Harpreet Kaur | Senior Software Engineer

“I definitely wanted to be a nurse when I was a kid. My sister wanted to be a doctor when she grew up and I being such a great helper, always told her I will be your nurse. So we decided that’s what we would do!”

Senior software developer Harpreet Kaur may not have become a nurse once she finally settled in the United States and began her technical career over 20 years ago, but she does continue to use those helping skills today. If you’ve had the good fortune of working with her, you know how she values teamwork and is always looking for a way to lend a hand.

“Crispin is a very special company. Co-workers feel like family and Alan, the owner, institutes a special summer schedule, cutting the workweeks to 4 days between June and the end of August. I love those things about working here. But the greatest thing for me has to be the flexibility. When my first child was born, I was also caring for an ailing father-in-law and felt overwhelmed about how I would manage to work in the office and still take care of everyone who needed me at home. Alan gave me the option to work from home and for that, I’m truly grateful. I’m not sure to this day if he knows just how much he and Crispin have truly done for me.”

In their free time, Harpreet and her husband of 14 years, Bhupinder, enjoy camping along with their two children, Harliv Kaur – age 12 and Baljeevan Singh – age 9. They don’t often get the chance to take long camping trips so typically they stay close to home. They also spend a good bit of time at their Temple, or Gurudwara, either worshipping or teaching. The Kaur’s are Sikh, a religion that they have grown up in, and which shapes their everyday lives in meaningful ways.

“As Sikhs, we believe in serving and helping others. We try to embody the Sikh philosophy of working hard and making an effort in everything we do. That plays a big role in my day to day job and is also what I teach my children.”

Harpreet’s helpfulness doesn’t stop with work or family. She is the chair of the education committee at Gurudwara and also runs the children’s summer camps there. Oh and yes, in her spare time she teaches Sikh kids to speak and read Gurmukhi, the language of their sacred texts.

Harpreet says she’s learned a lot since she began working at Crispin. New programming languages top her list of essential skills – PHP, SQL, jQuery and HTML5 to name a few. Her newly acquired technical know-how allows her to claim DBA as part of her title these days. While staying up to date on the latest technologies is part of what makes working at Crispin rewarding, what Harpreet values most are the people.

“It feels like a family to me. I’d do anything for them. It’s the nurse in me.”