From Sidewalk Labs building the City of the Future to Microsoft valiantly Defending Democracy, big tech is doing its best to impact society for the better..? We hope.

Katie Davis is a web developer at Shopify, one of Canada’s startup-to-success stories. What’s it like working for a company that changed the web? Pretty great, it turns out.

Katie talks us through her experiences of coding, how she got it into, what she gets out of it, and how it’s really more a creative tool than Hollywood images of coders might suggest. It’s also a changing industry that’s becoming more diverse and accessible year on year, but still has some work to do.

Web development and programming are now considered highly employable skills, leading to good salaries and a flexible, well supported work life. However, these highly skilled jobs are developing tools that affect worklife for millions of people globally. Automation, the gig economy… How are other industries and, more importantly, people, being affected by an increasingly technological society?

Creative Machines is recorded and produced by David Angell at Giant Sound Toronto.

Follow us on twitter and instagram (@machinespodcast).

Do you want to be a guest or know someone who should be? Email us at [email protected]