About
Femgineer started in 2007 as a blog to combine a passion for engineering and writing. Poornima Vijayashankar wrote it to meet a creative need, not thinking anyone else would read it. She began posting on engineering, then on startups, and entrepreneurship, and somewhere along the way six years passed. And, to her surprise, people started reading, some even demanding that she write more.
After writing for six years, Poornima decided it was time to do more: turn the blog into a business to help tech professionals and entrepreneurs, especially women, level up their careers. She’s assembled a talented team that has been helping build the business. Most recently, Karen Catlin has joined as co-founder. The team includes:
Poornima Vijayashanker
Graduated from Duke with double major in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science, and moved to Silicon valley to be a femgineer. She was the sole femgineer at Mint.com, a startup, based in down town Mountain View, which was acquired by Intuit in 2009. Post acquisition she decided to leave Mint and start her own startup, BizeeBee. She truly loves coding and solving engineering problems day and night. When she’s not writing code, she writes about coding and software architecture, startups, and her experiences as a little femgineer in a mengineer’s world 
Karen Catlin
After a successful career in the software industry, Karen Catlin now focuses on developing powerful women leaders. She draws from her experience as an executive to coach individuals, lead workshops, and advise companies on hiring and retaining female talent. Karen also writes “Use Your Inside Voice,” a blog about the intersection of parenting and leadership.
In her prior role, Karen was a vice president in the CTO’s office at Adobe Systems. She co-founded the “Adobe & Women” initiative, focused on attracting, retaining, and providing career development opportunities for women at Adobe. Karen joined Adobe as part of the 2005 acquisition of Macromedia. While at Macromedia, she held a variety of management positions across engineering, including establishing the program management discipline for the company. Earlier in her career Karen worked for GO Corporation, Hitachi Europe Limited, and Brown University.
Karen holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Brown University.
In her spare time, Karen enjoys being outdoors, playing tennis, and designing knitwear. She resides in San Mateo, CA with her husband and their two teenagers.
Frances Advincula
Frances Advincula writes the series Frances Fridays. She graduated with a degree in Computer Science with specialization in Software Engineering, ad currently works as a Software Developer for Accenture Software. A proud geek girl, she’s sure she is the only one who can’t play video games. Follow her random musings at @FranAdvincula.
Media
Press
- The Next Women Poornima Vijayashanker: Femgineer & Top 10 Women to Watch in Tech May 2013
- Inc Magazine 10 Women to Watch in Tech in 2013 February 2013
- Rebelle Society Women Who Rule The Web: La Femgineer November 2, 2012
- BizeeBee Startup of the Week American Express Open July 30, 2012
- CNN Money For entrepreneurs, are incubators worth the trouble? April 20, 2012
- SV411 Q&A Poornima Vijayashanker, CEO of BizeeBee April 16, 2012
- Daily Beast 13 Women Who Rule the Internet
- New York Times Out of the Loop in Silicon Valley April 17 2010
- Mint Team Spotlight Poornima Vijayashanker June 28, 2007
Audio and Video
- TechWatch Interview hosted by Anusha Ramesh of KZSU Stanford Public Radio April 2013
- Validate Your MVP On Paper at Startup Product Summit March 2013
- Girl Geek Dinner at Atlassian
- In the Studio: How BizeeBee’s Poornima Vijayashanker Fell In Love with Building Software Interview with TechCrunch
- Learnings on Running a Startup Interview with Rah
- BizeeBee and Founder Brought to you by Brian Castellani
- Duke Angel Pitch Event April 2010
- What is BizeeBee? Brought to you by UC Berkeley Startup Fair 2010
- Will it Launch? Part 1 & Part 2 Brought to you by Women 2.0 February 2010
- Femgineer on her second startup Brought to you by Women 2.0 February 2010
Yoga
- Its All About the Yoga Demonstrating Bikram Yoga Competition Poses March 2011
- Northern California Bikram Yoga Competition January 2011
