Jessica Ross McKinnie is a Senior Backend Software Engineer at Optimizely. She has been in love with computers since 1986, when her family bought a i286 based IBM compatible. She learned to program with TI-BASIC on a Texas Instruments TI-83 and has never looked back. She received a BS Computer Engineering/Mathematics degree in 2002 from Iowa State University. She is most passionate about making other engineers’ lives better by writing internal tools, improving performance, designing infrastructure, and setting best practices.

In her spare time, she enjoys competitive powerlifting, painting, family, and pets.