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Interview with IT Manager Eliza Barrios

Michelle 🐍 — Tue, 29 Dec 2020 01:07:04 +0000

This is the transcript of my conversation on @FromSourcePod with Eliza Barrios, an IT Manager at the Wikimedia Foundation and practicing artist.

This has been edited for clarity.

Michelle: Eliza, what is your current job title, and how long have you been there?

Eliza: Hi, thank you for having me. My current job title is IT manager with the Wikimedia Foundation, and I've been there for about four years.

Michelle: What is an average day for you?

Eliza: I actually really like schedules. From when I wake up to when I head into work, I have these daily rituals. My usual routine is to do my meditation practice and then get ready for work. I look at my schedule for the day. I prepare for that as I'm moving along towards the office. I do have some work from home days. But typically, the day begins with my practice for myself, and then I open up the calendar.

Eliza: Then from there, I'm getting into the habit of taking notes and having my little daily planner guide me. That means meetings, depending on what time of the fiscal year it is. Then, of course, daily activities and who I engage with. That includes my team and my CFO, and anyone else in the office.

Michelle: Most people know about Wikipedia. Can you tell us more about Wikimedia?

Eliza: Yes. Wikimedia is the infrastructure that maintains the Wikipedia infrastructure. There's a technical and product arm of the foundation, which heads a lot of building the tools. We don't actually build the tools; we work in collaboration with our tech community and volunteers. There's the other arm, which is operational. We do fundraising, where we make sure the machine is running, and donations are used toward the approximately 13 projects.

Eliza: Another part of the foundation is the legal part. The legal part ensures free knowledge happens all over the world. Right now, the big challenges have been Turkey and China because Wikipedia is blocked in those countries. As I've been talking to a few folks, it's also a good space in place to really see what's happening in the world. It's a good temperature or a gauge.

Eliza: Free knowledge should be for anyone, everywhere, regardless of class, regardless of background, regardless of language. When countries block that knowledge, it's an indicator of what else is going on. Maybe I'm overly confident, but certain political agendas may be lurking in the background when you stifle free knowledge. I kind of veered off. Clearly, it's a mission-driven organization. We ensure that everyone can have free knowledge everywhere.

Michelle: Being someone with many privileges in America, where everything I look for is generally available online, I tend not to think of places that are different. Where they go on the internet and information is blocked. We can have difficult conversations about people in power. Whether the information is accurate or not is a different story, but I at least have access to have conversations and see different ideas.

Eliza: Oh, yes, definitely. Speaking of privilege, access, and technical, we're currently working on our 2030 strategy. We are also aware that there are countries that do not have the technical infrastructure. That's why, when you open up a wiki page, it's kind of plain and boring. It's purely text. That's there for a reason. When you think of slow bandwidth, when you think of a mobile platform, a page needs to load up. Those are also all the things that we're considering in our 2030 plan. What is the internet going to look like? How are we going to receive our information?

Michelle: It sounds like you have to work on providing content for a wide range of people, from those with limited data to those who can experience rich media.

Eliza: Yes, Yes, for sure.

Michelle: What has been your favorite long term project?

Eliza: I actually was thinking about that because I'm lucky enough to have a creative practice as well. My favorite long term practice is how I integrate the two worlds. There are different dimensions of my life. My creative life, as well as my career and technical life. How I integrate that long-term project is also how do I show up? How am I present? How am I my best self, my vulnerable self, and maintain my curious self? That's pretty much my long term project. They feed into each other.

Michelle: There's this stereotype that when you're in a tech job, you have to give 110% to your job, but I prefer to have other things in my life. And you definitely do. Can you tell us more about the art that you do?

Eliza: I actually have an MFA degree. It was in sculpture and photography. My trajectory was to be an art professor. It didn't work out that way, by choice. I felt like I was a little too young to be a professor to older folks. I wanted to create some life experiences. My work is mainly video installation right now. I've been getting into VR work, creating experiences and not the typical experiences you think of VR.

Eliza: I just did a project on queer women, folks of color, trans folks of color, who have experienced sexual trauma. Doing a VR workaround that was a very enriching and learning process for me. That's where I'm focusing. My creative work is learning the technical aspects of VR work and bringing my installation artwork experience into this medium.

Michelle: That sounds super interesting. If our listeners want to see some of your work, can they do that? Or do they have to be in person?

Eliza: I do have some documentation. I have a website. It's elizabarrios.com. That's mainly my art site.

Michelle: How do you think being an artist has helped your technical career?

Eliza: It really lends itself because it's like exercising both sides of the brain. When there have been some technical challenges, you sometimes need to get creative to solve them. I use that part of my brain to help come up with creative solutions.

Michelle: What is the most boring but essential part of your job?

Eliza: I don't have any boring moments. But there are moments when you can go on automation. You see a ticket, you fix this computer and person gets to do their thing. Those are kind of boring moments because the computer either turned on or off, or the software works or not. Remove it or install it or actually update it. So I would say that's kind of boring because it's automated. The part of the job I most enjoy is the folks I engage with when solving their issues. Sort of like how they explain the issue, how we describe it, and how we work it through.

Michelle: Would you say the most satisfying part of your job is helping people?

Eliza: Yes, I would say that is the most satisfying part of my job. Helping them and empowering them. We're part of a generation where there are still folks that have an aversion to technology. I'm not going to call them technophobes, Luddites, or whatever, but they have an aversion right to technology. When I'm able to hit home, when I'm able to show or share with them how technology helps and empowers them, that's the biggest thing that I enjoy.

Michelle: What is the most stressful part of your job, and how do you manage it?

Eliza: Blockers. Blockers are a huge stressful part of my job. There is a chart called a Cynefin chart, and it's a decision-making chart. There is an area between the complex and the chaotic decision-making best practices that stresses me out. Being a troubleshooter and problem solver, that compels me to take my stress, and use my creativity to manage the decision making, The moments where it's unknowns and all the puzzle pieces of the problem, aren't there that's kind of stressful for me.

Michelle: But you always find the answer?

Eliza: I would say 85% of the time. Some answers cannot be answered at the moment, because of either for skills or competency or even resources. It's not possible. But knowing all the puzzle pieces, how they present themselves is helpful. It gets you kind of there.

Michelle: Is it stressful working for a non-profit where your salaries are based on the kindness of strangers, and they have to keep raising every year?

Eliza: That's a good question. Because I actually fell into this. I didn't look for work at the foundation. I just thought of Wikipedia. The geeky thing is that you look at their annual report and see their operating budget. You see how much they spend, and you see what the turnaround is. What makes me more inspired to work for the foundation is the leadership. Catherine Maher is our CEO / Executive Director for the foundation, and I really believe in her leadership.

Eliza: It helped me make that decision. And, of course, the mission. All non-profits have specific niches that they're addressing, like with the Global Fund. Women and Girls' rights around the world was a mission that I can get with. Typically all the non-profits do have their operating budget. You can see what kind of structure they have and what they've maintained over the years.

Michelle: You mentioned a conference NTEN. Can you tell us a little more about that?

Eliza: Sure. NTEN is a conference that happens every year, but also an organization that supports non-profit technologists. Every year they get together in different places. I went to one in DC, a couple in San Francisco, and last year in Portland. Everyone can talk about best practices from the technology level to the management leadership level to the fundraising level. It's a great space. They have four tracks, such as IT for me as well as a track for leadership folks.

Eliza: Workshops range from security to best practices for your non-profit. There are workshops for storytelling, how to tell a good story for fundraising, and how to raise more money for your organization. I've been a member since at least 2010. They've been really, really helpful and supportive. You also get the community alongside, and I've reached out to folks that I've met at the conference to ask, how do you do this? How do you do onboarding, etc?

Michelle: Let's talk a little more about your job. What skills do you find the most essential on a day to day basis?

Eliza: This is kind of cheesy, but the biggest essential skill is listening to learn, which sometimes is hard. When you have your ideas, but listening to learn, questioning, and being curious. It's essential to realize that there are different styles of communication for folks. As a manager, I like to compare it to gears. You shift gears depending on who you are engaging with, what team you're engaging with, whether you're engaging with a C level or a report, you shift gears in terms of your communication and understanding style.

Michelle: Is there anything you'd recommend to help someone who wants to improve that skill?

Eliza: I feel really privileged. The Foundation has a program for managers, and it's called WikiLeads. That's where we can exercise those skills and learn how to be a better decision-maker and communicator.

Michelle: Are there any skills that were on your job description, or you were advised to have, that you never use at all?

Eliza: No, actually, I feel like I do use them all and then some. Some skills weren't listed, that I wasn't aware of, that has come into it.

Michelle: What were some of those surprising skills that weren't listed?

Eliza: This is a thing because I'm not a business major. It's the accounting and budget side. It just takes a lot of experience. I almost feel like I should have taken a business course to be a better budget owner. But I would say more on the hard business side, that those are the skills that you know. When you get into it, there are so many intricacies that I wasn't aware of. I'm learning, getting a little better at it. We have a ton of business analysts that I get to work with and ask all the questions.

Michelle: Let's talk a little more about being a manager. What do you look for when you're interviewing?

Eliza: I look for the technical side as well as passion and curiosity about the role. When I say passion, it means they have an interest in what they'll be doing.

Michelle: How can someone demonstrate that they're excited and curious about the job?

Eliza: By asking good questions about the role and delving deeper into what the role can look like.

Michelle: Once you've hired someone, how do you make sure your team stays excited about the job?

Eliza: Team lunches? No, I try to mix it up. It's sometimes a thankless job. No one cares about IT until their computer breaks, and then it's our fault. What I do is assess where everyone's at. I am mindful of the time of year, moments of the year where it's busier, and I take the opportunity to discover what's challenging them and find ways to make it less challenging. Then I have a bigger overview of how they can make their role work for themselves.

Eliza: I also like to engage other companies. Sometimes we feel so siloed, so having field trips and talking to other folks that do similar roles in different companies is helpful. We discuss learned lessons and highlight their successes. I think that's really key. Not only do you give them nuggets to grow, but you also acknowledge what they're good at.

Eliza: That's how I feel you keep the momentum. Also, change it up once in a while. I've gotten into this really cheesy thing where I share podcasts every week, and it varies from super political to super technical. I also want to create a personable or personal relationship with them. They hear the trends and what our work is doing in terms of impacting the world.

Michelle: It sounds like you're a very thoughtful manager.

Eliza: I think so. I've had many managers to model or not model from. I take all the little bits that have propelled me to this position and trying to embody them.

Michelle: I can't wait for the morning, where you can say, "Hey everyone, here's a podcast of the day it features me no big deal. I'm so awesome, listen to me talk." It's gonna be a fun day.

Michelle: You mentioned a cycle to IT work throughout the year, and I wasn't aware of that. Can you tell me more about how that works?

Eliza: It's not like tried and tested. I like to create systems for myself. There's the annual planning process. That's pretty much the cycle that you function on for the year. You have your deliverables at the beginning of the year. You have the core needs, and here are the deliverables that I've hit or not, here are the blockers, etc. That's the general business cycle for the foundation.

Eliza: As an IT team, there are moments. There's a thing that we have every year called all hands, where everyone pretty much comes to the mothership. We all meet because over 50% of the staff is distributed around the world. At those moments, we get swamped. That's when we get to resolve many IT issues because folks in India don't get that much technical support because of timezone difference and then access to technical parts that need. So we plan for that, and it gets hectic around that time.

Eliza: Then there's a thing called wicked mania, that happens every year. That's yet another opportunity for many distributed folks to come together with the community. That time of the year, we're a little busy, helping to support mainly off-site, so it doesn't really impact. During that time is when our big maintenance window is when we can shut down the servers and do all the things because folks are at Wikimedia doing their thing. Those are the types of cycles that I'm aware of and try to leverage or have the opportunity to make a lot of systems improvements.

Michelle: It sounds like whenever everyone else gets to party, IT has to do the most work.

Eliza: Exactly. Seems extremely unfair.

Michelle: I'm actually just imagining you wearing a party hat but like fixing a machine, while everyone else is at the actual party.

Eliza: It happens. It actually happens. There's a lot of, hey, something is going on with my computer as we're celebrating something. Yeah, it happens. I love it, though. The joke is I'm getting paid for what I would do for free for friends.

Michelle: You talked a bit about making sure your employees are always learning new things and growing. Where do you go to learn new technology?

Eliza: I am fortunate enough to have a few mentors who have positions such as CTO and CIOs, and I learn in conversations with them. I also like to listen to Kara Swisher's podcasts. There are certain topics that she discusses that I get into. I like to call it the Wikipedia wormhole where you hear this little thing that this company is doing, and then you go further and further in. I usually let my curiosity take me forward. I'm a geek. So there's really not a dearth of innovation or technology that is not happening.

Michelle: Are there any questions you often hear when you're mentoring or events that I haven't touched on?

Eliza: It's usually about education because, in technology, a lot of the innovative folks don't go to school. They go off and do their own thing and learn their code. They get into technology through that route, not necessarily having a computer science degree. I feel like the education you get from an institution is worthwhile, not only for education but also for the networks you have.

Eliza: Those are the types of questions I usually get. We haven't talked about it, but the difference between getting a four-year institutional degree versus just acquiring your skills on the job. I wouldn't say one or the other is better, but just so you know what you get from each. Not just college debt, but networks.

Michelle: I feel like that's something we're not telling 17/18-year-olds. To network as much as possible. There are so many times I hear people say that they got this job from someone they met in college, or the professor recommended it to them. Especially in technology, where things are always changing very quickly. What you learned in school is great, but you're gonna have to learn more every day. Having those connections really helps in growing your career.

Eliza: Completely. The super self-motivated folks are good at going to meetups. They make connections that way. So, I think you just need to learn for yourself what works best for you.

Michelle: If you aren't one of those who feel very comfortable doing that, find an extroverted buddy, and make them come with you.

Eliza: For sure.

Michelle: So what's your next step?

Eliza: I just completed an ITIL cert, which is the ITIL foundation library. It's a service management library cert—one of the harder tests that I've ever taken.

Eliza: I could see myself with the foundation for a couple of years. The challenges that will come up when an organization or company scales is such a great opportunity to flex your service management knowledge. I feel like I'm at the beginning of that and could do that for a few years.

Eliza: I also have potential art shows coming up shortly. That always runs parallel with career life. I'm heading off to Stockholm in August, where we'll have the Wikimania conference. Hopefully, I'll meet some Wikipedians there and see where that leads me.

Michelle: It sounds like you're working on so many different things. That you're keeping your options open to find the most interesting and rewarding projects to keep working on.

Eliza: Yeah, I think that's really key. That's something that I always discuss with my reports. Jobs are more short-term nowadays. You don't normally see that 20-year history at one position, especially for non-profits, unless you own it. Even if you do head it, you should actually leave after three or four years. That's another story. You should anticipate the change, and you're not going to be in the same position forever.

Eliza: It's really key to keep your eyes and your interests open because I've known folks that have started in legal and are now engineers and coders. And that's awesome. We can do that now. I think about my parents. I don't think that was possible for them. You couldn't do that. My sort of retirement dream is to be a bartender.

Michelle: A bartender, where it's a completely smart bar and everything is automated. And all of your art is displayed on the wall. So everything is yours.

Eliza: Hmm, I hadn't thought about that.

Michelle: I feel like you couldn't stop yourself. You can't just have a regular bar. You'd have to have this super awesome technical art bar.

Eliza: Yeah, I bet you by the time I get there, there will be art bars already.

Michelle: Are there any technical organizations that you enjoy being a part of?

Eliza: The Center for Media Justice. They do awesome work. The Internet Archive. All of the coding camps for girls and women. Anything that empowers girls and women I'm really supportive of.

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Interview with Cloud Advocate Tanya Janca

Michelle 🐍 — Tue, 20 Oct 2020 07:26:55 +0000

Interview with Founder Tanya Janca

This is the transcript of my conversation on @FromSourcePod with Tanya Janca.

Tanya Janca, also known as SheHacksPurple, is the author of Alice and Bob Learn Application Security. She is also the founder of We Hack Purple, an online learning academy, community, and podcast that revolves around teaching everyone to create secure software. Tanya has been coding and working in IT for over twenty years, won numerous awards, and has been everywhere from startups to public service to tech giants (Microsoft, Adobe, & Nokia). She has worn many hats; startup founder, pentester, CISO, AppSec Engineer, and software developer. She is an award-winning public speaker, active blogger & streamer and has delivered hundreds of talks and training on 6 continents. She values diversity, inclusion, and kindness, which shines through in her countless initiatives.

This has been edited for clarity. Tanya is no longer a Cloud Advocate at Microsoft but was at the time of this recording

Michelle: Tanya, what is your current job title and how long have you been there?

Tanya: My job title is Cloud Advocate at Microsoft and I've been there a year and a half. It's an unusual job. It's part of developer relations with the idea that companies want to understand better what developers need and want, rather than them creating lots of random features and hoping people like it. Instead, what if they got feedback directly from the source? That's a lot of my job,

Michelle: What is an average day for you?

Tanya: I do a lot of a few things. One thing is that I do a lot of public speaking. I get a lot of feedback from customers and potential customers when I do that. I also write blog posts and other content, white papers, or instructional documents and videos. I get a lot of feedback about that. I answer a ton of technical questions. People seem to think that I know all the security of every single Microsoft product, and I love that they think that I am that brilliant. That would be impossible, to fit all in my brain.

Tanya: I tend to go dig for things and help find things. If we can't figure out a way around it, maybe we need to change something. Then I give a lot of feedback to the product teams like this is cool, but it costs 10 times more than anyone can afford. Or you added these three new things and people are in love with two of them. The other one, no one seems to care. Maybe make more of number one and number two, if you can, things like that. Trying to help the product teams understand what people want and need.

Michelle: So you're like a facilitator between the users and the product team?

Tanya: Yeah, and more like the community specifically because we can hire people to come in and do beta testing. Because I'm part of the community and I contribute back to the community regularly, people feel more open to sharing. So this thing happened with this product and this is making us crazy. We're considering switching because of this or stuff like that. People that maybe wouldn't come directly to the company might be more comfortable coming to me. Does that make sense?

Michelle: Yeah, definitely. Since you're in a public-facing role is there ever an issue with not being able to turn it off and people contacting you all hours of the day and night? Do you feel like you have to be available?

Tanya: Oh my gosh, yes. Especially with time zones. Yeah, people contact me all the time. I tell them that my inbox looks like someone with a fire hose aiming at a small cup. I have trouble keeping up, I do my best.

Michelle: What has been your favorite long term project?

Tanya: This guy named Brooke on my team dared me to start a blog. For whatever reason, I thought no one would read it. I'm not sure why I just assume no one would be interested. I'm going to write out my thoughts on various technical things and this is how you do this. I learned this. I thought it was cool. Maybe you'll think it's cool. Now people are following my blog and reading it, like more than just me and my mom and my dad. It's been so rewarding. If there's a technical thing that's been bothering me to dissect it in-depth and add a million links and research and resources and stuff to it so that people can see why I think that way, or how I did whatever thing I'm doing. I found that really, really fun.

Michelle: I think it's an achievement if you can get your mom and dad to read your blog. I'm pretty sure my parents are not listening to this podcast.

Tanya: My mom and my grandma both asked me how to use Twitter and made Twitter accounts so they could follow me. I thought it was so touching and it's really cute because sometimes my mom will respond to things and then she'll sign her tweets with love Tanya's mom. It's so wonderful. I was so flattered that she would follow me and make an account just for that. It's so sweet.

Michelle: That is amazing. I love it. What is the most boring but essential part of your job?

Tanya: Answering emails. Answering so many messages, I feel like I can never get back to everyone. I find it hard to keep up because I want to answer with detail. I did a talk last week with my friend, Terry Radical about how to do your own security assessment on the Azure platform. How you could do it yourself rather than hiring a professional. That came from an email from a customer who was like, hey, we want to do this and we don't know where to start. We can't afford a pen tester.

Tanya: I ended up spending like an hour and a half writing back to him this whole outline. Then I was like, oh, I guess I should submit this as a talk. I made a blog post and I convinced Terry to come on my show. Then she made it way better and it grew from there. I want to spend like an hour and a half answering each email, but then I'll die. So I'll never sleep again. It's essential, but it kills me.

Michelle: Do you have a collection of blog posts that you keep ready to respond to? If you get the same question over and over again, do you say, just read this blog post it has all the information you need?

Tanya: Yes, yes. They're always how do I break into infosec? Where do I get started in application security? I have a blog post for each of those. I want to be a better presenter, how do I do that? I wrote a blog post about that because I get asked those three things quite often.

Michelle: How do you prioritize when you're getting a flood of emails?

Tanya: Ones from my boss are number one. Then his boss, and then that guy's boss, also number one's. Teammates that need something from me. There's one other person that knows security that's on my big, wider team, but he does infrastructure. He handles most of the infrastructure-related security questions. I know some infrastructure security, but he's really on it. He answers those questions.

Tanya: Most of the people on my team are developers and developer advocate. The questions are like how do I make this serverless app secure? Then I need to have a meeting. We talk about it and do threat modeling and stuff. It's super fun because they all do different things. It's an exercise for my brain, like, wow, I never thought of that. It's pretty fun.

Michelle: It sounds like you get to learn all the time. People ask you a question and you get to say oh, that's an interesting topic I could jump into.

Tanya: Yeah, that's a big reason why I took the job. I wanted to learn Cloud and more about infrastructure. I already knew a lot about application security and I was a software developer forever. But I want to know all the security. They hired this guy named Orin Thompson on my team and it's awesome. Every time I don't know the answer he always knows it's great.

Michelle: It sounds like you can outsource some of the emails you get to your team, which cuts it down a little bit.

Tanya: Yeah, definitely. Although, they do the same to me. So it might work out even in the end.

Michelle: Yeah, so maybe not, maybe you're just all flooding each other's email inboxes. What is the most stressful part of your job and how do you manage it?

Tanya: I was going to say the emails, but that's not true. One of the things about being a public figure, you get people that follow you and it turns out that not all of them are nice. The most stressful thing for me is if that 1 in 5000 person writes me a really bad message or takes it upon themselves to try to completely breakdown something that I've done. I don't understand their motivations, but I find it stressful. Someone recently sent a message to me, which I will not say what it said. Once I blocked that person, they proceeded to attack several people I care about on social media. Then I had to have all the different phone calls with all the different people to apologize even though obviously it's not my fault that this person targeted me. That this person responded to getting blocked with harassing people connected to me. It sucked so much and was super stressful.

