Clarissa Anna Coetzee is a Back End Developer at Carter in Toronto, where she builds scalable backend systems supporting modern retail media platforms. Her work helps power infrastructure that processes over 1.6 billion impressions, supports 5,383 advertisers, and manages approximately 6.2 TB of data, enabling teams to operate with greater reliability, visibility, and confidence. Originally from South Africa, Clarissa holds a Master’s degree in Mathematics from the University of Johannesburg and transitioned into software engineering through her passion for problem-solving. Her career spans data analysis, cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure, secure Public Key Infrastructure systems, and retail media technology. At Impression Signatures, she contributed to a secure PKI platform and helped reduce the cost of a key application by approximately 90% while improving performance. Beyond her technical work, Clarissa is committed to mentorship, representation, and community-building. She supports junior developers through code reviews, one-on-one guidance, and knowledge sharing, and advocates for greater visibility for women, immigrants, and emerging engineers in technology. She also helped organize AgentShyft, a ShyftLabs hackathon in partnership with Toronto Tech Week, where 28 builders created agentic AI prototypes in one day. Her journey from mathematics in South Africa to backend engineering in Canada reflects resilience, adaptability, and the promise of a future technical leader.

Industry: Retail media technology, backend infrastructure, cloud systems, and agentic AI. Clarissa’s work focuses on building scalable, reliable systems that support high-volume advertising, campaign, and customer interaction data for modern retail media platforms

Why I’m excited to be part of WIN Awards: I am excited to be part of the WIN Awards because it celebrates women who are not only building innovative technology, but also creating space for others to lead. As a woman in engineering, an immigrant, and someone who built a career in her second language, this recognition means more than personal achievement. It represents visibility for others who may not always see themselves reflected in technical leadership. Quote: “Innovation is not only about what we build. It is also about who we bring with us, who we make space for, and how we expand what leadership in technology can look like.”