2024 Engineering Leader Under 40: Joanna Zinsli, 37

Joanna Zinsli, 37
Group Product Manager
Seeq
Seattle, WA

What Makes Joanna is an Engineering Leader

Joanna is a pivotal member of the Seeq team, contributing significantly both internally and externally. Her technical expertise and deep domain knowledge of the oil and gas industry, combined with her passion for addressing customer needs and achieving business objectives through strategic product development, have been instrumental in helping Seeq secure new business and expand existing accounts. Internally, Joanna fosters a positive company culture by leading internal resource groups and managing her team with a focus on intentionality. Externally, she actively engages with customers, presenting new product updates at Seeq conferences and regional events.

Achievements, Advancements & Career-related Industry Contributions

After receiving a BS degree in chemical engineering, Joanna began her career in 2009 as a process engineer at Valero Energy Corp. During this time, she focused on refinery optimization, which led to her role as manager of the refinery optimization group.

In 2017, Joanna transitioned into the technology industry, joining Seeq as an analytics engineer. Leveraging her previous experience, she quickly assisted customers across various industries in extracting value from their time series data using advanced analytics solutions. Her contributions ranged from pre-sales demonstrations to enterprise rollouts and use case development.

A passionate advocate for delivering value to Seeq customers, Joanna joined the Seeq product team in 2021. Her leadership skills swiftly advanced her to a group product manager role. Most recently, she has been instrumental in the rollout of Seeq’s newest products, including the Seeq AI Assistant and Seeq Vantage, an industrial enterprise monitoring software application.

Beyond her current role, Joanna’s contributions to Seeq extend into employee engagement. She serves as a co-chair for Women of Seeq, an employee resource group dedicated to providing learning and professional development opportunities for women in technology.

Non-work-related Activities & Hobbies

Joanna enjoys working in the miniature urban farm she has cultivated with her family. The farm features raised beds, fruit trees, a variety of berries, chickens, and bees. While some plants thrive effortlessly, others require extra care and protection, but Joanna views all of them as small miracles. To relieve stress, she pulls weeds and preserves the harvest by making jams and pickles, which she shares and enjoys throughout the year. Additionally, she plants seeds whenever possible and has begun sprouting trees to share with her community, aiming to expand the green canopy of surrounding cities.

Interesting Details

An engineer at heart, Joanna has always been passionate about drawing conclusions from data. This interest began during her time as a process engineer and was further honed as an optimization engineer, where she evaluated various operational modes and made recommendations for outage timing to minimize financial impact. Although the data sets she works with have evolved, they continue to play a crucial role in her approach.

Joanna also enjoys the outdoors and feels fortunate to live near both mountains and the ocean. She makes it a point to take her family to a campground about once a month, allowing them to immerse themselves in nature and explore new locations.

Why Joanna Chose This Career

Joanna believes that engineering is fundamentally about helping people. As a chemical engineer, she has contributed to creating essential products on a large scale. The field is full of challenges that demand creativity and teamwork to overcome. While she didn’t anticipate transitioning from a production facility to software, moving into product management at Seeq has allowed her to support tens of thousands of production personnel. This shift has enabled her to help others better understand and operate the facilities that are crucial to modern lifestyles.

Original content can be found at Plant Engineering.

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