Tanya: What I did to manage the stress is, I wrote a thing on social media, "How do you handle it if someone sends you a really hurtful message?" When a thousand people responded with different ideas of how to deal with it, I can't tell you how much better that made me feel. Other people telling me, "I am a really sensitive person too", "I have too much empathy sometimes, too". The person who harassed me, they probably have a mental illness because of the level that this person went to. It's such a ridiculously abnormal behavior for a person I've never met, right? Then I have empathy for that person because probably, they're hurting a lot. It's not something that I expected would come with the job of being a giant nerd that makes proofs of concepts and writes little tutorials. Like, there's like, oh, I'm important, what?

Tanya: I manage the stress by reaching out to the community and also remembering when people reach out like that, it's often their thing. It's not your thing. If it's constructive feedback, like, Tonya, "I didn't like how you said this thing, that hurt me or didn't seem appropriate?" Absolutely, I want to listen to all the constructive criticism. The accusations were pretty reflective of someone that's not 100% on the same page as the rest of us. There are all sorts of people out there, I do not have control over them. Does this person matter? Is this person important in your life? No, well, then why are you making their words important to you? Right, and going from there. That has helped a lot. That is the weirdest and most stressful part of my job. I know others on my team have similar things that are way worse than anything I've had to suffer. I'm kind of like, oh no. So we'll see how it goes.

Michelle: Since you do work for a big company, and you're on a team of people that have had a similar problem, is there anything you can do to protect each other? Or is there anything Microsoft can do?

Tanya: If someone is particularly awful to one of us, sometimes we all block the person. 50, or 60, or 80 of us block them, which certainly sends a message that their behavior was not acceptable. One of my co-workers had someone comment very negatively about her personal appearance and all of us just blocked. If one of us goes and does a talk somewhere, it is not so that you can talk about our bodies. It was really gross. So all of us just blanket block. Then at least like that person has a much smaller audience. None of the rest of us are going to be hurt by that person's feelings, or have our feelings hurt by them, etc.

Tanya: If it's past a certain level, you can call the police, or we have lawyers. But generally, like the person that recently I had the run-in with, I reported it to Twitter and they said, we don't see a problem. Okay. Mmmhmm. Okay. I guess it's unless your safety is in question, it's something you are just supposed to tolerate. It's an expectation of being a public figure on the internet, especially being female. Apparently, that's just a thing. The women I know of color, it's way worse. It's just not cool. But we have not figured out a way to solve this problem yet.

Michelle: It is a systemic problem that can be very difficult for an individual to manage. At least you have your team and it sounds like reaching out to the community and working together has helped you manage it, even if you can't prevent it.

Tanya: Yeah, absolutely. I have this mantra that has been with me since I was young. Someone in my class was mean to me. I was at a bar later and a friend in my class came up to me and he's like, "Tanya, not everything's about you." And I'm like, "What do you mean?" He's like, "Oh, the world revolves around Tanya. You're not that important. That student is mean to everyone. It's not you. It's that person. Don't think you're so special."

Tanya: When something like this happens to me often I'm like, I'm probably not the only person that this person has done this to. This person probably has a lot of hate inside them. I got burned today, but two other people got burned tomorrow. This isn't specifically my fault. Or I have this tendency to be like, "Tanya, what did you do wrong that caused this?" So then I remember, Tanya, you are not the center of the universe. You're not so special. It helps me, if that makes any sense.

Michelle: Yeah, that does make sense. It's not personal to you, it's just someone attacking. You shouldn't take it to heart and think there's something wrong with you. It's just someone who wants to spew this vitriol to someone.

Tanya: Yeah, yeah, exactly. That helps, too. Usually, I can be pretty good about muting that person. All of it's a learning process, I'll leave it at that.

Michelle: That sounds like a very different skill than software development.

Tanya: Oh, my gosh, yeah. With software development it was so awesome, I never had to talk to anyone. I just sit at my desk. I used to tease them that I was a hamster, just running on the wheel. If they put one of those little water bottles that I would never have to get up.

Michelle: Now I'm imagining a water bottle full of black tea at my desk. Just gave me neverending tea and I would never have to go anywhere.

Tanya: Right? And then I just like tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Me and Stack Overflow till the end.

Michelle: Speaking of skills, what skills do you find most essential on a day to day basis?

Tanya: Good writing skills, good listening skills, being able to communicate a concept, and understand when someone else is explaining a super complex concept to me. As an example, someone was asking me about Azure AD. He's like, "Oh, it doesn't log anything." I was like, "What? No, it does." Then it turned out there's one specific thing that this person was looking for that it's not logging. I'm not going to get into the nitty-gritty of it, but it took me a while because at first he's like, it doesn't log and like, well, that doesn't make sense.

Tanya: I don't want to be like, "You're wrong." Then I look and according to all these official documents it does. I ask, "What do you hope it will log that it's not logging?" and then we went from there. Then we have a coffee planned to go deep into it so I can understand exactly the types of things that would be better. He's a big Microsoft fan and he's totally into it. He probably knows Azure AD way better than I do. I'm like, please enlighten me, show me that way. He's going to take time out of his day to tell me, which is awesome. If I was like, you're wrong, then the conversation would have been over.

Tanya: Listening, communication, and then writing. My job is rather global so I don't usually have the luxury to spend time in person with most people. I'm lucky when we both happen to be going to the same event in a few weeks. Quite often, it's me typing out. When you type things out there's no tone of voice or body language to go with it. I want to make sure that people feel heard and respected. That my writing comes across the way that I mean it to as opposed to how it could come across. I have been burned at this job with like that came across pretty rude Tanya. I'm like, oh, crap. I was in a hurry. That's not how I meant it. Tone, writing, and listening communication are really important.

Michelle: It sounds like part of it is empathy with the people you're communicating with. To ask questions so you understand what they're trying to say?

Tanya: Oh, good point. Yeah, definitely. Empathy is required to because I guess if you're like, I don't care it wouldn't go very well?

Michelle: Since you do have a global audience, is there anything you do to make sure your writing can be understood by people for whom English is not their first language?

Tanya: There are a couple of things that I do. I have a video channel and for most of the episodes, we've paid to have them subtitled. I have some friends in Japan and they told me no, you don't need to translate to Japanese, we can mostly read and write English. It's just listening to you, it's impossible. I have a really strong Canadian accent. It's funny because internationally people think it's an American accent. In America, they're like, oh my God, your Canadian accent is so strong. Now that I know what to look for, it's really strong. Sometimes, if I'm speaking outside of North America, and I know that English is not their first language, I'll explain at the beginning certain things I will say or sounds I'll make and what they mean.

Tanya: I make it a fun, cute joke, but also I want them to know, I know I have an accent, I'm sorry. It's okay. If you ask. My feelings are not going to be hurt. Every person has an accent. If you're away from home, you're the one with the accent. Whenever possible, I add the possibility of captions or subtitles. Then, especially if I'm in a country where English is not even one of the official languages, I make a definite point of speaking significantly more slowly and more clearly, which is a thing I have to remind myself to do.

Tanya: For instance, I did two talks in Korea recently. English is not one of the primary languages there. All the people that came, it's probably their second or third or even fourth language. I ended up shortening my 60-minute talk. I only did around two-thirds of the content. I finished in time because I wanted to make sure that people could understand and it wasn't painful for them. We also had automatic electronic digital captioning. It's not perfect, but it was live captioning along the top of the screen, to be more accessible. One of my uncles is deaf and my mom is hard of hearing, so I'm pretty sensitive to everyone. I want to make sure everyone has an equal chance. I try hard to make sure that they do. I listen to feedback if people tell me I could do more.

Michelle: The ways you're working to be accessible can help a wide range of people, for anyone who has trouble understanding what you're saying.

Tanya: For our videos with the OWASP desktop team, we made the captions, and then we opened it to the community. A lot of the community members have translated episodes that matter to them. If there's a specific one that they really like, they went through and added captions. Then we put them into the official project, onto our YouTube channel so everyone can benefit from them. That's been amazing, that the community would do that for us. Many, many episodes have been translated into one or more languages, which is incredible. It's great knowing that your community's engaged and wants more people to have access to that technical content.

Tanya: I joke that I have a love affair with OWASP, but they're just so wonderful. They're so great. When I started information security and I joined OWASP, it felt like the community really, really wanted me there and made me feel like I was important and welcome. I wasn't doing anything at first. Before I knew it, OWASP opened so many doors for me. I met so many amazing human beings. They did so many things to enable me to learn and to share. I was not used to that. I used to be a professional musician and you better believe it's competitive and cutthroat. Then I joined security and people are like, "Oh my gosh, we're so happy you're here!"

Michelle: Can you tell our audience a little more about the groups that you're a part of and how they can join?

Tanya: Yes. Oh my gosh, good idea, Michelle. Okay, so OWASP is the open web application security project. It is a collective of 200,000 - 300,000 people loosely involved. You can pay to be a member, which means you're donating to the foundation because you care. You don't need to be a member for any reason. There are different chapters all over the world. I've been part of the Ottawa chapter for years and years now. We have monthly meetups where we get together. We have talks, discussions, capture the flag contests, networking, social time, and it's like a party and all my friends are there. We do that all over the world. We have ~270 chapters.

Tanya: We also have projects. I'm also on a project. Each project does a different thing. Some of them make tools, some of them do documentation. They've released several free books. In my group, Nicole created this super cool vulnerable app. Then Franziska and I created a bunch of security pipelines. Nancy and I have been working on a streaming show where we show the audience how to use all the things and learn while we drag the audience on our voyage together. Whatever you want to do, OWASP probably wants it, as long as it's trying to make things more secure.

Tanya: There's also the foundation and the foundation supports all the chapters and projects. They hold these giant conferences. I know that every other conference will be upset when I say it, but they're my favorite. AppSec conferences are the Carebears of security. There's not going to be a crazy party, there's not going to be some wild time, you're just going to go and then every single talk is going to be making you better at what you do. It's very professional and vanilla, not like a crazy hacker conference or anything. I go to almost all of them if I can, I'm a big fan. That's what OWASP does. To join, look up in your city, go to Meetup and see if they're there, or go to an online search engine of your choice. Look for OWASP and the name of your city, because we have so many chapters. If you don't have a chapter, you can start one. I've helped a bunch of cities start one, it's not that hard and it won't cost you anything.

Tanya: I'm also a part of WoSec, women of security. We just turned one year old. We are an international community of women for women in security or looking to join security. We have meetups all around the world. We're on a few different continents. We have 18 chapters now in one year, which is wild. We do three things. We're not like a lot of the other women's meetups, and we're not going to teach soft skills generally, or how to speak powerfully when speaking to men. We feel those things are covered, other women's groups are kicking butt at those things. What we do is crash boy meetups. If I want to go to a Python meetup, and I know it's going to be 100 men and me, that might make me nervous. So I'll make a meetup with WoSec to go to the Python meetup and then a bunch of other women will join me. Then I'm not the only one there. We crashed the RSA conference this year, we crashed Microsoft Build, we crashed BSides Ottawa.

Tanya: The idea is that you show up with this group of friends. Another thing that we do is, we brunch and bitch. It's like a stitch and bitch, but with food. It's a social gathering where we get to meet each other and hopefully, you make new friends. There's a big problem with women in STEM, they keep leaving. If you have friends, you're a lot more likely to stay. I have met so many amazing friends from WoSec. It started as this selfish thing where I asked my friend Donna if she wanted to do it. I was like, “What if no one comes?”, she's like, “Well, then you and I will have brunch, just the two of us.” Lo and behold, 20 women showed up the first month. We have this gaggle of women every month that show up and now some of them have started a business together. Lots of them are friends.

Tanya: We've had so many nice things that they're doing for each other. One of the women did her first talk ever. We all surprised her and showed up and cheered for her in the front row. Nice things like that have come out of it. The third thing that we do is technical workshops or talks that are in a safe space that are just for women. I find that women speak up a lot less if there are men in the room. I know that a lot of people will argue that we shouldn't segregate. However, I gave a cloud security workshop, which I've given it all over Ottawa. But I gave one just for WoSec, just for women.

Tanya: 20 women showed up. Everyone was talking, asking a million questions, or giggling and laughing, it was super great. Then a man walked in by accident, he hadn't realized it was for women only. He went in, sat at the back, and all the women were silenced. All of them were so quiet and uncomfortable that he was there. After 20 minutes, he looks up from his computer and looks all around. Then I see him checking his phone and he figured it out. Then he stood up, and he's like, “Oh, Hi, thanks, this has been great. I really have to go. I'm sorry.” He sent a letter after to apologize and he was super embarrassed and like it's okay. Then as soon as he left all the women were super loud and smiling and laughing and giggling again. It is a different atmosphere when it's just women. All women are welcome. There are no membership fees, or anything, you just show up and hang out. And it's cool. I just want to make more friends.

Michelle: When people ask me, how do you network I always say just make friends and see what happens. You never know which of these friends that you can help or they can help you later. It's how I've built my network.

Tanya: Yeah, now that I think of it, a lot of us have referred other ones for jobs or made like key introductions and stuff. That's a really good point. Yeah. So also networking.

Michelle: I love how you are making sure everyone is getting something positive and actionable at the events.

Tanya: Yeah, that's what I want to do. I also run this hashtag on Mondays, called #MentoringMonday. People tweet the hashtag #MentoringMonday when they want to be a mentor or mentee. If you've worked in security, or whatever it is that you do, for two years or more, you officially know enough to mentor a junior person. I mentor lots of people and I am so lucky to have had several amazing out of this world mentors in my career. A mentor pushes you to that next level, shows you the way, and introduces you to things that you otherwise might not have seen.

Tanya: I encourage everyone who's listening to participate in #MentoringMonday. You can search the hashtag and respond to people. Even just telling someone, "I'm an expert in Python, and here are the books you should read or the podcasts you should listen to." is helpful. Several people have been pairing off and forming long term mentoring relationships, which is super beautiful. It's amazing.

Michelle: I cannot stress enough how great my mentors have been and how much I've been enjoying mentoring people over the last year, both one on one and in groups. One thing I don't think people realize is that when they get to be a mentor, they get to feel like a genius. After a long day at work, you can get imposter syndrome from running into roadblocks. Then you talk to someone a little less experienced and you give them some new information. It turns out you did know things and it brings that boost of confidence.

Tanya: Well, and you get to see them blossom. It's so amazing. Almost all the women I've been mentoring have started public speaking. One of them, she's spoken at a whole bunch of conferences all over Europe now. She's the most introverted, shy individual, and I'm just so proud. I'm like, you're amazing and now you're letting other people see how amazing you are. It feels so good to help someone else and then see how happy and successful they are.

Michelle: Absolutely. It can be very frustrating sometimes when you think about the state of tech, but every time you help someone, it makes it a little better and a little brighter, and then they help people, it all ripples out.

Tanya: Yes, exactly, exactly.

Michelle: Oh, boy, we're good at talking.

Tanya: I always go over time. I'm sorry.

Michelle: No, no, no, we didn't.

Tanya: If I was a bash script, I would be verbose.

Michelle: If someone wanted your job, what's a good path to take?

Tanya: Oh, that's such an excellent question. I got my job sort of by accident. I had started contributing to the community quite a bit. I was running the local OWASP chapter and I'd started an OWASP project. I had been speaking all over Europe and North America. I was already doing the job for free. I was already doing interviews and not writing my own blog post, but writing third party articles for syndications. Then Microsoft approached me and they're like, we heard we need to talk to you. They're like, you know, we have this Developer Advocate role. I responded I don't understand, I'm a security nerd, what are you talking about?

Tanya: Then the manager called me to explain, I'm like, that's not a job. That's my hobby. He's like, well, I'm telling you, we would pay you to do it. I'm like, are you messing with me? Once he assured me for sure, he was not just fooling me, they brought me to Seattle. I met a whole bunch of people. They're super smart because they got a bunch of people that I admired to interview me. I'm like, well now I have to work here dammit. Yeah, it is pretty cool.

Tanya: Besides getting involved, contributing, and helping, you can apply for those jobs. All Cloud providers have those jobs. I'm a security person, so I'm going to talk about security space. A whole bunch of different companies have approached me, like “How can we find someone to advocate for this or that?” and I'm like, “Yo, do your own recruiting.” People don't know that it's a job that they can apply for.

Tanya: The key thing is that you help. It can't be that you're trying to get famous, because that comes off that way. People can see through those things. If you have a community, you serve your community and take care of your community, then that's your example of how you can work for them on behalf of your community, right. If you don't have a community, then that's pretty hard to sell.

Michelle: Would you also recommend tasks while at work like mentoring or writing documentation to prepare for a job as an advocate?

Tanya: Definitely. I also got started because I launched my first application security program at work and I wanted everyone to start using this tool called OWASP zap. I wanted all the developers to zap their code. I made a presentation and I did a demo. Then I taught everyone how to use it. I gave the presentation over and over and over. Then someone said, you should do it at a meetup.

Tanya: Then I did it at a conference. My first presentation was awful. I was so scared. Oh, my gosh. Very bad. Getting comfortable being in front of an audience, getting experience making sure that the audience actually learns the things you're trying to teach them, and hopefully enjoys themselves. That is a skill that takes a long time to hone. Writing skills and communication skills. You can create a community where you work. Before I was doing things with OWASP, I was doing things within the Canadian government where I worked.

Tanya: I had a lunch and learn program where I was the host. I had over 30 different people come into my office, make presentations, and teach all of us. The monthly lunch and learn became this thing that everyone was looking forward to. You can create community wherever you are if you want to. I have a community on my street, we're all friends. We have a party every six months where one of the neighbors opens their house to everyone. You have the opportunity to create community You just have to do the work.

Michelle: What's your next step? Where do you see yourself growing in your career?

Tanya: I have a lot of nerdy goals. Microsoft just released their first blockchain and I'm like, oh my god blockchain. I would like to know that. I want to make a blockchain. I want to name it Betty the buggy blockchain and then I want to smash it because that's how I am.

Tanya: I'm doing a thing on my own that I will tell everyone when it's ready. I want to keep learning. I don't feel like I'm a complete expert at all the security areas of Azure yet. I like to master things and then move on to another thing and master that. For instance, with blockchain, building my blockchain, hacking my blockchain, and then making a workshop out of that. That's conquering that topic. It's how I roll. I would like to speak at more places. I hope more people read my blog. Those are such vague goals. But anyway, I think they're noble goals.

Michelle: Your process for learning new things is to do a project, get good at it, and then teach other people.

Tanya: Yeah, definitely. Oh, my gosh, whenever I get asked a question and I don't know the answer, I'm like, well, I'm gonna go learn a new thing today. It's great.

Michelle: The joys of working in technology.

Michelle: Our listeners want to reach out to you via social media, how can they reach you?

Tanya: Look up shehackspurple and then that will be me. On Twitter, YouTube, Medium and shehackspurple. I am on LinkedIn, but I'm not accepting new connections. I apologize in advance, but you can follow me.

Follow @FromSourcePod for more episodes and to continue the conversation about what tech jobs are really like, from the good, the bad, to the boring.

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Interview with Software Developer Erin Scott

Michelle 🐍 — Thu, 01 Oct 2020 06:05:03 +0000

This is the transcript of my conversation on @FromSourcePod with Erin Scott, a Software Developer.

Erin Scott is a software developer for RS21, a big data visualization company in Albuquerque, NM. She is a hot yoga enthusiast and a big proponent of diversity in tech. If you want to work with her, apply here. She can also be reached directly on LinkedIn. We talk about being a career changer, using her work to have a positive impact, how to choose the right bootcamp, and much more!

This has been edited for clarity.

Michelle: Erin, what is your current job title and how long have you been there?

Erin: My current title is Software Developer and I've been there for just about one full year.

Michelle: Congratulations on your first anniversary!

Erin: Thank you, I'm excited.

Michelle: What does an average day look like for you?

Erin: The company that I work at has a super flexible work policy. day-to-day, it varies. Depending on meeting schedules. I might need to be in the office or if I have a lot of specific tasks to do, sometimes I'll work from home for the whole day. Sometimes I'll do partial, go into the office, and then work from home or a coffee shop in the afternoon. That's an aspect that I value, that I found unique to working within the tech industry. The flexibility is something that I really wanted when I was in other positions. Being able to mix up my work environment and have a bit more autonomy over my schedule and where and when I'm most productive. So day-to-day, it changes.

Michelle: Do you find any challenges with communication when working remotely?

Erin: I did at first with understanding, within the team, what the expectations were. The company that I work at has been in business for about four years now. We're exiting out of that initial startup phase. When I joined the team a year ago, some of those policies weren't necessarily ironed out. As the team has grown over the past year, we have a little bit more of standard expectations, in terms of like checking in and when you need to be available, that sort of thing. We use Slack as our primary communication tool. I'm pretty much on slack all day, every day.

Michelle: The challenge was to be very deliberate in your communication, so no one is missing anything?

Erin: Yeah, exactly. I honestly feel like when I'm remote, I am checking Slack more often and am more responsive than I am when I'm in the office. Someone could just come to tap me on the shoulder if they needed something. That has been appreciated. Quick follow-up, especially when you are remote proves that you are working and you're available. Then you've built that trust.

Michelle: What has been your favorite long term project?

Erin: Since my annual review is coming up, right around the corner, I was looking over a lot of projects that I've participated in recently. There's been a lot, which has been super awesome. It's been quite a year of growth for me. There was one huge one that stands out in my mind and that we're going to have continued work on in the future. It was a healthcare related good project, a huge one in terms of the number of people in the organization that were involved from project management to design and client interactions. Of course, the whole software development team.

Erin: That one I feel very proud to have contributed on because it had a legacy codebase. Jumping into that, understanding how the current tool was working, and then being able to implement all of the new features and have it work seamlessly across the Front and Back End, was a cool portfolio piece for me. Now the fact that it is actually in place within this healthcare related setting and has, hopefully, a positive impact on the people that we created to use the tool makes it something that I was proud to contribute to.

Michelle: Do you have any tips for anyone jumping into a legacy codebase like that and trying to understand it?

Erin: Oh, it's not easy. For that particular project, our team lucked out in the sense that the people that had worked on it previously were still there and available to ask questions, etc. As I mentioned before, the team had worked on implementing more and more policies and getting standard practices down. At the point in time when this project was initially created, we didn't have a whole lot of expectations around commenting code and documentation and that sort of thing.

