About

Jenna is a Principal Developer Advocate for AWS with two decades of software engineering experience. She is known for her unique ability to bring business, community, and technology together. She has spent the last four years shaping AWS's approach to developer content, influencing messaging and product direction, enabling internal and community content creators, and creating space for anyone to participate. Jenna thrives when mentoring team members and leads by example with a spirit of continuous learning and finding creative solutions to address community challenges. She has accomplished this while also combining her own deep technical knowledge with authentic, hands-on technical content that is consistently requested by developers.

Jenna is a community builder at heart and is passionate about making space for more underrepresented folks in tech and entrepreneurship to come as their full selves. At the end of 2024, Jenna completed her third and final term on the Minnestar Board of Directors, as Board Chair. For a decade, Jenna was founder and principal engineer of 612 Software Foundry, where she helped entrepreneurs bring their products to life. She is a proud Co-founder Emeritus of Hack The Gap, led the Twin Cities Geekettes, served on The Iron Yard Board of Advisors for Minneapolis, and served on the City of Saint Paul's Innovation Cabinet to develop a strategy for job and business growth around technology and innovation in Saint Paul.

Jenna also holds a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Minnesota Duluth and a M.S. in Software Engineering from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities.

When Jenna is not making her kid belly laugh, she enjoys taking in a Twins game, live music outdoors, seeking out the best patio for drinks during Minnesota's short patio season, spending time up at the family cabin, exploring new hiking trails, and traveling to new places.