Women who build what's next - The builder

Meet Felicia Häggqvist, Software Engineer at Vend, who is shaping the future of our personalised front page experience. By building smarter, more modular systems, she’s making it easier to experiment, scale, and create a more accessible experience for every user.

What is your role, and what are you currently building or working on?

As a Software Engineer on the Personalised Front page team at Vend, I’m responsible for the frontend architecture and systems that drive our personalised content.

Right now, I'm focused on making our front page more modular and easier to experiment with. I am part of building a configuration-driven layout system that aims to give products more freedom to choose which components appear on each brand's front page and in what order.

What makes this work technically challenging or interesting?

Personalisation adds a unique layer of complexity. We aren’t building a static page; we’re building systems that adapt in real-time based on user data. Balancing that with high performance and no layout shifts can be difficult, but very rewarding.

I’ve also found it interesting to integrate AI into my daily workflow as a "sparring partner" for complex logic. It helps me think through both the architectural “why” and the actual “how” more efficiently—allowing me to move much faster from idea to working code.

Can you share a moment when you felt especially proud of something you built?

I felt especially proud when I worked on improving the accessibility of our front page. It meant revisiting existing components, refining the semantic structure, improving keyboard interactions, and making sure dynamic content behaved correctly for assistive technologies.

It wasn’t about launching a brand-new feature; it was about raising the quality and inclusivity of what we already had. Knowing that the experience became more usable and accessible for more people made that work especially meaningful to me.

How does your work impact customers, colleagues, or the broader business?

My work is about scalability and inclusivity. By building a configuration-driven system, I’m removing technical bottlenecks for my colleagues in product, allowing us to test and iterate on the front page much faster. For our customers, it means a more reliable, accessible, and personalised experience that feels relevant to them.

What excites you most about the future of this technology?

I’m excited about how software engineering is evolving toward more inclusive, AI-augmented, and adaptable ecosystems. Technology works best when it's built by a diverse group of people. On Women's Day, I'm proud to be a woman in engineering, building a more adaptable experience for every user who visits our front page. Here’s to more women shaping the tools and systems that define our digital world.