Erin: That made this particular one extra challenging, in my opinion, because there wasn't a whole lot of breadcrumbs to figure out how everything was working. Luckily, this wasn't the very first project that I was assigned to because that would have been so intimidating and scary. Dor this particular one I leaned on the support of my teammates. We had a lot of collaborative coding sessions, code reviews, explanations of how the tool previously had worked, and what changes we needed to make. The fact that it was such a collaborative effort helped in that regard.

Michelle: Sometimes looking back at old code, it feels like an archeological dig where you're trying to figure out what the thought process was of the engineer who built it, to try to figure out what it does.

Erin: Yeah, definitely. I've learned to console log everywhere, work through it piece by piece, and try to understand how everything connects. For some of these huge codebases, that can be like weeks just by itself.

Michelle: What do you find the most boring but essential part of your job?

Erin: All of the work that we do is billable to clients because our organization is a consultancy. I didn't fully realize that when I joined the team. I was thinking, Okay, I'm a salaried employee. Cool. I'm done with hourly timesheets. But now a big part of my day-to-day work is being sure that we are accountable for the hours spent and the tasking that we have. We do it every day. Because otherwise, I can't remember at the end of the week. What did I do on Monday? I have no idea. That was a tedious thing to be aware of and get in the habit of initially. Now as long as I stay consistent with it, and do it every day, I figured out how to manage it. It's not the most fun task for sure.

Michelle: Do you still have time for research and learning even though you're on the clock for each client?

Erin: Yeah, definitely. There's been a couple of cases where the project required that we use some sort of new technology. For example, one that we had recently was working with a national laboratory. We were collaborating with their on-site engineering team. They were very familiar with Angular, the latest versions of the Angular framework. Whereas on our internal team our preferred Front End framework is Vue.

Erin: So we were pushing to build the new tool in Vue because it was what we were most comfortable with and could get done quickest. But because they were going to be the ones maintaining the code long term, we ended up building it in Angular. No one on our internal team at the time was an Angular expert, so we were able to build in some time to get up to speed on Angular. Learning and tutorial time was considered billable work since it was particularly related to the project. Situations like that come up a lot, where we get to learn while we're in the process, which is awesome.

Michelle: What is the most stressful part of your job and how do you manage it?

Erin: The aspect of staying up to date with the technology is challenging. It's an exciting part of my job, for sure. Our organization prides itself on being on the cutting edge, using a lot of open-source tools and technologies, and pushing the boundaries. Of course, part of that is staying on the cutting edge as the development team. Sometimes it can feel a little bit overwhelming since you can't know everything all the time. That goes back to having a good relationship with the team and a collaborative process. I feel like I've learned a lot about tips and tricks and cool other new stuff from some of my teammates that I maybe would never have heard of.

Michelle: Do you have any go-to resources for when you need to learn a new technology quickly? How do you get started?

Erin: I've done a lot of online tutorials on Scrimba. I find it to be a cool resource because you can pause the videos and type in the code editor It's a little bit more interactive. So I've enjoyed some of their classes. I've used Free Code Camp as a resource. Over the years I've enjoyed a lot of their material. Also, their weekly blog and emails have all kinds of cool tips.

Erin: I do have to monitor myself on that because I will go down the rabbit hole of stuff that I find interesting, but isn't maybe billable work. I need to keep myself in check and make sure that the time I'm spending at work is pertinent to a particular project. Then on the weekends, I still do a fair amount of continued learning. I've also noticed for myself that I need to have time away from my computer, have a mental health break, and do other stuff. Otherwise, I tend to get a little bit burned out.

Michelle: Do you have a favorite distressing activity that gets you away from the computer?

Erin: Yeah, definitely. I'm really into heart yoga. That's my primary de-stressor of choice.

Michelle: We all need to get away from our screens at some point in the day.

Erin: For sure. Yoga slows down the pace for me. Whereas throughout the day, I feel like I'm running around and doing a lot of stuff. Being forced to slow down, focus on my breathing, and then do all the stretching, that sort of thing. It is a good mental health and physical exercise experience for me.

Michelle: After a session do you ever realize that you've solved all these problems that seemed much harder before I started?

Erin: Yeah, sometimes, or at least I feel calmer. I can approach the problem without being quite so stressed or frantic about it? It gives me a refreshed perspective.

Michelle: What skills do you find the most essential on a day-to-day basis?

Erin: Communication skills have been hugely important in my role, which is kind of surprising. Of course, tech skills are vital as well. I think that having some of those soft skills to supplement and fill in the gaps is critical. To be able to build rapport with people, have personal relationships, and thus create and cultivate an environment where you feel comfortable and don't feel stupid asking questions. That sort of thing. That's been a huge helper to me in my first year as a full-time developer.

Michelle: Are there any methods or research you did to help improve those skills?

Erin: I studied Communications and Spanish for my undergraduate degrees. Later in life, I did a coding boot camp, and then here I am. That background helped me a lot. There are some awesome books from people like Dale Carnegie and Berne Brown. Those are more like self-help, communication, leadership, those sorts of tools. I stay up to date out of my own personal interest. I like to follow some of them on social media and receive their email newsletters. I get daily inspiration from some of that, which I would definitely recommend.

Michelle: Are there any skills that were on your job description, or advised to have, that you never use at all?

Erin: I mentioned that our team is focused on being innovative and on the cutting edge. I remember when I interviewed, there was a whole list of required skills and a bunch of nice-to-haves. Some of the stuff on the list were frameworks and different technologies that I was like, I've never heard of this before but googling now. Some of those were fad tools and I haven't ever learned those or use them day-to-day.

Erin: I will say that we use a lot of D3, which is data visualization stuff. D3 can be hugely intimidating to get up to speed on. I've gotten to get my feet wet with that a little bit recently. Since I work primarily on the front end, I use a lot of different frameworks. It's been awesome to get to use different ones on various projects, depending on what the client needs are. That bundles up to all of the learning that I've had over this first year.

Michelle: It must be nice to use different tools and be able to compare and contrast. So when you start a new project, you can make an informed decision on which to use.

Erin: Yeah, definitely. That's been an immense asset for me, for sure. It can be intimidating when I'm given the task and it's like, use whatever! When it can be Vue or Angular or React. I'm like, huh, okay, let me start skilling up on that. It's hard sometimes to get the ball rolling. Sometimes the fear of failing or seeming incompetent will hold me back for a moment. Now there's been enough instances where I've overcome that initial discomfort so that I feel much more confident jumping into a tool and feeling like yeah, I'm gonna be able to figure this out.

Michelle: At our first job or your first task it can be terrifying to not know what you're doing. Once you succeed at one, then another, then another, you realize how fun it is to start a project, not knowing anything and being able to learn and discover.

Erin: I agree.

Michelle: If someone wanted your job, what's a good path to take?

Erin: As I mentioned, I did a coding boot camp. Prior to that, I was working full time in a marketing and communications role. Then I moved into a position doing more operations management. I was coding in the evenings, doing a lot of tutorials trying to be self-taught. I wasn't making a whole lot of progress, at least at the rate that I wanted to. I also asked myself, what am I doing this for? What do I want my future trajectory to be? It was after a heart-to-heart that I decided I'm going to go all in on the coding path. Doing that immersive bootcamp experience is what catapulted me in the direction of being qualified enough to land a full time development job.

Erin: It was helpful during my interview process. This was the first time in my life where I had competing offers. I felt like I could negotiate. I could choose the position that was the best fit for me. That itself was hugely empowering and made me feel confident in my decision to change trajectories. The fact that I had other professional experience and had a more varied skill set was appealing to these different employers. I was able to contribute to different functional teams and not solely just development. That helped set me apart a little bit as well.

Michelle: How did you figure out which bootcamp was the right one for you?

Erin: I am located in Albuquerque, New Mexico. When I was looking at boot camps there were a couple of options here in town. I was considering some nearby cities, like Denver and Austin, etc. Ultimately, I didn't want to pay for housing for the short term and not have my local support system. I decided that it would be best for me to stay in New Mexico if possible. Luckily, there was a great program here called Deep Dive Coding. It had recently been incorporated into or partnered with one of the community colleges here in town.

Erin: They have this whole STEM learning initiative now that is its' own separate center where they host all these different coding boot camps. As part of that, they offer funding through this program called Tech Hire Initiative. It is a federally funded program from the Obama administration where they provide funding for people to do job skills and tech training if you're in a certain age range and you're in specific zip codes.

Erin: I was able to get the boot camp fully funded through the Tech Hire Initiative. That was the ultimate deciding factor for me. That I would be able to save up a little money to support my cost of living while I was doing the bootcamp, because it is 40 hours a week Plus you can't do a whole lot outside of that. I was then able to get that scholarship to cover the cost of the program, which was awesome.

Michelle: That's a great opportunity. Hopefully, our listeners can also take advantage of programs like that.

Erin: Yeah, definitely. Even if the Tech Hire Initiative isn't a thing where they are, there were a lot of scholarship opportunities. Especially for people that typically have been left out of tech, like marginalized groups, people of color, women, etc. If you look for funding sources, there's a lot of options out there. It's worth taking the time to pursue and apply for some of those opportunities.

Michelle: Is there anything you'd advise students to learn that's not in either their college or bootcamp curriculum?

Erin: Networking has been immensely helpful to my professional development. While it can be super uncomfortable sometimes, I tried to go to a variety of different meetups, professional events ad different lectures. To put myself out there. I did that while I was in the coding boot camp. In the evening if there was an interesting talk I would make an effort to go. Some people in my class were not able to do based on personal commitments or time spent studying. I decided that would be a priority for me.

Erin: Partially it was because I was making this career change. I wanted to reintroduce myself to people in the community and be able to communicate Hey, I'm doing this now. If you know of opportunities, I would appreciate a connection. It was through an event that I met the company that I work at now. The founder was doing a talk about entrepreneurship and how the company got its start. I went to it on a whim and then was very impressed with their presentation. I went up to him afterward and introduced myself. From there, we kept in touch. Eventually, I got an interview, and then here we are. Going to events, introducing myself, and networking, that made all the difference.

Michelle: At the right networking events, it's all about making friends who are interested in the same nerdy things that I'm interested in, and maybe one day we help each other.

Erin: Yeah. I agree. There are so many interest specific groups, you can always find your tribe. It's a big confidence booster and empowering because you're like, oh, yeah, I'm not the only one. Awesome.

Michelle: Speaking of events, are there any questions that are commonly asked when you talk to people just getting started in tech at meetups and events?

Erin: Yeah, the most common question people ask is how to get started and how to get your feet in the door. Internships can be hugely helpful. Sometimes people feel like an internship is beneath them. For myself and others that are switching careers, you have to humbly acknowledge that you're starting at the bottom and you don't know everything. Internships can create an environment where you can ask questions, have mentors, get help, and skill up in a short time.

Erin: I encourage people to be open to those sorts of opportunities. Also, build an online portfolio of your work. Feature the kind of cool stuff that you're interested in doing. a blog can give you credibility and show that you're actively learning. It can help set you apart as well, in terms of the interview process, etc.

Michelle: I know you've only been there a year, but have you been a part of any interviewing process of new hires or interns?

Erin: Yeah, and that's been awesome. Our director of development has made a conscious effort to include people from different levels throughout the team in the interview process. It was fun to be able to stay on the other side of the table. That's a cool initiative because people have different perspectives from where they are on the team and can ask different questions accordingly. I've been excited to get to participate in some interviews.

Michelle: What do you look for when you're interviewing?

Erin: The company hires based on skillset and culture fit. We do phone interviews then bring them into the office to spend a day with the team. participate in meetings and see how the vibe goes. The people that ultimately end up getting hired are very avid learners, have a lot of different interests, varied skillsets, and are genuinely kind people. It has created this awesome team environment, in my opinion, of people that want to create and contribute to something cool and worthwhile. Everyone wants to contribute to something bigger than just clocking in the nine to five.

Michelle: I tend to think of it as headphones, head down engineer versus hands up engineer who want to be a part of the whole process, instead of just getting tasks thrown at them.

Erin: I would say that the scale of that varies from person to person, but I feel like everybody is interested in cultivating relationships and has each other's backs, that sort of thing. It's not like every person for themselves situation, which makes the products that we're creating at the end of the day stronger.

Michelle: One of the reasons I prefer working on teams is being able to make something greater than what you can do yourself.

Michelle: Are there any technical organizations that you enjoy being a part of?

Erin: There's a couple of different meetups, and those are more locally here in Albuquerque that I participate in. We have a cool React meetup. We have one about UI/UX that recently started. day-to-day, I'm not using React as my primary tool and I'm not on the UI/UX team. However, I like to go to some of the ones that are tangentially related to my daily work because it presents a different perspective for me, and I get to meet interesting people. A lot of the specific learning that I do is more individually, I find that I have enough accountability/time management that I can do stuff independently. It depends, but for the most part, if I set a goal of finishing some tutorial I'll do it. It might just take me a long time. I am a good self learner for some of those more specific tools or technologies if I'm trying to skill up.

Erin: There is another group that I'm a part of that I enjoy. There's a woman here in town that is an alumnus from the boot camp program I attended. She started this group called Rubber Ducks that's all about women in tech specifically. Across sectors and specific roles, there's a whole lot of variety of people that participate in this group, We have a slack workspace and have a social event happy hour once a month.

Erin: That's been an immensely helpful space for me to get reassurance or bounce ideas off of others. It's a very supportive environment. We talk about salaries and the transparency has been really helpful for my professional development in negotiation, practicing those skills, and what expectations are reasonable. If something like that exists in your community, I encourage you to participate. If it doesn't exist, maybe start something like that because having a group of peers, and being able to have honest conversations is very, very valuable.

Michelle: Have you thought about your next career step?

Erin: Yeah, I have. It has been a time of reflection for me recently since I'm coming up on my annual review. I've discovered that throughout some of the projects that I've been working on, I'm interested in the UX part of the conversation which is not part of my day-to-day work presently. I enjoy it when I get to interface with our in-house design team and talk about the information architecture, how that's translated into the designs, and then how we're coding that into reality on the Front End. I hope to get to work more closely with that team in the coming year, skill up and learn from them.

Erin: I also have some interest in pursuing more opportunities on the Back End. I get to dabble a bit with some of the APIs and database work. But that's not my primary function on the team right now. Ultimately, being more holistic or Full Stack would be awesome. That's going to help my contributions to the project as a whole, even if it's not my specific task, being able to understand how all the pieces fit together.

Michelle: Backend is the best, come join me. I love it. If our listeners want to reach out via social media, how can they reach you?

Erin: I would be happy to connect, that'd be great. I'm on Twitter, my handle is @dot_of_scott. I'm also on LinkedIn. Those are probably the top two ways to get in touch with me.

Michelle: If anyone is inspired to work with you, how should they reach out?

Erin: The company I work for is called Resilient Solutions 21, RS21. We're based in Albuquerque and we also have an office in Washington, DC because a lot of the work that we do, the clients are federal agencies, etc. We have a team on the ground there. We're always looking for talented, interesting, creative people. If anybody out there is looking for a job in development, design, project management, etc and you're into data visualizations, and cool projects, I would encourage you to check out the work that we do.

Follow @FromSourcePod for more episodes and to continue the conversation about what tech jobs are really like, from the good, the bad, to the boring.

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Interview with Accounting System Analyst II Nina Kin

Michelle 🐍 — Mon, 28 Sep 2020 02:48:28 +0000

This is the transcript of my conversation on @FromSourcePod with Nina Kin.

Nina has been working in the government as a technologist for 12 years, ever since graduating from UC Berkeley with a degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences. She is heavily involved in the volunteer civic tech space and in improving the way government does technology. She’s the co-captain of Hack for LA, a member of the National Advisory Council for Code For America's Brigade Network, and a newly elected member of the SoCal ACLU.

This has been edited for clarity.

Michelle: Nina, what is your current job title and how long have you been there?

Nina: My job title is Accounting Systems Analyst II and I work for the county of Los Angeles Auditor Controller. I've been there for 12 years this year.

Michelle: Wow, that's a mouthful, Can you tell us a little more about that, and what an average day looks like for you?

Nina: Sure. It actually varies a lot. My position as a systems analyst mostly involves understanding our users’ needs. For me and my department that ends up being other employees at the county. We're in a supportive role, building out applications for internal operations. That includes meeting with our future users and understanding their needs and requirements. Then doing analysis on software and options that are available, as well as architecting a solution and then implementing it.

Nina: Sometimes that includes programming by developers on our team, which sometimes means me by myself. Or it could mean working with our central IT department, with them as the developers and us being the business analysts and project managers. Sometimes the work I do also involves support because I have our external facing website and we help people get the content up there. So it's a huge variety of things.

Michelle: Do you like having that variety?

Nina: Definitely. I started off my career really insecure because I didn't feel like I was really smart in any one thing. I wasn't this like rockstar specialist type, I was interested in a lot of things. I dug into that more and became comfortable with the idea of being a generalist. Into being able to tackle a variety of things, whatever is thrown my way. That helps keep the job interesting and I develop a variety of skills. Then by the nature of the type of work that we do, the people that we interface with, and the kind of problems we solve, we get to learn so many different aspects of our business within government. It ends up being really interesting,

Michelle: What's been the most surprising thing you've learned working in government?

Nina: There's a lot of layers here going on in my head that I'm trying to unpack. Some things are not a surprise, but then they are a surprise. I had this idea in my head that government sucks and there's a lot of bureaucracy. People don't want to be progressive and learn and do things. The way the government does tech sucks. There is truth to that, for sure. But it's also true of any large old bureaucratic organization, whether that's the public or private sector. So I was surprised to learn that we do have so many people who care about doing a great job, trying to improve things, and do good work within the county.

Michelle: That's awesome to hear, and a very interesting perspective about how people think big tech companies are always on the cutting edge, but they can sometimes be just as hard to move as a big government agency.

Nina: Oh, yeah. I also have an as an addendum to that surprising thing. I think a lot of people see government failures and blame the government. What they don't realize, and I know this because I work on the inside, is that a lot of the time we contract out to private companies for our work. That failure of a website or application? That's a private company that created that.

Michelle: When that happens, what do you think is the issue is? I've heard that the bidding process can be really difficult. That it can be hard to get a variety of companies, that sort of thing.

Nina: Oh, definitely. A huge part of that is built into the way that we do procurement. We haven't been able to evolve our request for proposals in a way that matches modern tech development practices. Changing the process and educating people is difficult to do because of our internal operations. It's hard for us to hire people who know how to do these things because of the way our hiring process works. It's really hard because I know that the bureaucracy was put in place to protect the public's interest. We're spending the public's money, we have to be responsible with it. The checks and balances were put into place to discourage nepotism and favoritism. Those things also make it difficult for us to move more agilely

Michelle: Do you feel like you get to move the needle a little bit, however incrementally, in the right direction?

Nina: Oh, definitely. Discovering that I could have that power even at the level I am was so empowering for me. It triggered my passion for the work that I do. Part of it is developing our websites and applications with best practices in mind while educating and bringing in other government tech employees into the fold. The other part is being an advocate for all of this. Being a government employee, being on the inside, I have that in with other government employees. A lot of people in government do get defensive when they're approached by people outside government, they're like, oh, you don't understand, why should I listen to you? I can approach them from the inside and say, I get it, we're in this together, so let's try to fix this.

Michelle: What initially drew you to work in the government?

Nina: It was really kind of random in a way. A lot of people end up getting into government, at least my local government agency because they knew someone else who worked in government. It's stable, it's secure and you get decent benefits, which are valuable in this day and age. I had a relative who worked in government and put that out there as an opportunity. I worked there as a student professional worker over the summer while I was still in college. They liked me and the work that I did. When I graduated and a position opened up they told me to apply and I made it in.

Nina: It was initially in my mind that I would only stay there temporarily because I didn't see government work as a long term thing. For me, it wasn't glamorous. Coming from going to school in the Bay Area, tech companies, startups, those were the glamorous places. I was like, I'm gonna stay in for five years and then I'm gonna go find a cool startup. I ended up staying for 12 years. I've been loving it more and more as I stay because I am optimistic. I see the potential for the difference that I can make.

Michelle: What is a recent project that you really enjoyed?

Nina: One of my recent projects, I'm not actually on it right now, but I was on it for the last two years or so. It was called the library of contract information, which we chose because the acronym became LOCI. We pronounce as Loki because we knew that it would be such a trickster of a project. I know it sounds ridiculous like, oh, it's an application for contract information. However, when I got into this contracting application project, I had to learn about the business behind how we do contracting and procurement. I had to learn the specifics about what goes into that process to understand what the data is that needed to be collected.

Nina: There's a lot of data that we could be collecting. We don't want to collect every single part of it, because that's unrealistic. How do we condense it down what is useful for all the stakeholders? For the users, the executive management, the elected officials, and the Board of Supervisors, who we all essentially report to at the end of the day. I had to dig deep into that. Yes, there's a lot of dysfunction in there. But it was really interesting to learn about. I loved it for giving me that insight into the side of government force that I never thought that I would have a passion for.

Nina: Did you feel like you had the autonomy to go in, do a bunch of research and figure out the best needs for the stakeholders?

Nina: Sometimes. My direct management is awesome, I love them. That's why I've been with them for 12 years. It can be difficult when they're being given directives by people higher up who are further away and have their own ideas. My boss has tried to buffer me the best they can. They give me a good amount of autonomy. Sometimes we're dealt a poor hand and have to make the best of it. What I try to do is exercise my autonomy outside of work. I like to network within the government and civic technology community and take advantage of all these other resources that I don't get afforded through my actual day job.

Michelle: Do you want to talk about the organizations you're a part of?

Nina: I am one of the co-captains of Hack for LA. We have a volunteer group that works on civic technology projects. We host two weekly hack nights, one in Downtown LA and one in Santa Monica. It doesn't matter what kind of background you have, if you're in tech or not. We have developers, designers, UX/UI people, product managers, but also activists and engaged community members. They come out and pitch ideas for projects to address needs that they see in their communities, things they want to help solve. Then we work on these projects.

Nina: Some of what we've been doing more of is trying to build relationships with nonprofits and government agencies, to let them know that we exist here as a resource. A lot of the time they don't have internal IT technology resources, so we can be that for them. We're trying to come up with impactful projects in partnership with these groups. We do all of this as the local Los Angeles chapter of a nationwide network of what we call brigades. The idea is of fire brigades in service to the community, helping to put out local fires. There's a whole network and it's operated under Code for America, which is a nonprofit in this civic technology and government space. I am also on the National Advisory Council, which is over the brigade network and communicates with Code for America.

