always on your desk and why?
- My water bottle because you gotta stay hydrated;
- Some fruit, because you have to eat healthy
- A bunch of toys, because we all need some cheering up after having a plum as a snack instead of some cookies!
What teams do you work with most, and how do you collaborate?
Right now I’m working a lot with the DataWeave team to simplify the way users write expressions with Mule. We usually discuss the changes needed prior to and during the review process, then we merge them into our code base. I also work a lot with the teams using our HTTP connector, such as Gateway, APIkit, and Studio, checking that we are aligned regarding the new version for Mule 4.
What is your favorite activity outside of the office?
I really enjoy playing video games whenever I have the time! Adventure games like Uncharted are probably my favorite, though Rocket League has been the game I’ve spent the most time on recently. I also like sports, so I try to join the Buenos Aires Muleys for soccer as often as I can.
What is your proudest accomplishment in your role here so far?
The 3.8 release regarding TLS and the current work on all things Mule 4. The TLS improvements were substantial and it set the basis for unifying the way TLS is handled on all connectors in Mule 4, which will make Mule Runtime more robust in terms of security. We have also made a lot of effort to simplify error handling and make it as fine-grained as needed.
What is the latest technology you have learned to use?
Spring Boot for a hackathon, where we designed a very simple query language for our own applications. We analyzed which components were used in an organization’s applications, then let admins query their environments to look for vulnerable components or other issues. We used Spring Boot to quickly expose a simple UI and handle the interactions with our parser and database.
Our Engineering team is growing! Learn more about the team and where you can make an impact.
