The plan started early for Kaja Skerlj ’21 M.Eng.’22.
On her first day of high school in her native Slovenia in 2013, her father asked her what she wanted to do after graduating. Skerlj’s answer was immediate and ambitious: “I want to go to the U.S., I want to get an athletics scholarship, and I want to get a good education.”
Her goal brought her to Lehigh, where she earned degrees in product design and technical entrepreneurship while competing as a hurdler and sprinter. That decision has placed her at the center of the growing artificial intelligence industry.
Today, Skerlj works in Berlin, Germany, as a product designer at a startup developing an AI-powered code generation platform that turns specifications into production-ready software. She credits Lehigh for her success and says attending it was only possible because of her track and field scholarship.
“My life completely turned when I was able to go to the U.S. from small Slovenia, a 2-million-person country, to learn and study at Lehigh,” she says. “It changed me as a person and then opened so many career opportunities, and it also gave me a different perspective that differentiates me from others. I’m so grateful for that opportunity.”
A Long Road to Lehigh
Skerlj knew studying in the U.S. would offer opportunities she couldn’t find at home, even if it meant traveling 4,000 miles away from her family in Central Europe.
She began deciding where she wanted to go during her sophomore year of high school. One day, she opened Forbes’s top 100 schools in the U.S. on one tab in her laptop’s browser, a list of Division I institutions on another tab, and a list of universities on the East and West Coasts of the U.S. on a third tab. She then created a spreadsheet of about 50 schools on all three lists — she initially excluded Lehigh because, as a non-native English speaker, she couldn’t pronounce it — and began emailing coaches.
Skerlj later expanded her spreadsheet to more than 100 universities, a list that finally included Lehigh.
“I remember my dad saying, ‘Oh, this Lehigh looks very nice. The campus looks great. It’s the right balance between sports and academic life. I think it could potentially be a good fit,’” she says.
Skerlj emailed Lehigh’s coach and set up a recruiting visit. After the 10-hour flight, she fell in love with the university.
“I simply really liked my time at Lehigh,” she says. “The campus felt very nice. The coaches were welcoming. I really liked the team. It felt like they were really trying to make me feel welcomed.
“When I got accepted to Lehigh, it was an easy choice to accept. I knew that was the right place to go. I couldn’t wait to go in August.”
Finding Her Stride
Leaving Slovenia for the U.S. meant Skerlj would have to make a significant transition — one that can be challenging even for students not traveling thousands of miles away from home.
“I had a very hard time adjusting to a new system, to the new way of training, to the new language, to the new culture,” she says. “The first two years, my results really took a downturn.”
Meeting with then-assistant coach and current head coach Khayla Atte ’05 before the 2020–21 season helped Skerlj improve.
“She really had some hard conversations with me about what her expectations were for me,” Skerlj says. “She had very high goals for me. I felt that support from her. I didn’t see it as pressure; I saw it as she really doesn’t see a ceiling for me. Everything switched. I became more comfortable.”
In her junior year, Skerlj finished second at the Patriot League Outdoor Track & Field Championships in the 400-meter hurdles. She then was captain for her final season and part of a school-record-setting distance medley relay while earning her master’s degree.
Being a member of the track and field team reinforced habits that shape her professional life.
“An athletics team works exactly like an organization within a company,” Skerlj says. “I learned what my leadership style is and how to confidently present my ideas in front of experts.
“I also learned persistence and resilience [...] Maybe there’s going to be a bad season for a year or two at a company. I learned that results don’t always mirror effort and how to consistently show up and work hard.”
An Education Without Boundaries
Lehigh’s academics played a vital role in Skerlj’s successful career path.
“I always knew I am quite technical,” she says, “but I’m creative as well.”
Her technical entrepreneurship coursework brought together business and engineering students to create products. Working together allowed her to learn from people with different educational backgrounds, fueling her growth.
Skerlj also participated in summer internships through the Lehigh@NASDAQ program in San Francisco and New Delhi, India, which provided invaluable learning experiences. As someone interested in startups, she attended angel venture fairs (events that connect entrepreneurs with investors) and startup pitches.
Skerlj also credits advice from Samantha Dewalt, former managing director of Lehigh@NASDAQ and now managing director of Lehigh West, for helping her secure opportunities and grow professionally.
During a 10-week internship, Dewalt recommended that Skerlj spend the first week introducing herself and asking questions; seek feedback around the fourth or fifth week; and by week seven, explore opportunities to continue working at the company.
“I now follow this framework and get feedback every month because she strategically laid it out for me,” Skerlj says. “I share this advice to everybody that I talk to.”
Designing the Future of AI
Skerlj now works on a six-person team at Codeplain, where she leads product design and marketing for the company’s AI-powered software development platform.
Codeplain is pioneering fully automated, spec-driven development, enabling engineers to generate software code entirely from specifications with no humans in the loop.
Skerlj designs the terminal user interface, maintains the company’s website and marketing materials, validates ideas through user testing, and collaborates with the company’s CEO and CTO on investor presentations as the startup continues to raise funding.
Her job requires a wide range of skills — exactly the kind of interdisciplinary mindset she developed at Lehigh.
“It takes a specific person to be able to cover all of this,” she says. “Characteristically, I fit that, but also my education supports it, and I practiced this through Lehigh and now when I work.”
Open Doors
She recognizes Lehigh’s place in making her career happen.
“If I didn’t get the [athletics] scholarship, I would not have been able to attend Lehigh,” she says. “Going to study in the U.S., it really opened the door to the full world. Any opportunity is open now for me in whatever I choose if I work for it and put in the time. That might not have been the case if I went somewhere else without a well-recognized education.”