Michelle: A common problem that I get asked about is when people who have one or two years of experience coding and really want to get to the next level. They don't always have access to mentorship or other senior engineers get code reviews. Do you think being a part of Hack for LA could be helpful to them?

Nina: Oh, definitely. Our project groups are a great opportunity for people to get real-world experience on projects. A lot of the people that come to us are trying to transition into technology or they came from a boot camp. It's really important to get experience working on a real project. You get to interact with other sides of the business that you don't normally get to do when you're the only person on project. I know, because I've done that myself when I was practicing different languages.

Nina: When you're working with other people, you have to learn how to communicate, you have to learn how to take in the different perspectives. If you're working with a UX/UI designer you have to learn how to properly project or product manage this thing that you're both working on. It's a great experience and we're hoping to offer really useful opportunities for people. When they are applying for jobs they can say that I worked on this project with this LA county department to help feed low-income people.

Michelle: As someone who has a part in hiring, that would be a big plus. It's always great to see what someone did on a project and its' impact.

Nina: Oh, that's great to hear. I've never actually been involved in hiring. It's what I hear from other people around me.

Michelle: Senior and mid-level engineers could benefit as well because one of the skills they have to cultivate is being able to mentor and give useful code reviews.

Nina: Definitely, I totally agree. It's the nature of what we do that makes that a little difficult sometimes because we are in front of the computers so much. Part of my reason for even first attending tech meetup groups was I realized that sometimes I might go days without talking to a person. That's not good! It's really good for more senior people to get that experience leading people. It's different than just leading the direction of your coding project. We also try to promote opportunities for people to speak and present as well, which is great for career development

Nina: As a more senior person, it's very beneficial to know how to present and communicate your ideas. To be able to clearly communicate what you are doing and why with the more senior executive level management. We encourage our volunteers to take advantage of opportunities to present the projects that they work on with us at our local conferences. There's a lot of great opportunities right here in the LA area for that.

Michelle: When I made the jump from mid to senior a big part of it was being able to clearly articulate my plan and to convince everyone that it was the right thing to do. To be able to get all the stakeholders involved from every department and at every level.

Michelle: What questions do you often get when you go to meetups and other events?

Nina: How do I have time for this all? That's the big question that I get asked. It's come down to figuring out what I prioritize in my life. It's kind of weird to say because as a kid my parents wouldn't let me watch TV. Once I moved out, I'm like, okay, I can watch all the TV I want. Now I'm involved in so many things I don't care about watching TV or going to the movies anymore. It's about distilling down. I value the groups that I'm a part of and the impact that I have. I want them to succeed. I want to help promote all these things that I'm passionate about.

Nina: Part of it is finding that passion. Outside of that, learning how to give yourself a break and realizing when you need to take a step back. When you say no to things it's going to be fine. Spend time doing the things that you really love when you're not volunteering or going to events. For me, that's spending time with the people who are close to me and making sure that I make time for them in the middle of all this.

Michelle: Figuring out what to say no to when everything seems like it will be fun is hard.

Nina: Yeah, it's so hard. I've always had a difficult problem with that. What I've tried to do is to be more strategic about what I say yes to and consider, what does my involvement look like? What are the expectations going to be? Being strategic in say, events that get planned. If there's an expectation that I'm part of ideating on and organizing events for one group, but I know that would benefit these other groups that I'm part of I'll turn it into a collaborative event. Then it is co-sponsored by all these groups and a benefit to all of our communities. I'm a big fan of mixing everyone together, because that's where you get amazing, unique combinations.

Michelle: If feels like that's the next level of organizing, where you realize, oh, I'm in these 10 different groups that all have kind of the same needs? How can I contribute to all of them? How can I be efficient about it?

Nina: Yeah. I loved playing civilization building games as a kid. It is natural for me to think about it in this way.

Michelle: How do you decide which events are going to be the best for you, in terms of attending? There are always new events and it's hard to judge whether one would be a good use of my time versus another.

Nina: It can be hard for sure. I don't know that I have a good method necessarily. I've cut back on events for personal skill-building. There was a period of time when I was going to those to build up my technical skills, networking skills, or organizing skills. I focus more now on what kind of value can this event add to these communities that I'm part of? A lot of times that turns into, is this a good opportunity for me to advocate on behalf of these groups? Are these attendees going to be interested in this opportunity that I can present to them?

Nina: In the specific case of Hack for LA, we're trying to develop trust and relationships with people who are on the front lines as service providers, advocates, and people who work in government. Events that allow me to engage with them and them to see that we're for real and here to do work. Those are valuable to me.

Michelle: Speaking of skills, let's talk a little bit more about your job. What skills do you find the most essential on a day to day basis?

Nina: At this point in my career, communication is huge. As an electrical engineering and computer science major my background is completely in programming. They don't focus enough on communication in school when you are a STEM major. Granted, it is something that you need to build up over time. Most people aren't born with this innate ability to clearly communicate effectively with everyone around them.

Nina: Understanding where people are coming from and understanding how to respond to them in a way that that they will then understand and doesn't put them on the defensive is critical. You should be able to clearly communicate your technical project to non-technical people, so that you're not talking down to them and that they don't feel overwhelmed. Understanding what you need out of them is so important.

Michelle: How would you advise students to learn better communication and empathy?

Nina: A great way is to get involved in volunteer groups and step up for leadership opportunities because that's going to put you in a position of responsibility. That's when communication becomes so important. An example of that is being one of the leaders within Hack for LA. I'm responsible for providing a safe and welcoming environment for our volunteers and our attendees. That means if we have people who are disrupting that environment, who are harassing people, it's up to me to be able to handle that situation. To communicate in a way that resolves the situation and it's the same at work. If I'm in charge of a project, I have to report to managers and I have to communicate with my developers. It's on me to make sure that every slide gets the correct message.

Michelle: My next question might feel like a bit of a cheap shot because you work in government, but I promise you I ask every guest this question. What is the most boring but essential part of your job?

Nina: No worries, I can take all the government jokes. Yeah, there's a lot I could say. But I think this applies to a lot of jobs, not just government, and that is documentation. As a technical person, I encountered this scenario early in my career. You're coding when you run across a bug. You Google it and you find the one answer that fits. Then you're like, yay, I fixed it. Then three months down the line, you're debugging and you're like, wait, I feel like I've encountered this before. Oh, shoot, where was that? Where is that page that had the solution? Then you spend hours trying to find it again.

Nina: I learned early on to document what I do well. Part of that is I'm the only person or only programmer on my project some of the time. If I made something 3, 6 months ago, I have to deal with the result of I wrote. I feel dumb when looking at my code and I don't know what I was thinking. I ask myself, why did I do it this way? What does this mean? In that sense, it taught me the importance of documenting for myself and other people. Documenting the process of how to set something up, or why it was set up this way. There's a lot of little nuances in place that make sense. You understand when you're doing it, but a year later who knows.

Michelle: I experienced that this week, when someone asked me, Hey, I saw this weird test. Do you know what's going on here? And I was like, Oh, me, I wrote that. I can't defend past Michelle. I will just let you know that you should probably fix it.

Michelle: What is the most stressful part of your job and how do you manage it?

Nina: The most stressful part of my job is dealing with management directives that I don't necessarily agree with. It's when I don't have much control over a project but I'm responsible for it. For example, when I wasn't involved in a project from the beginning and instead the executive management worked with vendors to up with a prototype. Suddenly I get handed this prototype and they say, you're in charge of this project now, roll it out live. I'm like, wait, hold up, there are all these bugs and this environment isn't stable and for us to roll it out, we need to implement all these additional features. This doesn't even solve what our users want, why are we doing this? But it's my job to do this thing. That is stressful, knowing that I have to work on this thing that I don't believe in, but I'm going to try to do my best anyway.

Nina: The thing that I found to be able to handle that is finding other outlets. That is part of the reason why I got involved with Hack for LA and other groups because I can have that impact elsewhere. It helps to know that those opportunities that I engage in elsewhere are ultimately going to help me down the line.

Nina: This is maybe unique to government, the sense that we don't necessarily have that idea of jumping around to a new opportunity. I've had relationships with other county employees from back when I first started, like 10-11 years ago, and we've been working on various projects and communicating with each other for a long time. 10 years from now they may be in higher levels in government, and I may be in a higher level of government. We'll know each other and be able to influence each other to help each other succeed in what we're trying to do. Knowing that it's a long game, even if I'm experiencing difficulties and stress about my impact right now, as long as I trust in the work that I do, and that I demonstrate that I do good work to the people who matter, that's really what carries me forward.

Michelle: It's not entirely unique to government. I've worked in private companies where I've had to do projects I wasn't interested in. It's fascinating to hear people that have had similar journeys. Where it's like, oh, work, isn't as satisfying as I'd like it to be right now, what can I do outside of work to find that. Joining tech groups and learning about all the other opportunities was so valuable for me. It's also part of the inspiration for the podcast, to get all this knowledge out there of what else is possible, even if it's not your day to day job.

Nina: Yeah, that's awesome. I'm so happy that you're providing this platform for people to talk about it, because some of these messages don't get out there to people who are newer in the field, and they do feel very insecure about it.

Michelle: One of my goals is to keep people in tech and interested, especially those who have been traditionally left out. To let them know there's a variety of jobs and projects and teams you can be working on. The one you're working on isn't the one you're gonna be working on forever. There's so much more out there.

Nina: Yep. To put that into perspective, the project that I said was my favorite was a complete failure and I'm not on that project now and another group has taken it over. The projects I've been on in the last five years, none of them went to production and are being used. It's a little discouraging, but ultimately there were excellent things that I got out of them. I learned so much and I can use that in the future.

Michelle: For every project that you work on, you get better for your next project, even if it gets completely rewritten the moment you leave.

Nina: Yeah, I mean, I'm constantly rewriting my own projects.

Michelle: Are there any skills that were on your job description or advised to have that you'd never use at all?

Nina: Remember my long title, the first part is accounting. We have this little quirk in my department, which is the auditor controller, where we are the only department in the LA County that hires specifically for this title, Accounting Systems Analyst. Other departments have Systems Analyst or Information Systems Analyst or Application Developers. We specifically hired for Accounting Systems Analyst. Part of the job description you'll see in there is works with accounting systems and financial blah, blah, blah, this and that.

Nina: I personally have not had to do that just because of the nature of the one group that I'm on. Some of the work that our department does is whistleblowing, investigation of improper activity by employees. We help support them so that people can report fraud. The business issues that we tackle go way beyond the scope of just accounting.

Michelle: Do you find with government job descriptions, that they're so regulated that it's hard for you to get specifics when you're looking to hire people?

Nina: For sure. there's a whole process to come up with the descriptions and to come up with the criteria, the basis on which we evaluate people. It's because they want it to be standardized and measurable, to produce a score so that we don't introduce bias. AIn that sense I'm proud that we're a very diverse work environment. At the same time, it makes it hard for us to create new positions to keep up with things. We don't have a way to specifically hire for UX/UI designers or product managers or data scientists.

Nina: Data is so big right now and everyone's talking about big data and all that stuff in government too, but we don't have a title for that. We have to shoehorn it in and there's a lot of work being done internally to create those classifications but it takes time. It's a process. It makes it hard for us to try too hard for people who maybe want to do that kind of work within the government. They don't know what to apply for, who is trying to hire for those positions. It's so hard to have that matchup. It's something that I want to try to help address. A lot of people do recognize that it's an issue.

Michelle: Now that you've gotten people excited about working in the government, how would you suggest they figure this out? Is there any like, keyword changes, or something to figure out if the job description is something they want to work on?

Nina: That is tough. I don't have a good answer for that. The basic ones, like a systems analyst, or developer programmer, sure. It does get tricky. This is on my list of things where I want to come up with a useful resource for people, because I don't have a good answer. The best option I have is to try to go to spaces where there are government people you can talk to who are familiar with the position. A lot of the time we've referred to government as like a singular, large entity. But really, we're siloed into our separate departments and we don't talk with each other. I'm most familiar with how my department runs. I don't know what other departments necessarily hire for. That's something I'm trying to improve.

Nina: In terms of where to find those government employees to interact with Hack for LA for one. There's also a breakfast lecture series that I helped organize called data and doughnuts. We try to bring together people from within the government who work in tech and data to present their projects. We want them to cross their silos and communicate with other people so they can learn and share. That can be a great resource as well. Even that's kind of hard because we're such a large region and it's fragmented. It's hard to go to a single place. There is governmentjobs.com. A lot of the local government agencies list positions there, but it can be difficult to find the right thing if you don't know what you're looking for.

Michelle: It sounds like you have to be very proactive, and reach out to get behind the scenes of what it says on the job description. You need to talk to people who work there to give you more of a day to day, here's what this entails. Even a word like analyst sounds like it could be anything.

Nina: Oh, yeah. It could be anything. When I first started I had no idea how to describe my job. Then we get management analysts and business analysts who don't necessarily have a technical background and are now being told to come up with dashboards and data analysis. It's this entryway into doing more advanced data science, it's what their management wants to see out of them. But their job title has nothing to do with data analysis or data science.

Michelle: It sounds like it might be a good opportunity for people who are starting out and are not sure what they want to do. Like, let me try all these different things, and then later, I can take a deeper dive.

Nina: What we like to say in government is once you get that initial job, you get your foot in the door in one government position, it's a lot easier to move around within government to other positions that might fit better. I'm out there as well with another group that I got involved in this past year, which I think is a great opportunity. I am on the board of the Asian American Employee Association for LA county employees. These kinds of social networks within the government are a great way to network with other government employees who have been around longer, who know the system, how it works in different agencies, and how to navigate that. I'm still learning that myself and it's been very educational for me to be involved with this group.

Michelle: I feel like I should have asked, are there any groups you're not involved in? That might have been a shorter list.

Michelle: Is there anything you wish you could have told yourself 12 years ago when you started your career?

Nina: So many things, so many things. The biggest thing is to put yourself out there and go for it. I had a lot of insecurity and imposter syndrome going on when I started. I always felt like everyone else was a way better programmer than me. That I was just pretending. When you put yourself out there, you learn well, no, no one has their shit together. We're all learning. We're all in this together. Once you start putting yourself out there, realizing that it's okay to make mistakes and try again, you improve and you get better. You grow so much faster. I wish that I had started doing that earlier.

Michelle: Yeah, getting a tech job can seem very overwhelming. There are all these huge, complex, fancy products out there. Really they're all put together by teams doing one small part at a time and maybe failing and starting over three different times to get it done.

Nina: Yeah, totally.

Michelle: So what's your next step?

Nina: My next step, my plans for global domination? Well, I do have this larger goal, I guess. I want to improve the way government does technology. I know that's super broad. My focus is specifically on the County of Los Angeles. Being in the civic tech space, I see that there has been a lot of focus on cities. You hear about cities doing innovative things or mayors pushing for things. There's been some work at the federal level as well.

Nina: A lot of our counties fly under the radar. I had no idea about what the county structure was before I started working there. Even right now, when I talk to my friends, they think I work for the city. When I say no, no, I worked for the county, they ask what's the difference? There's a lot of need there. I can add a lot of value in getting government tech employees within the county to engage with the tech community at large.

Nina: There's not enough crossover there. We can do a better job getting them involved with, say, the open-source community because the government would benefit a lot from having more open-source software and utilizing that more. Encouraging more of a growth mindset within government employees. It's hard for us, we're stewards of public resources, their tax dollars. It's really hard for us to come across career development opportunities that our departments are willing to pay for.

Nina: A lot of people don't have this idea of constantly learning. In tech, it moves so quickly, you need to be able to constantly learn. Promoting that by giving people access to free or low-cost resources so that they can pursue that is important to me. I don't do any of that as part of my day job. I don't know if that exists anywhere at this point, but long term, I would love to turn that into my official job.

Michelle: Having this conversation with you today and hearing how passionate you are and how your big dreams for the government are it helps restore my faith a little bit. Knowing there are people like you working in the government

Nina: I'm glad.

Michelle: I hope that's not too cheesy.

Nina: No, no, totally. I just came out of a two-day conference, where we got a bunch of government people together to learn about data and technology and open source and I just felt that. All of the past two days I felt that, so I'm glad that you feel it too.

Michelle: What's the best way for listeners to reach out?

Nina: Listeners can find me on Twitter as well as Instagram. I am more active on Instagram because I'm a visual person and I love seeing pictures.

Follow @FromSourcePod for more episodes and to continue the conversation about what tech jobs are really like, from the good, the bad, to the boring.

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Interview with Engineering Manager Zoe Gagnon

Michelle 🐍 — Wed, 23 Sep 2020 07:16:50 +0000

This is the transcript of my conversation on @FromSourcePod with Zoe Gagnon, an engineering manager at Meetup. Zoe has worked across a wide variety of environments, technologies, and methodologies. Zoe’s goals are to help companies learn how to build and sustain those teams. We talk about Zoe’s thoughtful approach to engineering and people management to make the best products.

This has been edited for clarity. This was recorded in 2019 and Zoe is no longer at Meetup

Michelle: Zoe, can you tell us your current job title and how long you've had that job?

Zoe: Yes, I'm an engineering manager at Meetup. I've been there since July.

Michelle: What does an average day look like for you?

Zoe: It actually varies quite a bit. One of the primary goals that I have at Meetup is helping the engineering team learn better ways to build software. A lot of my time is spent with my particular team, teaching them basic practices like test driven development and pair programming. A lot of my time is also spent with the broader organization, helping them to identify, reinforce and amplify things that are going well. Also helping them to find places where our practice isn't as strong and identify the tweaks and changes to get better.

Michelle: Are there metrics that you use to determine if a process is going well versus a process that is failing your engineers?

Zoe: Yes and No, I find that metrics by themselves tend to tell us part of a story. They don't always give us a clear path forward. One of the first things I'll ask people is how they feel, whether or not they're enjoying what they're doing. Whether it's easy or hard, whether it's kind of joyful, or whether they have anxiety about it, or if they're afraid of something. Often, those sorts of baseline feelings can give a lot of color and depth to see how different things are going.

Zoe: Beyond that, I might look at some hard metrics in order to help me understand why people might feel that things are hard, why people might be afraid. A thing that I like to pay paticular attention to is the stories cycle time, which is how long it takes to go from started to finished, to actually in the hands of users and being used. I also like to look at the team's volatility, which is how much their points delivered varies from week to week, or sprint to sprint. Those two things can also help me identify, in general some kinds of challenging places that a team might be in. But it really comes down to asking people, how does it feel, do you actually have an easy time doing this? Do you feel like you're going fast enough? Do you feel like you're being blocked? That's often the biggest indicator to help people find good paths forward.

Michelle: It sounds like a very holistic approach. Not all managers are obviously as proactive as you. If someone is not feeling happy and their managers don't do this, would you suggest they bring it up with their own managers?

Zoe: Absolutely. My philosophy in management, particularly in engineering management, is that the manager's main role is the success of the people that they are coaching. Success both in their current job and in their career overall. If people aren't feeling that success, they won't be able to perform at a high level. The ultimate goal is to create high performing, not people, but whole teams. Whole companies that can perform at a high level. Being satisfied, feeling that you are succeeding, feeling that you're growing. that's a really key part of that.

Michelle: I definitely agree. I think sometimes managers can focus on one high performing individual rather than the success of the entire team. What's the most boring but essential part of your job?

Zoe: Required training is probably the most boring but essential part. When you're a people manager, there's a lot of responsibility that comes with that from a legal standpoint. It goes beyond just you're getting your work done, but it's also about making sure that the company's liabilities are covered, that you're standing up for your legal responsibility. It comes down to staying up to date with different trainings. Once every quarter or so I have to take different online trainings, and it's quite important, but it's also terribly boring.

Zoe: There's another boring part that I'm actually trying to reduce, which is a lot of status meetings. Often status meetings I feel are much more of a sign that you're not communicating enough. You're not being transparent enough, especially proactively. Right now, I do go to a lot of status meetings, but my goal is to make those obsolete just by continuing to communicate more and more.

Michelle: What is the most stressful part of your job?

Zoe: On an ongoing basis? The most stressful part of my job is being on call, just because it's very very disruptive. Beyond that, there's definitely times when people are not succeeding. In that case, as a as a manager where I view my goal is to help people succeed, it can be really difficult and stressful to help them navigate a way to get back on track. It's something where we could fall back to the lowest common denominator of management and just tell people what to do. But that's not something that really helps people in creative roles like engineering really succeed and thrive.

Michelle: I find it interesting that you're on call because I generally think of on call as a DevOps or IT manager position. Can you talk about why you are on call and how often you are called in?

Zoe: One could almost think that is like the theory of creating software. First off, I feel like DevOps is a philosophy for how to approach deployment, rather than necessarily a role that a person fills. In a DevOps kind of philosophy, and this is something that I encourage my team to work for, I have developers stepping into most of the ops roles. My goal as an engineer and my goal of teaching my team and the company around me is that product engineers are responsible for solving users’ problems using software.

Zoe: Everything from start to finish and beyond finishing, the product engineer is really responsible for that ultimately. If a user cannot do something, if they can't get their problem solved, then that product engineering isn't done yet. I help my team learn how to not just write software, but how to deploy software and how to own that software for the rest of its life. This has some really good effects at the end of the day, because the person who is most capable of debugging a problem that happens to some software is the person who wrote that software in the first place and the people on that same team who share that knowledge. This is particularly true on my team since we pair program, often. Whoever's on call directly had a part in writing the software that is breaking.

Zoe: That extends to me too. As long as I'm writing code that gets into production, I'm also going to be in the on call rotation. That's something where we can provide a much healthier experience, because we get to see how does this break? How do our users suffer from this? How does it make their experience worse? So that we can not only stop whatever the current page is about, whatever that alert is, but in fact, go back and fix the problem so that it doesn't happen again.

Zoe: As far as the kinds of problems I often see these days, we're actually transferring ownership of some code. With that, we're looking at the different things, the metrics that we want to alert on. We've written a whole bunch of alerts, and many of them are not actually very good ones yet, because we haven't seen the impact that our users are having. The last time I was on call, I got a lot of pages that didn't really mean anything. That was really particularly frustrating.

Michelle: It sounds like the next step is wading through the too many pages and figuring out what the right alerts are. The ones that are actually show stopping.

Zoe: Absolutely. What we want to do is realign our alerting to things users want to do. This is Meetup, where people can join groups. From those groups, they can attend events. Those are the places where we really want to focus our alerting in the future. When people can't join groups, when people can't find the group that they want. When people can't join an event, when people can't find an event that's interesting to them. Those are cases where we really want to start focusing our learning.

