Remarkable women are actively changing the world of apps, and Helene Karlinger is one of them. The iOS development lead at coding app Mimo is making her voice heard and helping to make the app more inclusive to everyone.

Name: Helene Karlinger (she/her)
Role: iOS development lead
App: Mimo from Vienna, Austria
Favourite empowerment emoji: ❤️

When Karlinger went to university to study media technology design, she didn’t think she would ever become a developer; until a failed C++ programing exam changed everything. She thought, “This can’t be the only thing that I’m not able to do.”

Turning this moment into motivation, Karlinger and a friend studied together until she reached a good grade. “Somehow things snapped for me, and then I enjoyed coding.”

Now she’s on the other side of the equation: at Mimo she educates her team of developers about new technologies, while leaving them lots of freedom to explore what’s best for the app. (That’s if she’s not in the middle of rolling out new features or fixing bugs.)

Karlinger’s main focus with Mimo is to make its content and features more accessible, especially for underrepresented groups in the programming world. Together with her team members, she’s worked on decreasing the size of the app so that Mimo runs smoothly on older devices, and added statistics alongside the more traditional leaderboard because “women don’t like to compete with each other, but they really like to compete against themselves”.

Her work also involves challenging the bias in Mimo’s coding exercises. “Two or three years ago, we were writing content with references to blockbuster movies and sports. We chose topics that were typically male,” she says.

Karlinger’s motivation and effort to create change have contributed to Mimo adjusting their hiring policy as well. “We have so many more females now,” she says. “If the people in decision-making positions are more diverse, we will make different decisions. That creates change.”

Knowing how to code means being able to create fantastic experiences from scratch, so if you want to learn, Karlinger advocates for simply getting stuck in: “It doesn’t matter how you do it, just do it.”

Downloading Mimo is a good foundation for that – the app’s community forum or the six-month coding bootcamp (accessible through Mimo’s website) are perfect for finding coding buddies. “A peer group with like-minded people can help with your confidence,” Karlinger advises.

There’s one other skill that Karlinger deems extra important for working in tech and coding. “Know the words, terms and stereotypes, as well as the discrimination and bias that’s happening. Because if you can speak about it, you can address it.”

Are you a woman or non-binary person who’s working for an app or a game and would like us to share your story? Get in touch.