Zoe: We need to say the things that really make us, us the things that users come to our product to do, we need to make sure that those things are working all of the time. Users can always find the groups they want to join and the events that they want to attend, so they can meet up in real life. That's the core of business and who we are. We want to make sure that we're always providing that at the highest level. That's where we really want to start taking our alerts and focusing them.

Michelle: It sounds like you're going to have a very core product focused alert system to cut down on the noise. To make sure that if the users can't use the core functionality, a fix is immediate, but otherwise it can wait until business hours.

Zoe: Exactly. That's a really great kind of balance to strike. Being on call is stressful, being woken up is bad. If you're at brunch, and you have to pull out your laptop and spend the next hour fixing a page, that's not going to make you very happy. It's not going to help you recover from your workweek. It's just gonna carry that on. We really want to find the right balance where we're staying focused on the user's core capabilities. We're also saying there are things that we're willing to create an error budget around that's a little bit higher, we're going to let more slippage on these other functions.

Michelle: What skills do you find the most essential on a day to day basis?

Zoe: The most essential skills that I have to practice, particularly with my goals of helping my team and my broader engineering division find better ways to do things, are empathy, listening and patience, which is a lot harder than it might sound. However, I really need to engage with people on an emotional level to answer these questions. What are the things that are making it difficult? What things are they doing right now? What things have they tried? How can you help them find new things to do and new things to try that will make it easier.

Zoe: Patience and empathy aren't commonly associated with engineering practice. However, I've found, both as an individual contributor and a manager, practicing those skills to be vital for helping move my team forward. They are vital to me moving forward as an engineer as well. It's definitely something that I don't hear talked about much, but I find to be super, super important.

Michelle: It's fascinating that this is only my second episode, but that was also the answer on the first episode.

Zoe: Yeah, I think that there's a growing understanding that building software products in a way is very different from physical engineering. It's much more akin to industrial design in a lot of ways. Where previously an engineer might say, Okay, I need to cut something and create a blade, but the blade is very bulky, it's not good for people. Whereas an industrial designer would take into account the shape of a hand, the way that your thumb can move and the materials that they have in order to create a pair of scissors that work very comfortably. Software engineering is much closer to that second version, where we need to take many factors into account. We have exactly one material, but it's extremely versatile and flexible. We can apply it in a lot of ways to solve our users problems. But we have to really listen and find out what those problems are. Then it doubles back because building software itself is a very, very complicated pursuit.

Zoe: Don't use this as a one to one comparison, but it's kind of an analogy. A passenger car that has something like 50,000 moving parts in it. A 747 that has something like 7 million moving parts in it. If we look at every one of those moving parts a decision that needs to be made for the thing to work well, Windows 2000 also had 7 million moving parts and that 7 million decisions. Software is easily as complicated as the most complicated things that we build. We can't do it by ourselves, we have to do it together. When we're going to engage in something creative and feeling together, we really need to nurture that creativeness and that feeling this for each other. We need to empathize very strongly with each other in order to come together and build something we can't do by ourselves.

Michelle: I definitely agree with that. Actually, one of the pieces of advice I often tell people who are just coming up or career changing, is that software engineering is a team sport. If you've worked in teams before, those are transferable skills. Whether it was a work project or you were on a rowing team, knowing how to work together is really important.

Zoe: I have a friend David Edwards who one of his hobbies is linguistics, but he's a professional software engineer as well. He likes to talk about the different metaphors that we can use. One that really struck me is that making software is like a jazz band, where we get a bunch of talented people together, and we jam for a little while and release something and then we jam a little bit more and release something. Maybe we get a third release, and then people decide, well, now it's time to go jam on something else. It's very fluid, but very personal interactions like that, that I see on a lot of really successful, high performance teams who can build really great software.

Michelle: Are there any skills that were on your job description, or you were advised to have that you never use at all?

Zoe: I don't know. I never saw the job description for this job. In this case I was lucky enough to be pretty personally headhunted by a friend of mine. My interview did have an architecting session to it. I think architecting is a skill that we as an industry and as a profession tend to put a really heavy emphasis on, even though I don't think it's the healthiest activity that we could be working on.

Zoe: Architecture is generally going to be the decisions that are the hardest to change after you've made them. So starting to make those kinds of decisions before you've even begun building your product seems a little bit premature to me. It's let's make this decision when we have the least information we're ever going to have about it. If we solve one tiny problem that the user has, and another tiny problem, well, now we know two tiny things more than we did before we started. As a result, our architecture is going to be at least two tiny bits better than it originally would have started off.

Zoe: The more of those things we can do, the more we can understand what our architecture is. Rather than focusing on architectural skill, I focus on trying to identify what the problems are. What are the decisions that I have to make right now? What are the decisions that if I wait any longer to make, it will be irresponsible, I will have actually caused harm. What are the decisions that I can put off for tomorrow until I know more? What's the stuff that is in like, I can responsibly wait to answer. What are the things that have to be answered right now. It's a little bit more difficult because you're trying to see trends and forecast things. Looking into the future is really hard. On the other hand, I found it to be much, much more successful for creating software that is easy to change, and therefore easier to own for years, which is I think, the ultimate goal with most software.

Michelle: That's a really interesting outlook that I haven't heard before. If someone wanted your job, what path would you advise them to take?

Zoe: I would advise working with teams who emphasize learning and empathy over delivery or knowing. I would particularly look for teams that have a core focus on people growth, and I would dive into those teams. A lot of what I learned and what I do, I learned at a software practice consultancy. At Pivotal Labs the teams have the explicit mission of working with client developers in order to teach them better ways to deliver software.

Zoe: Of course, you can't just show somebody like, hey, you're doing it wrong. Here's a good way. Nobody's going to engage with that, right? We're going to get people to push back, especially if those people feel like they're experts. Often, of course, those people are experts. They've been doing this for 10 or 15 years. They are experts and it's very important to be able to engage with them on that level, to say, here's the things that you've been doing, that you're fantastic at. Here's things that we can tweak and being able to engage with them in order to bring them along.

Zoe: That's the kind of skill that is really vital if you want to get into a role where you're a changemaker at companies going beyond. In general, look for teams that focus on empathy and learning rather than delivery. In specific, look for consultancy roles, where you're explicitly teaching people how to find better ways to deliver and build their software.

Michelle: It sounds like it's important to we make ourselves and our teams better and that will help us build better software.

Zoe: What could help people move into the things that I enjoy doing, the things that I'm really working towards, is to build the skills to connect with people and elevate everybody. Make ourselves better and bring other people along with us. It's only successful when it's an in calling kind of activity where you're bringing people in with you. You're asking them to come along with you. You can't push people to become better. When people try to push you oftentimes, we will fight back. When somebody comes along and says you're doing it wrong, our first reaction is going to be no I'm not. You're wrong.

Zoe: Finding teams where everybody's focusing on this mutual lift, this bringing people along to say, we're we're doing pretty good, but we could be doing better. Let's work together to do better. That is a place where we immediately want to come together and we want to go on that journey together, right? We don't push back. We don't say no. We say, you're right. We are doing pretty good, but we can do better. Let's start looking. The best teams I've ever been on the and the best teams I've ever observed, they are teams that bring people along with them. Instead of dictating, they're like, hey, let's go together. Let's do it. Let's learn together.

Michelle: It sounds like you really enjoy having team members who have a sense of humility. Where it's like, okay, I've done something great, but I can probably do better. Maybe I can think of a better way, or maybe someone else in the team has a suggestion on how we can all do better.

Zoe: Absolutely. My role models are people who, frankly, they're surprised when I tell them that I have them as a role model. The really, really impactful people that I've ever worked with have all been, I wouldn't necessarily say humble, in that they won't say that they're good at things. It's not humble, like they don't want to be looked at, but they're very honest. They're very honest about their strengths, and they're very honest about their weaknesses. They're very honest about the fact that they're in the middle of their journey. They aren't done growing as software engineers. They probably won't be until they retire. They're very, very honest and straightforward about both. About being good at things and being bad at things. That's something that I really look up to. That's something that I personally strive to emulate.

Michelle: When you are interviewing someone who has not a lot of technical experience, either a student or a career changer, what do you look for in terms of potential or team fit? When there's not a very specific technical questions you can ask?

Zoe: That's that's actually a really great question. I'm going to answer it, but in a different way because I don't think either of those things you suggested are things that are really very good to look for at all. Potential is a way of opening the door to bias. When we look at somebody's potential, what we're being asked to do is prejudge them. This is certainly something in other context, we're saying, oh, I'm going to prejudge, that sounds like an alarm bell. In this case, I don't think it's quite as bad. I'd much rather look for things that people actually do and can demonstrate rather then things that they have the potential to do later.

Zoe: I don't think we're very good at judging potential of people. That falls kind of in a downward direction. We assume people don't have the potential to do things, but they actually do. I don't particularly like considering potential either in hiring or in promotion decisions. In both cases, I really want to look for things that people are demonstrating that they are capable of doing.

Zoe: In interviews, this means if I want to see somebody demonstrate a skill, I'll construct an interview specifically for that. For a person who has never programmed before I will construct an interview where I watch them learn. That's the thing I'm most interested in this person's ability to do. Somebody who's just graduated college, obviously, there's quite a few things about building production software for users that they won't have had an opportunity to learn. We want them to pick that up and then continue learning. The primary job of individual contributors in software throughout most of their career is to become better at what they do.

Zoe: Then doing that is the number two job. I structure interviews, particularly to look for the things that I'm interested in, and to see them actually be demonstrated. I'm looking for learning. I'm looking for empathy. Those are the two primary things that I want people to demonstrate, regardless of, if they are just entering their profession, or if they've been in their career for 10 years.

Zoe: Team fit is often weaponized against marginalized people in order to get rid of them in a way that doesn't open the door to unintended legal liability. It's not something that I encourage people look for at all. Rather, again, that empathy, ability, and often patience and judgment.

Zoe: During interviews, I like to look for situations that can test those things. I generally run a pair programming interview. Often if I question somebody's patience, or their empathy, I will participate in those and I'll get into an argument as a way to see how will they handle being confronted. How they handle being told that they're wrong, or seeing somebody who's obviously wrong. I might get in an argument about something that's ridiculous and be completely incorrect about what I'm saying in order to particularly see how somebody handles that. Those are things where it's looking for, again, specifically demonstrated skills that align well to potential without being as open to bias. And to team fit, without being open to bias.

Zoe: Being a person who has patience, has good judgment in how they interact with people is highly empathetic. Those people are going to fit in well to teams. People who demonstrate a joy of learning and willingness to do so, those people are going to have high potential and I specifically look for demonstration of those skills.

Michelle: That's a really cool way of finding people and a very forward thinking way. I hope more managers take that to heart instead of focusing on specific technical skills,

Zoe: The team fit one in particular. Once upon a time I was fired for team fit two years after I began working at the job, so it obviously wasn't team fit. I had coincidentally just come out as transgender in that office. That definitely informed my view of team fit as a metric ever since. I've had first hand experience of how that it's often leveraged in ways that are not very fair.

Michelle: Absolutely. When I talk to people about this, and they say, oh, they told they didn't get the job because of cultural fit, I sometimes say, well, that sometimes is just the person thinking, this is a person I wouldn't want one have a beer with. Which is a terrible metric for judging a person you want to work with. Because maybe they don't want to have a beer or maybe you should have people that challenge you and not just want to hang out and tell you how great you are. So that's the phrase I feel like we use in tech a lot of times to hide that, just as you're saying to hide the bias of people who are just like me.

Zoe: Absolutely. Absolutely. In general, I find that whole concept of team and culture is often a way of very, very softly saying no, actually, I'm just interested in people who look like me, people from the same background as me. That's not who I want to be. That's not how I think, really, really high performing teams operate like either.

Michelle: How are you going to A/B test if everyone's answer to how should we solve this is always A?

Zoe: Exactly. What if we get enough people in the team that we can find the ABCs Ds, Es and Fs? Our A/B testing is always stronger the more variants we have and the more solutions to a problem we have. That definitely comes from people who have different backgrounds and experiences.

Michelle: I would say, personally, as an engineer, some of my favorite activities is when a couple of us get the same challenge. When we say let's get a room and talk about all the solutions we've come up with. Let's find the best bits from all of them and put them together to get the strongest solution.

Zoe: Completely why I'm a very big advocate for pair programming as well. Many people think of it as a live code review, which I would find particularly pretty boring to do. The way I've approached it, the way many people I've worked with approach and the way the people who taught me how to do it all approach it is different. It's really a collaborative effort to get more than one kind of viewpoints about what code you're going to write even before you write it. It's a conversation with a side effect of producing some great software. Spreading that out to as much as the team to as many of the activities as possible, is a really successful route to take.

Michelle: I've found many occasions where I proposed an idea and a co-worker has mentioned a danger zone that I missed. Then I say oh no, good thing you told me this before I started or I totally would have missed it. Which is only possible because they have different experiences and maybe stumbling in the same way.

Michelle: What are you looking forward to doing next? What are you working towards?

Zoe: As a personal goal, I'm moving towards enabling larger groups of people. To have them learn not necessarily better ways of building software, but how to identify weak spots, solutions to those weak spots and move forward by themselves. Right now I'm working with a team of five people and a broader audience on a less hands on less daily kind of way. It's very hands on to say like, okay, here's a skill that can help solve your problem. Here's different technique that can shore up your practice here. What I really want to move towards next is to take broader audiences and say, here's how you identify the places that could be better. Here's how to identify those places where not everything is as smooth as it possibly could be. Here's how to find techniques that can help patch those holes. I'm really looking towards a second level up where I'm less hands on technically, but more broadly impactful at a basic level.

Zoe: I don't know necessarily what that role might be called. I have one role model that I'm looking at for that and his title is head of engineering. So that's, I guess, what I'd like to do, but I've never seen anybody else fill that particular role. I don't know what other companies might call it, but that's definitely where I want to be. At the company that I'm at right now, that's some place where it would be helpful for the engineering team there to move in that kind of general direction. More broadly saying where are the places where it's not as smooth, not as easy? How can we make it easier.

Michelle: So not just inspiring individual contributors and supporting them, but also creating and helping leaders. You wouldn't be just a leader of individual contributors, you're a leader of leaders, broadening out your impact.

Zoe: The next step to follow the path that I'm on is to help engineering business units or departments or engineering teams. I want to help them to develop the idea of engineering as a practice, as a set of tools and techniques that they apply, and constantly improve on, sort of like we look at a legal practice, where it's not a routine.

Zoe: You don't solve every case, you don't argue every case in court exactly the same. Instead you have a set of techniques that you apply to real world data in order to come up with your argument. There's a good parallel to be made there in software as well. To say we have a set of techniques that are fairly successful. We're going to apply those to real world problems in order to build software that delights our customers. When we run into problems that we don't yet have a technique to solve, we'll go out and we'll find a technique. That's my idea of an engineering practice, and the thing that I really want to start engaging with large organizations to help them build. Because that's something I take particular joy in.

Michelle: Are there any technical organizations that you enjoy being a part of?

Zoe: Yes. I work with an organization called Write/Speak/Code. We have the mission of helping elevate women and non binary people in technical thought leadership through the activities of public speaking, professional writing, and open source coding. We have chapters across the United States in New York, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, as well as an annual conference in the summertime. I'd really love, if you're in one of those cities, and I might have forgotten one so definitely check our website, look for a local chapter and attend one of their events or more. As well, for the conference, this spring, we're going to be putting up our CFP, call for proposals, for talks for that conference. I would particularly love it if all of your listeners submitted a proposal for our conference so that we can get the best talks in. If any of them wanted to get involved with their local chapter, as well, that'd be fantastic. But just showing up and participating in the workshops or viewing our talks, is already something that I would really want to encourage people to do. It's delightful.

Michelle: If our listeners want to reach out to you via social media, how can they reach you?

Zoe: That's a terrible idea, you shouldn't do it. But if you wanted to, I do have a Twitter. It is @unusedpotential. I check that maybe once every two or three days, so I'll definitely see messages and get back to people.

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Interview with Developer Katy Bowman

Michelle 🐍 — Sun, 20 Sep 2020 01:03:35 +0000

This is the transcript of my conversation on @FromSourcePod with Katy Bowman, a Developer at Sparkbox. Sparkbox is a web development agency that focuses on working with clients to build a better web. Before becoming a developer, she worked as a freelance writer and editor and before that as a community and regional planner. We talk about the challenges and joys of being a consultant and how to have a successful apprentice program.

This has been edited for clarity.

Michelle: Katy, can you tell us your current job title and how long you've been there?

Katy: Sure. I am a developer. I work at Sparkbox, which is a web development agency in Dayton, Ohio. I have been here for about a year and a half.

Michelle: What does an average day look like for you?

Katy: I head into the office after getting my kids off to school and get right to work. Right now I'm working on a react site with a large e-commerce client and building the things that they need us to build. It involves pairing and working with other developers, both developers who work at Sparkbox and developers who work directly for the client. That's always a lot of fun and a lot of learning. It's just developing right now, a lot of JavaScript.

Michelle: What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of working in consulting rather than a company where you're working on just one product?

Katy: I've actually had the opportunity of doing both, which is wonderful. In my first job I worked for LexisNexis on a product that they own. I worked there for a little over a year and that was really wonderful. I had the opportunity to really dive deep really and learn a particular product.

Katy: Doing consulting work, even though I don't get to dive as deep into a lot of things, I do still get to dive pretty deep on a lot of projects. Also, I get to learn a lot of new technologies and work on a lot of different things. In a larger app, if I was only working on one thing, I wouldn't have the opportunity to do that. For instance, as a developer that concentrates a lot on the front end, I do a little bit of back end but mostly front end. If I was working strictly on a large web app, I might not have the opportunity to work on things like build process or setting up a node environment. I enjoy being able to get my hands into different areas of web development and consulting gives me that opportunity.

Michelle: Do you think that since consulting exposes you to so much it helps you decide, okay, after this, this is what I want to focus on? Or do you want to continue to work on everything?

Katy: It certainly does help you focus in. I know for myself, in particular, I have learned that I enjoy the build process tasks. I enjoy JavaScript and more logic-based things. I don't always enjoy CSS as much, although it's fascinating.

Katy: I do like learning about it, but it does get more frustrating for me. I also have friends I was just having a conversation with the other day for whom it's the opposite. They really love the opportunities to work on the CSS stuff and the more design type tasks. It's nice to be able to have the opportunity and the breadth to be able to do both.

Michelle: Have you had a favorite long term project?

Katy: Probably the project I'm on right now is more of a long term engagement. As I said, it's a large react e-commerce app that we're building. It's been really interesting to not only get to do that deep dive but also do that deep dive as a consultant and not necessarily as someone who works directly for that client. It's a different perspective. You're thinking not only about the code you're writing, but how well am I working with these people? Am I learning from them and also helping them learn how to build things better? So that's a really unique opportunity and a neat way of working.

Michelle: When you're a consultant, are you just making a prototype? Or are you creating a whole project? Then how does it end? Do you hand it off to the client's internal team? Do you provide ongoing maintenance?

Katy: It depends. We do several different types of consulting when we work with our clients. Yes, we do build full out sites end to end. When we're done, it's done at least as done as development projects ever are. They're always open to improvement.

Katy: There are other times when we go in and we do discovery work. We just talk with the client and talk them through how to think about what they want. There are other times when clients will hire us for a specific part of their site. Say maybe they're building a specialized page or doing some analysis. I know we worked with a client at one point to put together a visualization of some data that they've run some analysis on and collected some information about. In that case, we were just building a small, simple page to display that for them. We do all sorts of different projects, and it just depends on the client and what they need.

Michelle: Do you feel like you have to be even more disciplined with your code, that you have to make it cleaner and well documented? Because your project might go to another team you never get to have a conversation with?

Katy: Well, yeah, absolutely. But I think that's a concern for everyone, not necessarily just for someone who's consulting on a project. You're always going to have new people coming on that you're not going to get to talk to or you're not going to get to interact with. Teams get shifted around all the time, people leave people join.

Katy: In terms of writing clean code that works and is well documented, I'm not sure that's more true for consultants than it is for people just working on a large project. When you're working for a client, you want to be clear about what you're doing and be able to communicate with them. You want to have that code live on after you're gone and not working on that project anymore. But I would say that that's true for everyone.

Michelle: I definitely wish that was true, having taken on projects without talking to people. laughing

Katy: laughing Maybe that is a bit of wishful thinking on my part.

Michelle: I mean, it's the ideal process, but things are rarely ideal.

Katy: Yeah, it is the ideal process.

Michelle: What's the most boring but essential part of your job?

Katy: Running updates on my computer. You want to make sure that things are kept up to date. But you never want to click at 10 o'clock on a Monday morning. Yes, go ahead and install and find out that it's going to take you an hour of just sitting there and waiting. But that's probably it.

Katy: Most of the work I do is is really interesting. I love building things and solving problems. Even the little things that get annoying sometimes are still interesting. The things where you have to wait, where you don't have control, like running updates and stuff like that, that's probably the most boring but also very essential in terms of maintaining security and keeping everything running fine.

Michelle: Are you often working on multiple projects at one time, or usually one project for a series of weeks or months?

Katy: I have done both. More often, I am working on one project at a time for weeks or months. But it has happened in the past where I have had a couple of projects at the same time.

Michelle: Does it get complicated, trying not to mix things up when switching back and forth between environments for each client? I have enough trouble sometimes comitting to the wrong branch.

Katy: Sometimes when we have a couple of smaller projects it does, but you figure out how to manage it. I have a past career in which working on multiple projects was relatively common. So keeping things straight in that regard has never been much of an issue for me, at least in not in development.

Katy: The interesting thing about working on a couple of projects at the same time, though, is that after a certain point, they do start to communicate with each other. You start to learn things from one project that you can apply to the other project and vice versa, which is really cool.

Michelle: You must be learning new things all the time, starting all these projects, and having to do such a wide variety of tasks.

Katy: Absolutely. That's one of the reasons that I love it. It's one of the reasons I became a developer. I'm never bored. There's always something new, always something different to learn.

Michelle: What's the most stressful part of your job and how do you manage it?

Katy: The most stressful part of my job is when things don't work quite the way I want them to. As a developer, you often run into tasks where you think, Oh, this is going to be straightforward. I'll have this done in a day or two. Then two weeks later, you're still struggling, because a data structure isn't quite what you thought it was or coming in the way you thought it would be. Or maybe you got it most of the way done and the person designing the UX decided they wanted to go in a different direction and you had to completely redo it. Or you found out that you were implementing something incorrectly and you have to go back and redo it. That can get pretty frustrating.

Katy: The way I manage that is to sit back, take a few deep breaths, and realize that a lot of that frustration is really coming from my expectations, and not so much about actually completing the work. I'm frustrated not because this is hard, it's because I feel like it's taking me too long. And maybe it's not maybe it's just taking the amount of time that it needs to take. It's about adjusting my expectations for what the project needs and for what I'm able to produce. Also pairing with someone and asking for help. That helps a lot with frustration. Then you can just talk to somebody and you realize that maybe your expectations are not their expectations. And that's always nice.

Michelle: That's great advice for a common developer problem. I've experienced moments where it seems to take forever to solve a minute problem while other days I'm flying through tasks.

Katy: Absolutely.

Michelle: What skills do you find the most essential on a day to day basis?

Katy: The skills that I find most essential are my people skills. Technical skills are a part of that. At the agency, we talk a lot about our core values, which are fluency, empathy, and humility. Fluency is about knowing how to do your job. I'm a developer. I am skilled in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and whatever other technical things that I need to be able to do my job. However, empathy and humility are equally as important, if not more.

Katy: Especially as someone working with clients, you need to be able to relate with people and to empathize with them. You need to come into an interaction ready to learn from them as much as you are there to help them. We're coming in as experts that can help build them a website or web app or whatever they're building. But we're also coming in as people who have something to learn from our clients as just as much as we are there to help them. That perspective goes a long way.

Michelle: Are there any skills that were on your job description or advised to have that you have never used at all?

Katy: When I was starting out learning how to build websites with HTML and CSS, I was advised to learn Bootstrap and jQuery. I don't use either of those things very often, if at all. For the most part, a lot of what I learned were the basics and I use that every day.

Michelle: I don't work much with the front end. So can you tell me more about why you don't use bootstrap and jQuery?

Katy: Oh, ok. Well, Bootstrap is a design library. It's great if you just need some basic styling for elements that look nice and is accessible. It's a tool that's great for that. Once you get into an environment where you are building custom sites for people, you're probably not going to be using bootstrap all that much, although you might be. Once you get into building more complex and more custom sites, you want a lot more control over the design, you want to be able to develop that design more yourself. It is useful for starting out and learning some of the basics. It's a great tool that and I'm glad that it's there.

Katy: As far as jQuery goes, it's a great tool when you're learning JavaScript. When I've taught an introduction to JavaScript course I don't teach it because it's important that people understand what jQuery is doing. There is a lot of stuff in JavaScript that jQuery makes it easier to do and easier to understand how to do it. But it's also not as large of a library as it used to be. Most, if not all, of what it does you can accomplish with just regular JavaScript and that's what I tend to do.

Michelle: Thanks for the explanation. If someone wanted your job, what's a good path for them to take?

Katy: I'm not sure that there is one good path. One of the amazing things about where I work is that most of the people that I work with have taken different paths to get there. We do have a few people who have computer science degrees, who have gone through that whole process. Some people have worked on a large web app or in our area, we have a military base nearby so defense contracting is a big deal. We also have people who went through a bootcamp or like myself who learned online. We have people who came from other careers, from other degree programs. We have an apprenticeship program, where I work where every year we bring on a few people who are learning how to build websites, and they come in and we teach them. Some of them end up working for us after their apprenticeship is over.

Katy: The best thing to do if someone wanted my job would be to find the way of learning that works best for them. Then get out in the community and connect with other people. I've attended a few meetups in my area and that's how I got my job. I got out and I talked with people. I made friends and built connections. But really a lot of it's just finding the way of learning that works best for you and then getting out there and doing it.

Michelle: Are you involved in hiring or training new apprentices?

Katy: We all work with the apprentices to some extent. We're all encouraged to have office hours every week where apprentices can get in touch with us, if they just want to chat about whatever projects they're working on or what they're learning or if they have questions or problems. I was actually speaking to one this morning, she had some questions.

Katy: As far as hiring, I've been involved in some interviews. Not too many. The apprenticeship program is built into the fabric of what Sparkbox is and does. It's a program that we all participate in, to some degree.

Michelle: I often hear more from companies that are only hiring senior level engineers and aren't interested in training. So it's encouraging to hear about programs like that where it's integrated into the whole company.

Katy: Yeah, it's a really awesome program and I love it. I've started to see a few more places offering it, which is really neat. A lot of smaller companies I have seen like, like Sparkbox, have been offering some of these apprenticeships and I think they're really wonderful.

Michelle: When you're hiring someone for the apprenticeship or considering a promotion to full time, what do you look for?

Katy: Empathy and humility come into play, absolutely. We like to say that fluency, empathy, and humility are the basic core values. You have to have those to get in the door. We're looking for someone who will work well with our team will work well with our clients. Who is always willing to learn. Like I said, who is who's willing to come at this from an attitude of humility from? Yes, I have something to offer you. But I realized that you have something to offer me as well. And then yeah, I mean, there are some basic technical fluency skills that you have to know. And it depends on the position. You know, absolutely.

Katy: For an apprentice, we're looking for someone who is familiar with web technologies, and who has shown initiative to get out there and learn. It's a different ask when you're looking for someone who is a mid to senior level JavaScript developer, you're looking for a different skillset there. But we are always looking for people with the empathy and humility base.

Michelle: Is there anything you wish you knew when you started learning and working in tech?

Katy: I knew a lot going in. My husband is a web developer and has been for the last 15/20 years. I had some adjacent knowledge around how all of it worked and what the processes were. I think part of it is just having the perspective. I know I'm not going to know everything going in. That's not possible.

Katy: Part of this is the journey and part of it is learning different things at different times, when you need to know them. I'm not sure I would say that there's anything I wish I'd known going into it. But I know that there's a lot that I have learned that I didn't know when I went into it.

Michelle: So what's your next step?

Katy: As far as my career goes, I'm happy where I am for right now. I am in a position where I'm learning a lot. I enjoy the people that I work with. I enjoy the projects that I get to work on. So right now my next step is really diving in and learning as much as I can while I'm here.

Michelle: Is there any specific technology that you're really excited to dive into next?

Katy: In a previous career, I did a lot of data analysis and data collection. One of the things that my husband does is a lot of data visualization. I've been very interested to get into that more. I have a background in statistics and data analysis and even some data presentations for print. I used to make a lot of charts and maps for print. But I haven't done a lot of that for the web. I would like to dig into doing that for the web and programming in general.

Michelle: That sounds like fun, combining both your design and engineering skills. Are there any technical organizations that you'd like to recommend?

Katy: Most of the organizations that I've been involved with have been very local to Dayton. What I would recommend is to find those local organizations for yourself. Having that community and having people that you can talk with, that you can relate to is essential.

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Interview with Entrepreneur Espree Devora

Michelle 🐍 — Sat, 19 Sep 2020 03:52:18 +0000

This is the transcript of my conversation on @FromSourcePod with Espree Devora, an entrepreneur who creates offline experiences for LA Tech professionals. She is also a podcast host and producer for both WeAreLATech and Women in Tech. She is a well known connector and leader in the LA tech community. We talk about how to avoid burnout, hire engineers as a founder, build a successful podcast and get the notoriously flaky Angelinos to attend events.

This has been edited for clarity.

Michelle: Espree, what are you currently working on?

Espree: I produce and host the We Are LA Tech podcast and the Women in Tech podcast and I create offline experiences for Los Angeles tech professionals.

Michelle: What does an average day look like for you?

Espree: There's close to no rest, which I do not condone. I do fit in exercise and being mindful. I use the Headspace app to meditate, but on an average day, I wake up at 5:00 AM. From 5:00 AM to about 7:00 AM, I focus on fitness and calming my mind to be grounded for the rest of the day. I plan out my day by 8:00 AM. I make it into the office by between 8 and 10:00 AM. Just depending on if I end up getting caught up working on emails on my phone, doing some phone stuff, or if I take a morning meeting. Once I make it to the office, I use Focus At Will in order to stay focused during all my tasks. I have a very goal-oriented and thoughtful way of how I wanna approach my day and what I want the outcome to be. By around like 4:30, 5:30, I do something related to fitness, again. Something a little bit more aggressive, like weight training or cardio. Then maybe I'll make myself something to eat and go back to the office after that. There's not really like a typical day. It's just mostly work and health. And I'm working on incorporating more of a social life.

Michelle: Do you feel like having that structure helps keep you on task when you have multiple projects in progress?

Espree: Yeah, it's not even the structure because I wouldn't consider myself a structured person. It's having thoughtfulness of what I want my day to look like by the end of the day. Every morning, I have this thing that I write for myself. I call it the Intent Sheet and I write the date and I say, what are three things that will accelerate you forward? One in professional, one in health, one in personal, and then I have a bonus one. Then I have a question. What are three things you did yesterday that accelerated you forward in professional and health and personal? I don't really look back at it, it's just for me to gauge like, am I doing okay? Am I taking enough time to be mindful and grounded? Am I spending the right time on the right tasks and business? Tim Ferriss had this quote a long time ago, which was not a direct quote, but a concept that some people do a lot to feel busy, but they aren't actually being productive. So there's a difference between just doing a lot of stuff that's leading nowhere and actually making sure that goals are executed on and getting accomplished.

Michelle: Do you have a favorite long-term project either in the past or that you're working on right now?

Espree: I'll answer it in two ways, but I don't know if it's necessarily a project. One, I backpacked heavily. And so I love backpacking. I traveled around the world meeting Women in Tech and celebrating them on the Women in Tech podcast. I absolutely loved doing that. I suppose that's a bit of a project, but I want it to be financially sustainable.

Michelle: That certainly sounds like a big project to me. What's the most boring, but essential part of your day to day work?

Espree: Boring. Wow. I think I don't get bored often. If I am bored, I use it as an indicator that I'm not doing the right things. The most essential part of my work, that's something that a lot of us should think about as entrepreneurs in fine-tuning where we should spend our time. My most essential time is spent on relationships and partnerships. The more I adapt my organization so that my time could be focused on that, the faster that work will accelerate forward. Like one thing that I know how to do, but that I shouldn't be doing is designing or building websites. I'm not a programmer, I'm not an engineer, but I do know how to build a website and create it. I mean, there's just a million ways to do it if you just know enough. And because I've always had CTO co-founders, I think I've learned more about code than the average person. But I've had to ask myself, are you looking to be a professional programmer? No. Okay. Well, in that case, where should you—what do you like really relish in? And I really relish in mutually beneficial relationships. So that's where my time should be spent. Even if that means hosting the podcast and having a relationship there, that's where my time should be spent.

Michelle: There are so many opportunities in tech to do so many different projects, from apps to blogging to podcasting. I like to think about my values first and whether this new idea is furthering them or just a distraction.

Espree: Totally.

Michelle: Of course I'm not perfect because every idea seems like the best idea before you start it. What skills do you find the most useful on a day to day basis?

Espree: As an entrepreneur and a professional, decision-making. I think decision making is huge, especially as a leader. As an entrepreneur, being compassionate to others—actually, as a professional, being compassionate to others, and as an entrepreneur being compassionate to myself. I'm so hard on myself. So, compassion, decisiveness, and I guess the last one kind of falls in line with compassion because it's the ability to inspire and motivate others. But I think that the ability to do that means—at least how I like to mean it is that you're coming from an authentic, genuine place that's compassionate. And because you feel that depth of compassion, in the end, the consequence is inspiring and motivating others.

Michelle: If anyone thinks they are not good at decision making, is there anything you can suggest for them to get better at it?

Espree: Yeah. Decide. No, really. I think what holds us back from decision-making is the fear that we're making the wrong decision or the fear in not knowing the best decision to make. Really what we need to do is just make a decision and then it's either going to work out or not. If it doesn't, make more decisions and problem solve. If it does, make more decisions and scale it.

Michelle: Are there any skills that you were advised to have that you never use at all?

Espree: Hmm. I mean, I took college math and I was terrible at it and I wish I was better. I barely use that. I wish I had a master's in mathematics so I could be better at financials. I utilized my creative writing pursuits in college and in high school and I was a high school journalist. All of that, I use today, which is great. Everything I've ever studied, I've used. Which is interesting because I think if someone aspiring to be in business and asked, should I get a creative writing degree or a business degree, I'd say a creative writing degree. Because creative writing is contracts, it's storytelling, it's marketing, it's relationships, it's branding, it's everything in business.
There's a lot of illusion in business classes that if you learn how someone else did something, you're automatically going to be able to replicate that success. I hope for some people that's true, but for the vast majority, it's not. I read every single real estate investing book I could get my hands on and I didn't learn anything about real estate investing until I started investing in real estate and it was horrific and hard. I had read so much. Execution is the biggest teacher and we're all—including me, we're all afraid to execute.

There's some people out there that aren't and kudos to them. I admire them. It's very common to be afraid to execute because we're afraid of failing, afraid of doing something wrong, afraid of letting ourselves down or we're afraid of public perception. Execution, once we can get past ourselves and just embrace the teacher around the corner, that's when we'll accelerate forward.

Michelle: One of the nice things about being in tech is learning about the agile method and how it can apply to more than just your engineering team. You can apply it to your life and just try things. You might be terrible, and you might fail, but you can keep iterating and get better. The more you fail, the more you realize you can get back up again and try that project or try something else.

Espree: Totally.

Michelle: What keeps you excited every day? What keeps you working?

Espree: It's strange. I want to be really candid about this because it's very interesting. Yes, I feel the energy of excitement about working. A lot of people say doing XYZ must make you happy. Joy and happiness are different than living a purposeful life. For me, joy and happiness come with an air of calm and meditation and quality time with friends. But that doesn't necessarily fulfill my purpose. My purpose is what I do in my work. So I feel so lucky.

In a Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, he said, the way he survived the Holocaust was to find a meaning larger than himself. There was a bigger reason for him being there than the pain he was experiencing in the moment. That really moved me. I was like, well, what's the purpose that I'm living that's bigger than just about me? What's the selfless purpose?

I feel so lucky to have found that in being able to serve others and see the positive impact that I create or the positive impact that my work creates. I hope to say in the most non-egotistical way. Finding a sense of purpose is what drives me with my work. I feel grateful to have that sense of purpose. That's why in my morning, it's not just about business or health or personal. That's why personal and health aren’t separate because the joy and happiness comes from making sure that I'm incorporating, that I'm taking care of my state of mind and my body.

Michelle: I've found that if I focus too far in one part of my life, it can really throw me off. If I'm just focusing just on my health or just my work or just relaxing, it can feel unsatisfying. Instead, if I make sure to do a mix of activities and time box how long I spend on any given one, it makes everything more enjoyable.

Espree: Yeah.

Michelle: Since you are well connected in tech, I wanted to take a deeper dive into trends that you've observed. Can you tell me what you think is the biggest challenge when hiring for a technical team?

Espree: Developers specifically, I've always had to rely on the CTOs that I've worked with because I'm not a coder. I happen to know how to build a website. You have to know what to be looking for. One thing that I learned from my co-founders has been just because we can build a feature doesn't mean we should. So people will tell you all this stuff that they can do, and you have to be careful about a salesperson versus someone that can actually do the work. Just because you know Python or Java doesn't necessarily mean those coding languages are the right fit for your project. To know which language necessarily is the right fit for your project and what you want it to do and how you want it to perform or look, those are all things you have to research beforehand. If I didn't have technical co-founders to learn from, I would have never have known that.

The hardest part about tech is that it can be very daunting unless you're an actual coder and it makes it very easy for a coder to—or like a coder that maybe doesn't have enough experience or isn't very great at the job to BS their way to an opportunity and then ruin it for the nontechnical teammate. That's tough. Keeping up with how technology and the social landscape is constantly changing is alot. There's so much from the tech side of advertising and tracking things and the analytics and just everything. Every year, it becomes more and more.

Another thing is, especially in the tech world, we have all these tools to help us “make life easier”. But when you have all these tools almost doing the same thing and you're like, which tool is it? Then you pick a tool and you have to integrate the tool. It's nonstop and daunting. The coder has power because they understand everything the most. The person who knows how to program, like seriously knows how to program in the most languages possible, really can understand the internet at the highest level.

Michelle: It sounds like one of the biggest challenges is making sure your technical hires are as skilled as they say they are. How do you determine that? Is it portfolio, coding, challenge, recommendations or something else?

Espree: There are a few things. One, I have trusted people around me that I would ask. Can you check that they're the right fit? Simple things, like, do they document their code? One of them is like the Wild West, and then the other one documents everything.

Michelle: There seems to be a range of engineers, from those that like the blank slate and rapid prototyping to those that enjoy the more robust tech stack. It can change throughout your career depending on what you want to tackle next.

Espree: Yeah. It's not just about coding. It's about what type of programmer they are. Where do they fit in the scope of what you just mentioned? What is their style and how do they perform? What I like to do is really understand what outcome I want. Then I ask my trusted peers like, hey, can you vet this person? Here's the outcome. Do they match up? As a non-technical person, it's nerve-wracking not knowing who to hire and not knowing if you're building stuff in the most secure way. Even when you think you have the best of the best; something can go askew. The programmer has the power.

Michelle: That's very flattering as an engineer to hear that. I can definitely understand it can be scary to trust the idea you have for so long along with your money and your reputation to someone else. It doesn't seem like there's much you can do besides try to find the right people and make sure you are as informed as possible. What do you think a new grad or a career changer can do to stand out in job hunting?

Espree: If they have the talent or ability to learn design, that is really powerful. I keep using the word powerful, but really design makes a big impact on communication. The more effective you can present yourself, or even if you're really creative, the creative way you can present yourself. For example, take ownership of where you're at and where you want to be and find the opportunities for you. If you're a lower-level engineer, you need a more mentorship kind of atmosphere, look for the big opportunities where you can be in that mentorship type of culture, where they need a junior engineer. Be willing in the beginning to take those projects just for learning, if you're able to. That's really important as well to not just say, okay, I went through XYZ programming school, give me the money.

All of us probably have worked in exchange for life learning at some point, and that's not beneath you. It's okay to be a barista and a programmer if you're utilizing it to step into a really wonderful opportunity that maybe it's just like six months out and you have to prove that you can be a part of their culture and then the big tech company hires you because of it.

Be creative with your life and stand out by being willing to learn, by thinking of creative approaches to find the right people. For example, there was one person who advertised themselves via Google ads and targeted the hiring people at the company that they wanted to work for. There's always a way, right? If you have this really visually dynamic resume, maybe it's coded in a way on your site that just really is different than anything else that you've seen. Think about all the ways that you could be a little bit creative and legitimately stand out from just a stack of resumes.

Michelle: I like to talk about events since you've done so many. When I’ve spoken to other community leaders in LA, they often talk about similar issues. One of those is the fact that they'll get a lot of RSVPs, but not a lot of attendance. The other is having a diversity of attendees. How do you approach these problems?

Espree: I have thought about diversity mainly because it's important that We Are LA Tech is an inclusive organization. Sometimes it's just a matter of not knowing—my mom says half of the world is searching for the other half of the world. They don't know how to find one another. If someone's not a part of We Are LA Tech, it means like I am not setting up the right communication channels. The way I target diversity is I have a lot of conversations with a lot of different people and I do my best to educate so that I can set up those communication channels where they need to be.

As far as attendees, I feel very lucky that I don't have that problem, but it's not because I'm any better or worse than any other organization, it's because we have systems in place to reduce flakiness. We have a hardcore no-flake policy within the We Are LA Tech Experience Club. So in general We Are LA Tech events, we have a no-flake policy, but we also do a very systematic thing to make sure that there's no flaking. We have an internal approach. Then for the Experience Club, which is our private paid membership, we have a no-flake policy. So you'll be booted from the club if you flake.

Michelle: I can see how being that strict helps you from having events where only a few people show up. It can be very disheartening when you have an open-door policy and only a few attendees.

Espree: Totally. I tend to have the opposite problem. I had a Women in Tech event that was supposed to be 20 people and 80 people showed up. For me, it led me to ask, how do I serve these people in a more intimate environment? How do I do this? Do I want that responsibility? I take community appreciation very seriously. Yesterday, I randomly met with this investor because I wanted to be supportive of an investor. Nothing to do with them contributing to me. They were incredibly critical of how I run We Are LA Tech and I left feeling so bad, but it was the same conversation that just doesn't digest well for me. The conversation was, oh, why are you doing it that way when you could just charge a lot less and then have everybody in?

My immediate reaction is, yeah, but how do I deliver value? What's the value everybody's getting. I'm not doing this for a get rich quick scheme. I'm doing this to create the highest amount of value in people's lives. They matter to me. It always goes back to, oh yeah, but you'll have like a few hundred thousand dollars every month. I'm not motivated by money, I'm motivated by the impact. That kind of conversation makes me really uncomfortable because I feel really misunderstood and I feel like is it only me that's truly embracing the community and really genuinely caring about how each person's doing? I know I'm a little bit strange in that way. I don't even know how I ended up carrying so much.
So when we have 80 people show up to a 20-person event, my immediate thinking is, wow, how do I deliver? Since all these people want to benefit from that, how do I deliver in a really meaningful, impactful way and make it so it can be 20, but everybody can have it? It's where my head goes.

Michelle: When that happens, do you think I need to have three events with 20 people or just a bigger venue next time?

Espree: Three events with 20 people. The pitch that I get from everyone else is just having more people. Then you can make more money and this and this and that. The event that you were at, that didn't cost anything. It was all out of my pocket. They're always out of my pocket, which is a separate conversation, but yeah, I really love intimacy and meaningful engagement. You saw, even with 80 people, I had the whole room still introduce themselves and attempt in my best to have it go as fast and with as much ease as possible. I think it's important to have those intimate high-quality connections rather than a mass networking event where you're just a name tag and a job title.

Michelle: Sometimes in the larger events, you can introduce yourself, talk about what you're working on. Maybe go back and forth a little bit, but not necessarily go deeper. When you're in a smaller venue where everyone is talking together, you can get more interesting conversations.

Espree: Totally.

Michelle: So, asking for a friend, definitely not me. For those who want to host their own successful podcast, what advice would you give?

Espree: Well, I say a great podcast to be inspired by is Twenty Minute VC by Harry Stebbings. It’s super focused, but, and no offense to Harry, I think he’s amazing, but the audio quality still isn't a hundred percent and his podcast gets like millions of listens. Put the perfection aside and focus on the value. I highly recommend putting the audience before the ego. Many times we want to talk about what we want to talk about, but it's not about us. It's about the audience. We should ask ourselves as we're doing the episodes, is this what the audience wants to hear? Or what can I do more for the audience?

This is more on the design side, but have new artwork with the different episodes. So people see something different on social media and they don't start to develop like banner blindness kind of things. Consistency is huge. Ask your friends to rate and review. I'm biased, but I use Simplecast. I've been a Simplecast customer since 2014 and now I work with the Simplecast team as well. I definitely think that Simplecast is just awesome. It makes it really simple to get it on an Apple and Spotify and Google and have the best analytics and all that good stuff. I like their one-page website.

And just do it. I give a lot of talks on podcasting and it's so interesting. Like most of the people are always so worried about being perfect that they don't take any step forward at all. And me too. I'm worried about that. Maybe not with my podcasts anymore, but I'm worried about that in other areas of my business in my life and we just gotta move forward. As I said, the person who executes is the person who wins because the learning opportunities present themselves as long as we're executing.

Michelle: I agree with that wholeheartedly. I felt like putting up the first episode was the hardest episode and it took so long. And now it's like, okay, that worked. Let's just keep going a little bit. Every episode gets a little better and a little easier.

Espree: I'm grateful to be on your show. Thank you so much for the opportunity of letting me be on your show.

Michelle: Oh, thank you. It's been a wonderful conversation. So what's your next step? What's the next big thing you want to work on?

Espree: I've always felt that I'm more of an artist than a businessperson. I'm definitely a businessperson in my interest in business, but I'm led, like I said, by impact, by creativity, by heart. What happens is sometimes I don't build the backend as smart as it needs to be built operationally because I'm so fixated on the end deliverable that I'm not paying attention to like, am I in the red?

The next thing for me is making sure I learn the hard way in order to serve the community. The best way to do that is to build a sustainable business that can afford to serve the community. So my next step is to make sure that everything I do is sustainable so that I could serve with ease.

Michelle: The easier you make it for yourself, the less chance to get burned out and give up. I’ve heard from other community leaders that when it takes so much time for the little impact it can feel like the only way out is to stop.

Espree: Totally.

Michelle: Are there any other technical organizations you'd like to recommend to the audience?

Espree: Tech org? There's so many. There's one, I think it was in Oklahoma, that had a free coding camp that I thought was amazing. I have to look it up. Obviously, listen to the Women in Tech podcast because there are so many inspiring stories from all the women on there. I focus on asking them about the resources that they've accessed to get to where they are today. There are tons of resources out there. I took a coding school called One Month. I really liked how it was structured. That's when I did the self-check of like, do I want to be a coder? So I can't tell you the outcome or the job placement.

You know what I would do is I would make sure—sometimes there are these coding schools that are really popular, but they actually don't teach you how to code well. I would approach it how I do when I'm hiring people. I would check with people you trust within the coding industry and have them vet the schools for you or say is this solid code or like check the alumni networks that they have and see if they've been placed in jobs. Start with the end and then work backward.

Michelle: That's really excellent advice. If our listeners want to reach out to you via social media, how should they reach out?

Espree: I think I enjoy Twitter the most. I'm @EspreeDevora Twitter. Definitely always feel free. I'm really committed to everyone's success. I do my best to be as supportive as possible because I just know how hard it is to be in the world of tech and to be an entrepreneur. All of it. I've been in it for a long time and I get the struggles of it and I also get the lifestyle of it. I like to be a really supportive person. You don't have to be alone on the journey.

Michelle: That's a really great attitude and it really warms my heart that you're coming back to the community.

This next part of the interview I normally edit out, but since Espree turned the tables on me, I thought it would be fun to share.

So I'm ready to wrap up. I just wanted to make sure you were able to promote everything that you'd like to promote on the podcast.

Espree: There's one thing I'd like to promote. You. Can we please talk about your goal for speaking engagements? Can we talk about that for a second? Because maybe somebody listening needs you and they just don't know that you exist in that capacity. That is my ask.

Michelle: In the last couple of months I found that I really loved speaking and teaching. I like bringing more people into the community and helping to level them. It’s all about creating a tech community I want to work in. I also enjoy the performance aspect of it. In my mind, I always thought I could be a standup comic one day and that feeds that urge with an audience that wants me to succeed.

Espree: I'm excited for you. So if you could have one ask of your audience related to speaking, that can happen by the end of quarter one of this year, what would that ask be?

Michelle: Have me speak at your organization. I have a few talks prepared, both technical and professional skills. I'm also happy to do panels or fireside chats. Clearly, I like talking, I wouldn't enjoy having a podcast so much.

Espree: So if someone listening wants to talk, she has extensive experience that she is being humble about and not mentioning on this episode, evidently. But trust me, she is someone to talk to and so make sure that you reach out.

Michelle: Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you so much for speaking with you today.

Espree: Yeah. A hundred percent. Thank you for this opportunity.

Follow @FromSourcePod for more episodes and to continue the conversation about what tech jobs are really like, from the good, the bad, to the boring.

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Interview with Developer Valerie Phoenix

Michelle 🐍 — Fri, 18 Sep 2020 03:43:18 +0000

This is the transcript of my conversation on @FromSourcePod with Valerie Phoenix, a Developer II who has had a varied career from psychology to designer to teacher. We talk about what it’s like to get a development job without a computer science degree and how she levels up.

She is also the founder of Tech By Choice. Tech by Choice's mission is to increase the diversity of the Science Engineering Art and Math (STEAM) industries by offering low to no-cost skill-building events, workshops, and classes to adults in protected groups to ensure individuals know they can enter, stay, and thrive in STEAM. Follow Tech by Choice on twitter @_techbychoice or sign up to join the community.

This has been edited for clarity.

Michelle: Valerie, can you tell us your current job title and how long you've been there?

Valerie: Currently, I'm a Developer II at the zenith insurance company, and I've been there for almost two years now.

Michelle: What does an average day looks like for you?

Valerie: Most days, I'm usually taking or designing a couple of screens and translating that into code. Mostly, I spent a lot of time debugging and just iterating off of designs based off of feedback from the business or customers. So usually, that's how my day goes.

Michelle: What has been your favorite long term project?

Valerie: My favorite long term project that I was on was when I was working at my previous employer, I was working for the startup that was for the auto body industry. And we had this service that was like a pro service for the different car companies. So it was a lot of branding, a lot of styles and style guides and things like that. And my job during for that project was to create a UI that could easily switch, different branding, depending on what car you selected. So if you select it to work with the Audi, you had the Audi designs with the fonts, colors and buttons and same thing for Chevy and Jeep and so on and so forth. So that was a lot of fun. It was actually a whole lot of work, but I really enjoyed it.

Michelle: What do you think made it so much fun?

Valerie: That was pretty early on in my coding journey. So a lot of that stuff was very difficult. I was very new to Sass at that point. And I had to come up with a structure with my Sass variables and just files and things like that, that was very flexible. And another thing that I had to learn during that project was how to compress things. And make sure that those files were fast and small enough to be run on mobile devices and on lower internet speeds. So just learning all of that stuff in a very short amount of time because it was startup world. So everything was very fast paced. It was at the time very stressful, but also very rewarding because I saw all the good that it did almost like instantly.

Michelle: Can you tell me how you manage the stress of your job?

Valerie: I think for me, it's kind of like how I manage stress in general. Like I try my to do my best and give things my all. And I always try to remind myself that if it doesn't get done today, it's going to have to get done at some point, whether it's that deadline date, or a few days after or before, like it's going to get done. So there's no point in stressing over it. I know like, at that point, I was still very new to development, and things like that. So everything seemed very stressful. So that was like the one way I kind of like push back on that and just like gave myself room to kind of not have to be perfect and just learn to complete things and finish things.

Michelle: I think that's great advice for anyone to just kind of take things one day at a time and not really internalize all the deadlines and the largeness of a project. What's the most boring but essential part of your current job?

Valerie: Code reviews? Like, I don't like the current setup of code reviews that we have in my current position, because I don't tend to get a lot of feedback when someone else is doing my code review. And so I kind of feel like it's, like I and you know, how they say in a relationship, sometimes one person gives more than the other. I feel like I'm giving everything and getting nothing in return when it comes to code reviews. And I know a lot of people don't like code reviews, but I personally love getting feedback. I love getting criticism, and so that it's easier for me to improve. So right now, I kind of dread doing code reviews because I know that I am not going to get the same feedback.

Michelle: I find code reviews a little stressful because it's always hard to take criticism. But in the end, it always helps you grow in your career and helps you be a better developer.

Valerie: Yes, it really does.

Michelle: What skills do you find the most essential on a day to day basis?

Valerie: Communication. There's been so many times where we run into issues in all the jobs that I've had, whether it be between the business between the client, between coworkers or just different team members. If there's no communication or there's not a good line of communication, things will go south like very fast. So it's, it's really easy, it's a whole lot easier to get feedback often and soon. I forgot there's like a whole saying with that, but I always mess it up. But like it's a design thing. It's like a feedback loop. You want to always get feedback in from the customer or the client like instantly versus waiting to the end. So that to me, that's very important.

Michelle: Yeah, that reminds me of the basic agile methodology where it's like you want to put things out as quickly as possible. So you can get customer client feedback and see how things are running before you've made a huge time investment on giant features or projects.

Valerie: Yeah, definitely. That's it. If we would have did this in a very recent project of mine, everybody would have been happier.

Michelle: That actually reflects another part of agile, which is when you do projects, learning from them, and trying to do better next time.

Valerie: Yeah, definitely. It helps you iterate faster and just get a better product out faster. And I think a lot of people really forget that's why agile is so good.

Michelle: What skill do you wish you knew when you started working in tech?

Valerie: It's an unspoken skill that it seems like people are supposed to have, especially if you're a woman in tech or anything like that. It's that you have to be an advocate for yourself. That's one thing that just recently I'm starting to realize, and I'm starting to try to build that skill set of mine. But that's one thing I'm starting to notice I have to do a lot of saying this is what I completed, this is the issues I've run into, this is how I learned from it. And using that to highlight yourself or talk about things that you want to change or you want to do within your company. That was never really in my job description and I don't think I had to do this outside of tech. So that's one very interesting thing that I've noticed.

Michelle: Where there any skills in your job description, or advised to have, that you never use at all?

Valerie: For my most recent job, it required that I'd be a senior developer with five plus years of experience. And I went into the interview, kind of thinking like, Oh, this is for a senior role, like, I'm not senior. I'm like junior to like mid level developer. And I kind of psyched myself out in a way that kind of benefited me because I thought, oh since it requires a senior level, there's no way I'll get this, so there's no pressure. So I just did the coding challenge and I showed the company how I learned things, kind of just to get feedback from them. I ended up getting a job and there was no need to be senior for this position. I was able to level up very quickly and jump right into the project that I got hired for.

Michelle: It's inspiring how you went forward anyway. And your mindset of, if I don't get this, it's still good practice. Which is hard because tech interviews are so long and nerve wracking, but the more practice you have, the more confident you're going to be when you find a really good fit.

Michelle: If someone wanted your job, what's a good path to take?

Valerie: I think a good path to take is, for one, just try to find a way to be dedicated to build the skills you need. But that could apply for almost anything in life. The way that I got to my position is because it's kind of like a dual role where I'm a UX person and a Front End Dev. Technically I am a Full Stack dev. I started off going down the design route, learning UX skills and very basic theory. Then I started practicing my design skills for wireframing and how to display different elements in design tools like Sketch. So that's how I went about the UX part of it.

Valerie: As far as the coding part, I started off with basic HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Once I felt like I mastered JavaScript, I started to add on different back end languages. I did it that way because I felt like once you understand the logic behind one language, it's much easier to jump to any other language because languages have different syntax and they look different, and they have different names, but the theory behind like, what's going on is usually the same. I would kind of suggest that route, it's much easier to do front end development work. It's a simpler setup for your environment. Jumping from front end to back end, that for me was the easiest way to do it.

Michelle: I love hearing all these different perspectives, because for me, front end seems very intimidating. Every time I jump in, it seems like there's just so many moving parts. I run back to Python because it's just one thing.

Valerie: That's honestly why I made the jump to back end because there's so much going on in front end development, especially for web development. You have to think about compression, you have to think about does it work on IE, which nothing ever works on IE. There's a lot of like different things that you have to check for in order for it to be ready for production. So yeah, back end is awesome.

Michelle: What would you advise students to learn that's not in their current curriculum?

Valerie: I would say it's a very good skill to learn how to talk about your code or your design. Communication skills are great, because that's going to take you from being just a developer to like a manager or lead, the higher positions. And that's what I'm pretty sure everyone wants to do once they get comfortable with code. It also helps you kind of be your own advocate, being able to talk about your work is also talking about yourself. I think those go hand in hand and those are perfect.

Michelle: One thing we haven't touched on yet is the fact that you're a career changer and you don't have a degree in computer science. Can you talk about what you felt like set you apart and made companies want to hire you without that background?

Valerie: This is one thing I've thought about a lot, especially now, because I'm trying to make the jump from mid level developer to senior. I think one of the things that set me apart, at least for this last job interview I went to, to get this position was I showed them how I learned. I knew I didn't have a computer science degree, I knew I didn't have this schooling, to back it. I also didn't go to a boot camp or anything else like that. I was pretty much self taught, through online tutorials and things like that. The thing that set me apart was I was dedicated, and I really love learning. I wanted to show my employer that and that's what I did.

Valerie: At the time, Vue JS was really new, and it was something I hadn't used. For the coding tests I used Vue JS. I took a day to go through documentation, and then a day to build out the project that they gave me. Looking back at it now, it wasn't the best code I've ever written or anything like that. But I highly documented everything I did and how I learned. And then I explained that in my interviews. That's what sets me apart. My dedication in showing that and being able to kind of communicate that I'm a great learner.

Michelle: That's excellent advice and that's one of the things I look for when I interview. You turned what could have been a disadvatange to an advantage. How was it for you when you were hiring?

Valerie: I was hiring instructors to TA a bootcamp and it was very interesting. I looked for someone who could communicate. Because I noticed that that was something a lot of people struggled with just being able to have just very one on one off conversations before jumping into the actual interview. A lot of people like to go high level when explaining their skills and I wanted people to show me that they could deep do a deep dive. Tell me a little bit more about different things like NodeJS other than what you can find by just quickly googling the definitions. How is the technology actually applied?

Michelle: So, what's your next step?

Valerie: I've been thinking about this a lot and doing a lot of like reflection on the last year. There's a long list of things that I want to accomplish. But right now, my focus, as far as my career goes, is to make that next step to become senior level. The other thing is l want to try my best to support the community of people who are interested in entering tech, the best way I can, by volunteering and helping out anyone that needs help with code.

Michelle: That's actually a great transition to my next question. I know you've just started a new organization. Can you take tell our listeners all about it?

Valerie: Oh, awesome. Yeah, I started this organization called Tech by Choice. What I'm doing with Tech By Choice is creating a space that is safe for people of protected groups. Whether you are a woman, a person of color, the LGBTQ community, differently abled, different religious backgrounds, there's like no age requirement, either. I want to create a space where if anyone was thinking about tech or wanting to see what tech was about, they can come and learn with us. We'll offer classes and events at usually low to no cost to help people build those skills to enter in tech. And I think one of the things that I found that's really cool, is a lot of people think tech is just coding, but I am setting up Tech By Choice to offer classes that are not just coding, that we have things to help people learn marketing skills or how to be a scrum master and all the amazing other roles in the tech industry that sometimes get overlooked. We want to support people on those journeys.

Follow @FromSourcePod for more episodes and to continue the conversation about what tech jobs are really like, from the good, the bad, to the boring.

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Interview with Designer/Developer Maia Hariton

Michelle 🐍 — Wed, 16 Sep 2020 04:03:04 +0000

This is the transcript of my conversation on @FromSourcePod with Maia Hariton. Maia is a web designer/developer specializing in Squarespace, Wordpress, and ShowIt websites. She started her career as a software engineer in 2014 because she wanted to make people’s lives easier. A year later, she decided to fill a creative void and dove into the design space. After a few years in design and code, she began collaborating with amazing people on really fun projects like web design and web development. She quit her corporate job 3 years ago and now runs her own business while traveling the world with her husband.

She can be reached on her Instagram at @maiahariton and her lessons are on YouTube. She recommends Women Who Code, an international tech organization that helps engineers level up.

This has been edited for clarity.

Michelle: Maia, can you tell us about your current job and how long you've been doing it?

Maia: I've been a web designer and frontend developer for three years, working for myself.

Michelle: What does an average day look like for you?

Maia: I wake up around 10:00 AM. I like to sleep in most of the mornings. I then go through my emails fairly quickly to see if there's anything urgent I need to respond to, but I try not to tackle them as soon as I wake up. I take the time to have a good breakfast, take a shower, and then I tackle my emails, which are sometimes numerous and sometimes, I have no emails, which is great. Then I start working on either a project that I'm working on or start a new project. Usually just by looking at some inspiration images if I'm designing a new website or if there was a coding issue that was stuck on the last day, like the day before, then I would usually try to tackle it again with a fresher brain.

I usually work on that for two or three hours straight and then have lunch. And usually I kind of feel a bit, you know, the after lunch slump. So I take my time to get back to work. So I go on social media. I look again at emails very quickly, but I try not to answer any of them and go back either on the project that I was working on in the morning, but sometimes I like to switch it up and work on another project because my brain works better if I multitask during the day. And I try to stop at around 6 or 7:00 PM. It happens that I work after dinner. And that's probably not the best thing, but I'm actually pretty productive in the evening. And I could keep on working until 2:00 AM, but I try not to lately. And yeah, I guess that's the end of my day.

Michelle: Have you had a favorite long-term project?

Maia: I started filming tutorials, mostly for my clients, but now I've actually started publishing them on YouTube. Mostly how to design on Squarespace, which is a web design platform for non-techie people mostly and just teaching people how to set up their website, what do they have to think about? And so that's been a very cool project that I've been working on. If you search Maia on YouTube, you would find me. If not through my Instagram, you can find my YouTube.

Michelle: What was your biggest learning curve when moving from a day job to running your own business?

Maia: I think the whole setup and you get a lot of information from everywhere, you know, the taxes. Do you need to have an LLC? How do you pay your taxes, which is kind of mind boggling here. How do you get paid the best way? How not to get ripped off by people who are hiring you? So it's a whole—like decoding part, the designing part is actually the easiest part for me. It's more… am I doing things right in the business parts? That's probably the most daunting.

Michelle: Did you have any advisors? Did you go to any online resources that really helped you when trying to figure that out or was it trial by fire?

Maia: I think at first it was a lot of bloggers, Instagrammers, YouTubers that I was kind of either reaching out to or watching videos or reading blogs. A lot of people I reached out to kind of out of the blue, I guess you could call it a cold email. Just, hey, I'm starting a business in the same vein as your business, could you give me any advice? And at first, I was very shy about reaching out and a lot of people actually were very nice and gave me a ton of advice and jumped on the call with me which was amazing. And I felt also very overwhelmed by all of that information. So I think after two or three years, I have mastered it in some way, but there's always more to learn. Yeah, I guess cold emailing was the best one for me. Or on LinkedIn, you just look up people that are maybe in your circle that have started their own business or web design agency and just reach out to them and just be honest about what you need from them. Maybe also try to provide some value of your own, however you can.

Michelle: That's very encouraging that you kind of reached out to the community and they reached back and really helped to build you up.

Maia: Yeah. Yeah. And actually, I forgot to mention Tech Ladies. It's like a Facebook group that had started around the time that I started, and I've had a lot of support from them as well. Which I can expand on, but they've been really great.

Michelle: Can you tell us what you like about Tech Ladies? What they've helped you with? If people want to join Tech Ladies, that sort of thing.

Maia: Yeah. I guess it's just a Facebook group like you have a lot of them on Facebook, but they have a couple of screening questions, but not that many. And it's mostly women in tech who can be working in different roles. It doesn't have to be a developer. It can be designer, it can be a marketing manager, but that work in that field. And they're very open to answering questions that you might have. And it's a bit of a give and take, right? Like you can just ask questions; you also have to provide answers if you know how to answer somebody's question. And I saw it at that point when I was starting almost as a support group of, if I have a question, I have someone to ask and they won't make fun of me, you know. I know it sounds a bit stupid, but I felt very intimidated by people who had it seemed like all figured out. So I was like, you know, try not to kill me, but this is the stupidest questions, everything. And it ended up not being a stupid question. It ended up being something that a lot of people were interested in. So I felt almost like I almost helped other people who might've been too shy to ask the question as well.

Michelle: Yeah. That’s definitely the benefit of asking questions in an open forum and being brave enough to ask those questions, that there are other people that are, you know, suffer the same kind of imposter syndrome and that kind of fear. I feel like it helps everyone to see those questions being answered. So that’s really cool.

Maia: Yeah.

Michelle: What is the most boring but essential part of your job?

Maia: Emails? I mean, I think that it's not glamorous. It's not fun. A lot of times, I feel like I'm repeating myself or I don't like to sell my services, I guess, and that's almost cringing sometimes for me. But I have to do it. It's not fun. And I actually in a way that I beat the system in that sense is I have almost canned answers or canned emails in my Gmail and in my notes when it starts to be the same type of questions, I just copy and paste and kind of personalize it to the person who's asking me.

Michelle: It sounds like you've built up a lot of structure to help yourself both with how you spend your day, how you interact with your clients to make it more of an easier process and less ad hoc.

Maia: Yeah. Yeah. It's all about the systems. To be honest, I think that's what's going to save your time and your brain. You could go insane by like repeating all the same things all the time. And the structure is needed, but to be honest, it does help me to sleep until noon if worked until 2 or 3:00 AM, or even if I watched the TV show, I'm not gonna lie, you know. And that's also I guess the plus side of working for yourself, that you can kind of restructure your day of how it works for you.

Michelle: Are there skills you find the most essential on a day to day basis?

Maia: People skills. That's a big one because I have a lot of clients just call me up kind of out of the blue, or they're very stressed out. Something broke on their websites or they call and send something, and they can be aggressive. I've learned not to take it personally because a lot of times it's just, you know, they're just very stressed out. And so trying to stay calm almost for them and try to think about the best way to respond is huge. And I used to be extremely shy in the beginning. And now you just kind of have to stand your ground and say the things that you have to say without being scared, I guess.

Michelle: Do you feel like you've lost a fear of losing clients because you're more confident in your skills and now you feel like you can push back a little more, but also help them with what they need?

Maia: Definitely. I think that it's better to have a good client that you kind of stood up to or that you feel comfortable working with than the client that you're almost afraid to talk to or email and feel like you're not valued properly. If they try to negotiate your rates at a rate that you would never charge anyone that. You definitely need to push back. And it will be great in the end. I know I understand that you need the money. You have to pay your bills. But you don't want to feel miserable working every day for that client because that's part of why I work for myself in the beginning.

Michelle: Are there any skills that you were advised to have, or you thought were necessary that you don't use at all?

Maia: I don't think so. I think that I do use a lot of skills that I didn't think I would need, but I do use all of the coding skills, all of design skills, all the social media skills that I didn't know I had either. So I think it's more… it depends on the days really, but I don't think there are any skills that I feel like I learned for nothing. Maybe algorithms, to be honest, because I'm not a backend developer and I've never… I've trained on them, I took classes on them and I've never felt like I needed them, but mostly because I don't work in the backend. So that's the biggest one.

Michelle: Makes sense. When you want to learn something new technically, how do you go about it?

Maia: I’ve learned that lynda.com and Treehouse are pretty good resources. If I'm not sure about where to learn something, I usually ask a community that is in that field. If, for example, social media is a whole other beast that I'm trying to tackle so I've reached out to a lot of, I guess, social media experts and even paid for consulting calls to try to learn from them and how to best learn it so that I don't watch 10 YouTube videos that will never teach me anything instead of someone pointing me to the right direction and be like, this is what you need to learn. It will only take you 15 minutes.

Michelle: There’s a lot of different reasons online, especially for technical skills. Have you found pay for consulting gives a better return on investment?
Maia: I think so because the professional consultant is an expert in their field so they know exactly what I would need to learn and where to learn it. It is an investment for sure. And there are a ton of resources that are free out there, but if you value your time at some point, you can learn how to code in a year, or you can learn how to go in six months. It really depends on your goals really.

Michelle: It sounds like it's really helped you reduce the amount of time you spent learning because you got very focused, very personal information when you were doing it.
Maia: Yeah, exactly. I mean, I used to read and watch everything that would come at me and I haven't counted the hours, but I'm pretty sure it's quite a bit when I could have been doing something else or even just sleeping, you know.

Michelle: The best activity.

Maia: It's my favorite. That's why I keep on mentioning it.

Michelle: Being a founder, are you planning to grow your team?

Maia: I have hired in the past and I do have some people that I reached out to regularly. Even for things that I know how to do, but I know they'll do it so much faster than I will. And I guess it is a repetitive theme for me of saving time and trying to optimize my time. But it's vital almost. I think I would like to have maybe one person that would handle my social media and maybe like a graphic designer because those are the two things that are sucking up my time sometimes and I'm not always enjoying doing.

Michelle: Have you thought about how you plan to find the right people?

Maia: To be honest, Instagram? I feel like I'm always on it and you can, even more so if I'm hiring someone for social media, I kind of want to see how they handle their own presence, I guess. And someone that I can connect with on a personal level more than a professional level because I'll probably be interacting with that person on a weekly basis. And maybe I'll ask around some people that I see are doing great and I know they have a team, you know, how did you go about in hiring your person?

Michelle: When you're mentoring or people ask you for questions, what's the number one question people ask you?

Maia: Well, I've been traveling around the world for the past three years. So a lot of people ask me, how did you get to that? How do you handle work and traveling and remote contact with your clients? So that's the biggest question.

Michelle: How do you handle when you travel and you're kind of outside that routine and everything's a little less structured?

Maia: Well, I try to have morning and evening routines very similar wherever I am. It could be just scrolling through Instagram in the morning and reading the evening, but just know that those two things are happening. I also try to time block my days wherever I am. So if we're traveling, it's usually half a day visiting and half a day working kind of intensively. And that's why I always refer to time management and how to best optimize your time. It’s just if you can work very efficiently for five hours, you have the rest of the day to visit, to do whatever else you want, basically.
Michelle: Can you tell me about what you'd like to do next? Maybe more about growing your business?

Maia: Maybe hire one or two people that could help me out. That's the first one. The second one would probably try to reach out to higher paying clients or bigger companies to be more of a constant, maybe not employee, but contractor with them so that I have constant work and I don't have to worry about getting more business, which is always the worry for our founders.

Michelle: If you don't mind, if our listeners want to reach out, where can they find you on social media?
Maia: On Instagram, I’m way too much on it, but it's @maia_hariton and I'll probably respond within a day.

Michelle: Are there any other technical organizations that you enjoy being a part of that you'd like to recommend to our audience?

Maia: It's definitely Women Who Code. Even if you're a newbie, even if you're a very seasoned developer or you're just very interested in that field, I would definitely recommend going to their meetups. I believe it's free. And they do algorithm classes. They do all kinds of different classes in tech in many cities around the U.S. I don't know if it's worldwide, but maybe. And it's been very supportive. A lot of people there have different levels so you would feel comfortable anyway. And I even volunteered to teach algorithms even though I hated it. Mostly to motivate myself to learn them. So if I was able to go in front of tons of people to teach them something that I wasn't comfortable in, I'm pretty sure you would love it.

Michelle: Awesome. I can add that I'm actually a part of Women Who Code. They do have chapters all over the world and I really like their newsletter. So definitely sign up for that. Has lots of information in it about conferences and jobs and cool things that other women are doing at tech. So I can also recommend that.

Follow @FromSourcePod for more episodes and to continue the conversation about what tech jobs are really like, from the good, the bad, to the boring.

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How to host a podcast for 25 cents a month

Michelle 🐍 — Mon, 24 Feb 2020 03:52:57 +0000

I host the podcast From The Source. It is an interview show about working professionals in tech, about the good, the bad and the boring. The focus is on featuring underrepresented voices in tech while getting to speak to amazing people for an hour. This is a series of articles on how I use my engineering skills to make it easier to create and distribute the podcast.

Why to Host a Podcast

No one can stop you

There’s a freedom to knowing you can say whatever you want and be in the same catalog as Serial. You can create fictional plays or talk about your day. There is no producer to tell you no. The only caveat to that is most podcast players use the Apple Podcast catalog and they do have an approval process. As long as you have not mislabeled explicit content, you should be approved in a few weeks.

Learn new skills

It’s fun to learn new skills. It’s also aggravating, but eventually worth it. Audio editing, marketing and conducting an interesting interview were all skills I didn’t have before I started my podcast. I’m still trying to figure them out. But seeing myself slowly get better is exhilarating. It also helps in other areas. Being able to ask insightful questions and draw people out makes me a better networker and friend. Learning to put myself out there for the podcast helps me socially and in pursuing professional opportunities.

Imagine these two interactions.

“You’re so interesting! Will you talk to me for an hour while I ask personal >> questions about your career?”

“No thank you….backs away slowly”

“You’re so interesting! Would you like to be a featured guest on my podcast?”

“Sign me up!”

People think you are cool 😎

When I tell people I host a podcast they are often delighted and impressed. I didn’t expect it, but it’s a fun perk. It enhances your brand and it’s a great ice breaker.

New community

I’m in the tech community, so mostly I talk to other people in tech. While I love all of you, it’s good to meet people with different experiences. They might live 2,000 miles away and work in insurance, but you can commiserate on how bad you are at social media marketing.

Make Money

This was a trick. You will almost definitely lose money. You need a large audience as well as polished and consistent content to make any money in podcasts. If you are doing this as a side project, you probably won’t have the time to make that happen. But this is an investment and I’m here to minimize your costs. So let’s get started!

Hosting

There are two ways to get your podcast on your friends’ phones. You can use one of the many managed services. I’m not going to link or offer opinions on those, because I don’t use them. They are similar to any SaaS. Either they cost a monthly fee, or you pay with ads and/or data. Since I knew that the more money it cost me, the less chance I would stick with it, I wanted to see if I could do this myself.

I am going to assume at this point you already have your beautiful mp3 file. I record using Zencastr and edit with Garageband because they are both free, but there are lots of other options out there.

You also need your podcast image file. It should be a 1400 x 1400 jpg. This is the Apple Podcast standard, which most players use.

There are 2 steps to self-hosting.

Making the audio and artwork available to the internet.
Creating a document for aggregators to know about your podcast.

File Hosting

To host all the public files, I used Amazon S3. If you want to learn more about cloud computing I recommend AWS Newbies. But for this tutorial, I will walk you through all the steps.

What is Amazon S3?

S3 is a storage service for files hosted by Amazon. It is similar to Google Drive, iCloud or Dropbox. You upload files and then decide who can view them. The difference between those services and S3 is that S3 is focused on engineers and large-scale projects. It’s used to host all the videos for Amazon Prime, so the costs for your tiny mp3 are much smaller. It also connects to many other services. In the next article in this series, I'll go over how to use another service to get data on your audience.

AWS Account Setup

Create an account for AWS. You’ll need to provide a credit card, but if you’re careful you shouldn’t have a big bill. To prevent that you want to set up a budget. Here’s a more detailed explanation of the free tier and how to set up budgets (see step 4).

Create Buckets

The first thing you want to do is create two buckets. These are directories to hold your files. One will be public, for the audio, podcast art, and RSS feed. The other one is to store logs to track downloads.

Log Bucket

Give the bucket the same name as the podcast + "-logs" and use the default region (generally us-east-1). This bucket should not be public.

Public Bucket

Give the bucket the name of the podcast and use the same region. Make this bucket public. In order to track downloads, everything that happens in this bucket should be logged. When selecting a location to send the logs, put in the name of the previously created log bucket.

Next, create 3 folders in the public bucket.

RSS
audio
images

Upload the audio into the audio directory and the podcast image to the images folder. They should also be public.

Create RSS Feed

In order for podcast aggregators and apps to find the podcast, there needs to be an RSS feed. It is a table of contents for the podcast with a list of the episodes. It is in a format called XML. XML has two parts, field (<title>) and value (I’m A Show Title!). It is formatted like this:

<title>I’m A Show Title!</title>

This is just a title, but you need a title for the show and a title for the episode. An episode is called an item. So it would look like this:

<item><title>I’m An Episode Title!</title></item>

The Apple Podcast RSS Guide has a longer explanation. It links to a sample template or you can download the one I use for this demo.

In place of the jpg and mp3 files in the template, use the URLs of the uploaded files. Click on each file and the URL is at the bottom.

This is also where you can find the size of the file. It's given in KB, but the RSS feed wants it in bytes so multiply that number by 1,024. That number goes in the "length" in the "enclosure" tag.

The itunes:duration tag is the length of the podcast in seconds.

Once the template is done, upload it to the RSS folder. Then grab the new link because it is time to test.

Testing

There are two ways to test. First is through the Apple recommended validators, such us Podbase. Once that is working, test on your phone. Open whichever app you use and select add a podcast via RSS feed. This is where you can add that same link. Your podcast should now appear!

Podcast Aggregators

The podcast is now ready to go. In order to have it to the big aggregators like Apple and Spotify, it needs to be submitted through their sites. It can take seconds to weeks for them to show up. But once they do, congratulations, you are a podcaster!

Stay tuned for the next entry in the podcast series, how to analyze your listener data.

Entrepreneurs meet Advisors: A Proposal

Michelle 🐍 — Tue, 10 Dec 2019 21:05:17 +0000

Entrepreneurs with underrepresented identities are much less likely to have access to the capital, resources and, network to grow their businesses. On the other side are seasoned professionals who know how to grow businesses. Sometimes these two find each other through a mentorship program or a networking event, but it’s rare.

Every day I talk to engineers, data scientists and product managers that have never heard of advisory stock or realize how much priceless knowledge they have. I would like to fix that. I would like to create mutually beneficial partnerships where both the advisor and the entrepreneur are invested in the business. It is up to them how much time/stock they want to trade.

This is an alternative to an advisor creating free content or mentoring, or an entrepreneur needing the funding to pay for skills upfront. Advisors can also use this as a way to build their skills and resume for senior advancement into the C suite and boards.

If you are interested in either role, I am starting with a simple form to gauge interest. If I see a match, I’ll send an email to both parties and you’ll take it from there.

I want to be an advisor!

I want advice!

Interview with Head of Data Science Annie Flippo

Michelle 🐍 — Sun, 29 Sep 2019 20:14:28 +0000

This is the transcript of my conversation on @FromSourcePod with Annie Flippo, a Head of Data Science and a robot enthusiast. We talk about her job managing a team of data scientists, from employee retention to vendor relations.

This has been edited for clarity.

Michelle: Annie, can you tell us your current job title and how long you've had that job?

Annie: Yes, I have two job titles. In my organizational chart, it’s Manager of Analytics but really, I’m the Head of Data Science. I've been here for about a year and a half.

Michelle: What does an average day look like for you?

Annie: I don't really have an average day. Some days are very meeting oriented where I do a lot of planning with the stakeholders. During those days half or most of my days are in meetings and trying to get the requirements of what they would like us to work on. Other days are more heavily on working on insights, building models, building a self-service platform for our in-house sales team.

Michelle: What has been your favorite long term project?

Annie: Where I work now is an AdTech company and we work with location data. We wanted a way to target advertising to people in a more succinct way so we're building a persona product. Not a persona like soccer moms, but it's a persona based on location. We want to know where people have visited in the physical world and we call that geotypes. That has been a long time coming. Trying to get the data, vet out all the different data vendors and finding a day to make this product, it's been about a year in the making. Finally we launched it about a month back so it's a very long term project and now the sales team is trying to figure out how to sell it. Now it's more of an educational endeavor for us and our clients and also our sales team.

Michelle: Do you think what made it exciting was the novelty of the project or because it's been in the works for so long?

Annie: I'm excited because there's nothing like that in the market place currently and I think location intelligence is very big right now, it’s the next big thing in digital marketing. I'm very happy to have been part of it and learned all the pitfalls and all the benefits. It's been in planning a long time and I worked on it for a very long time and now we actually have a physical product. We did have several vertical as a POC (proof of concept). We did grocery, restaurant and retail and this way we can try to test the market to see if our clients are interested.

Michelle: So I go to Starbucks pretty much every day in the afternoon, would my persona be the woman who walked to Starbucks every day and then at one o'clock you'd be advertising Starbucks to me?

Annie: No, well, so we do this anonymously so we don’t actually know who you are but track your visits over time. We can see maybe you’re a mom because you go to schools a lot or maybe you are an Uber driver because you know you go to lots of different places and go to airports and things like that. Based on where you visit, we can group people on their commonalities. For example, we have one that's called affluent savers. This is someone who's actually affluent but they like to save money because they go to discount retail stores a lot such as the DollarTree. It’s not typically what you think of when you think affluent people. You’d think they would go to very high-end stores, like jewelry stores or expensive restaurants. But there are some segments that are not like that. So we can’t treat everybody the same, instead, we group people based on where they're actually going.

Our advertisers are interested in millennial singles who go out at night or maybe folks who have kids, it all depends on the use case.

Michelle: It's interesting how you were able to use the data to actually dispel myths and find groups of people that you can't just think up. You wouldn't normally think of an affluent person going to the dollar store, but there are plenty of people who are affluent because they go to the dollar store or because they're penny pinchers, but that’s not the first thing that comes to mind. What is the most boring but essential part of your job?

Annie: That is a large part of my job. It’s working with vendors. A vendor will have an unexpected change in the data format and not tell us in advance. This happens quite a lot. Our ingestion jobs break and then we have to go chase down the sales rep or accounts manager. “Hey, you didn't give us notice so you can't just change that.”

Then we go going to a big meeting to figure out what happened. You know sometimes the accounts manager didn't even know that was changing. Someone behind the scenes in the engineering teams made some decision because of performance or whatever. So the data changes a lot and you can never rely on data staying in the same form at all times. That is essential to the job because without data we can’t do anything. We have to have a steady stream of reliable data and then you have to do a lot of vendor management.

Michelle: Do you clean up data, or is that more your date engineers on your team?

Annie: That's more the data engineers. The raw data that comes in is never in a format that you can just right away analyze. You have to create more features, clean up the data. you Dates alone and timestamps have like fifty ways to clean that up. You have to figure out what makes sense, how you do it and what is a reproducible way. You have to understand what's coming through the pipe. Server logs always come in UTC but we don't in UTC. Let's have a meeting at eight o'clock UTC time, nobody talks like that. It is always based on local time. People have lunch at noon at their local time, people go to a movie theater on their Saturday nights. So we have to understand what is the local time, what's happening in that region.

Michelle: That sounds like a frustrating part of any technologist’s jobs. Time zones and time stamps and everything that goes with it. Would you say that's the most stressful part of your job?

Annie: The most stressful part of the job is my high performing team members giving notice. You have a good team and everything is working well, but it is such a hot market right now. Recruiters are always calling them, whether they are looking or not. They'll contact them through LinkedIn or through a friend of a friend and then they’ll say, “Hey we have this great job opportunity would you be interested in knowing more?“ At first, they say no, not really, but then they hear a few of these and think maybe I'll chat with them it can’t hurt. That’s how you lose people and it's hard to find another person because the job market is so hot. It takes a really long time to get somebody new coming in and get them up to speed. Every time you lose somebody it's more like a three to six month process to get an equivalent person back.

Michelle: How do you manage the stress?

Annie: Well I try not to focus on it because you can't really focus on people leaving. All I can do is try to give them interesting projects and mentor them as much as possible. Some of them are Data Analysts/Business Analysts that want to become more Data Scientists. I always give them suggestions on projects they can do outside of work. Then we talk in the one-on-one on how they can improve. We slowly build up a rapport and sometimes I even help them with their side projects.

Your job is your job. There's an ebb and flow, exciting parts of your job and boring parts of your job. You can't be a hundred percent exciting all the time. I don't try to think about it too much. I just hope that I'm giving them the best experience while they're here and then if they go it’s because they had. It’s because they had found something different and interesting. That’s why I go to a lot of meet-ups and I help out with UCLA. I like to know a lot of students who are graduating, about to graduate or have graduated recently so I have a resource to tap into.

Michelle: It sounds like It's actually a very positive experience because you're helping others grow, whether it's at your company or outside your company. You’re making sure they’re always learning new things, which is very important in tech.

Annie: Yeah, it is very important in tech. I think that if you don't grow your career is pretty much over. Right now everything is moving so fast. The minute you come out of school, within two years you'll be behind again. You always have to learn and I do that myself as well.

Michelle: Which skills you find the most essential on a day to day basis?

Annie: A couple of skills. One is a willingness to learn, just like I said earlier. The second skill is empathy and that is the hardest one to learn. It is also one of the hardest ones to interview for because you have to be able to see from the other person's perspective. Let's say your executive wants a specific product report and it's a really difficult thing to do and you're trying to understand why they are asking you. You have to go down the road and ask how can I help you find a solution to your problem. So those two things are the hardest and most essential skills. All the other skills are much easier to learn. You can find an online class or a YouTube channel, there are many resources to learn.

Michelle: Have you ever tried to teach someone empathy and has that worked at all?

Annie: (laughing) I think I always try. I don't really teach, I just say what do you think those guys are thinking about, why are they asking this? I like to pose more questions back to the person who's having issues or having a difficult time. I hope that they take my suggestions and go back and ask the right questions. Hopefully over time through osmosis they would start thinking, I wonder what that person's thinking about, what are they trying to solve, why are they asking me.

Michelle: One of the things I wanted to highlight on this podcast is the soft skills. They are so hard to learn and people who do not feel like they have enough technical skills but are skilled in the soft skills can really shine. By being willing to learn and jumping into all the technical stuff as soon as possible, having that empathy really puts you a step ahead.

Annie: Yeah I think so. It’s nothing you can learn in college. I mean you might learn it through your friends, but there is no college course in empathy. I wish there was!

Michelle: If someone wanted to be you one day, what would the ideal career path be like?

Annie: I don't know, I kinda meandered through my career. I had a thought in college that I wanted to become an economist, so I studied math and econ together. I wanted to become an economist because I wanted to know how do you effectively change people’s decision-making process. Like increasing price, incentives, increasing demand, supply, etc. It is just happenstance that now there's a field called data science. Which, in the marketing field, is all about how do you entice people to do something. Click on the ad, look at the product, you're trying to help them make that transaction. So it’s really aligned to what I originally did in school but my path went through software engineering for many years; then product manager for many years and then the last ten to fifteen years is basically all data. So what I would advise is to be very curious about how to solve problems with data and then everything else will fall in line. I believe in just in time learning.

Michelle: It sounds like you had a varied experience and it all enhanced your career by learning different things.

Annie: Yes. I don't know that it was a planned thing, but it just so happened that I fell in with a professor right out of school where I did a lot of like financial programming. That taught me a lot. Then it was just making sure the next job was always a little bit like the last one but built on top of it until I landed at my current job.

Michelle: For the college student or career changer, what’s the entry-level job on your path? Is it a data engineer or something else where they can get started with a limited skill set?

Annie: I think probably not data engineering because with data engineering you need software engineering skills and have to understand data architecture, which comes with time and experience. I think the entry-level job would be data analysts or business analyst. I use them interchangeably, it depends on the company's size. As an analyst, you are given data that's already pre-formatted and you use that to find metrics. This way you will learn to write a report, learn some SQL, maybe get your hands on a business intelligence tool like Periscope, Tableau or Looker. After that, you could start learning more about the math, stats, and machine learning methods that come with any data science job. But definitely, data engineering jobs are now split out into their own specialty. Six or seven years ago everybody's doing everything at once but now it's all split up.

Michelle: It’s fascinating how things are changing because I thought I was data engineering, but it's not. I'm learning here today as well. Do you think if someone started as an analyst they'd be able to work their way up by learning on the job or do you think there's other courses or anything else you'd recommend learning aside from on the job?

Annie: Well if they want to be a well-rounded data scientist, they will need to learn something outside the job. On the job, you’ll be solving very specific problems and you might not get introduced to a lot of different methods or problem sets or other ways of solving things. I recommend to everybody who asks me this to try the free online classes first, so you get a feel for if you feel like it before you spend a lot of money. Learning things like linear regressions, random forests and support vector machines. Learn one of those things and how they apply to different problems. Learn how to apply different models and what's the pros and cons. All those are things that you don’t really encounter in a work situation. So you can’t learn everything at work and you have to supplement it.

Michelle: What's your next step?

Annie: I would like to take on more responsibility and build more products. I would like to manage larger teams and have more of a strategic say. Do what I’m doing, but on a bigger scale.

Michelle: How can you be reached on social media?

Annie: I'm on Twitter at @acflippo. I don't tweet a lot but if you tweet I will answer. I'm also on Linkedin.

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