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SheCanCode's Spilling The T
SheCanCode's Spilling The T
Career Journeys: Unconventional Routes into Tech
In this episode, we dive into the diverse and dynamic world of tech careers.
Emily Renny and Anjali Sharma from Checkout.com share invaluable insights and advice on navigating the many paths into the industry—not just the traditional routes.
Whether you're coming from a non-technical background, shifting careers, or pursuing alternative education options, tech offers endless opportunities. Tune in to hear about personal stories, non-linear career journeys, and practical tips for breaking into tech, from self-taught coding to bootcamps, internships, and beyond.
If you're looking to make your mark in the tech world, this episode is full of inspiration and guidance for every aspiring tech professional.
SheCanCode is a collaborative community of women in tech working together to tackle the tech gender gap.
Join our community to find a supportive network, opportunities, guidance and jobs, so you can excel in your tech career.
Hello everyone. Thank you for tuning in again. I am Katie Batesman, the Managing Director Community and Partnerships at she Can Code, and today we are discussing unconventional routes into tech. I've got two amazing ladies from Checkoutcom with me today Emily Rennie and Anjali Sharma. They're both here to share their invaluable insights and advice on navigating the many paths into the industry, not just the traditional routes. It's something that we love to talk about on this podcast and it is one of the reasons why it was launched. So welcome ladies. Thank you so much for coming on and having a chat with us.
Speaker 2:Thank you, thank you for having us Really excited to be here. Thank you so much, thank you.
Speaker 1:We love to chat about unconventional routes into tech on this podcast and it was one of the reasons why Spilling the Tea was created to hear about all of the different career journeys in. We would love to set the scene a little bit to get started, if that's okay, to share a little bit with our community about yourself. So, emily, should we start with?
Speaker 2:you? Yeah, sounds good. So I am a Senior Product Director at Checkout. I currently look after our alternative payment methods uh team. So that is, any non-card payment methods, so think if you're going online and you want to pay with PayPal or Klarna, that kind of thing, um, uh, our team does that.
Speaker 2:I've been at checkout for about three years. Um, I started off in a team that did developer experience and then had an opportunity to move into the APM Alternative Game Method team. So that was really good to get a bit of have some internal mobility and try something new. And before Checkout, I've got a really varied career.
Speaker 2:Actually, I studied languages at university, worked at an investment bank, then moved to Egypt, where I lived for 10 years, and in Egypt I worked on a program to support social entrepreneurs, co-founded a crowdfunding platform, set up a co-working space and then joined a payments company, which is kind of what led me into the payment side of things before I started working at checkout. So it's a really fast-paced tech startup. But then moved back to the UK, which is home although Egypt is now a second home because I have a couple of small kids and my husband and I my husband's Egyptian, but we wanted them to go to school in the UK. So we came, came to the UK. He corrects me because I say we came back to the UK, but I came back. He just came to the UK and joined checkout at that point amazing.
Speaker 1:I love this podcast because I do really never know what people are going to say. So you're the first lady I've had who said move to Egypt for 10 years and then came back Incredible Anjali yourself. What is a little bit about your journey and how did you find your way to checkout?
Speaker 3:So hi, I'm Anjali, find your way to checkout. Um. So hi, I'm anjali. I'm the engineering counterpart for, uh, the apm team that emily just mentioned. I'm an engineering manager here at checkout, been here for a little over a year. Super amazing team, super amazing journey. Uh, never a dull day at checkout, of course, um, I am from india and that's where, and I have like a very conventional tech journey. I graduated as a computer science engineer. Um, get got into tech, fell out of love with tech very soon.
Speaker 1:Oh, no, yeah, I've heard that before.
Speaker 3:Yeah um, fell out of love. Uh, really wanted to change careers, but that was a very turning point in my life where a friend of mine, who's now my husband, told me okay, there are a few other ways, you can try different things and how to be more motivated and how to actually continue going through with the tech journey, and I explored different startups and different products and, for me, one of the major things that I found out after more than 12 years in tech is that I can't work in tech if I don't believe in the product. So that was one of the major keys now that I look for whenever I find a new job so landing at checkout but touching countless lives on a daily basis. In terms of payments, people are always going to make online payments. So that was one of the things and I really wanted to explore the complexities that come with it. So here I am.
Speaker 1:I love that. You know what? I think we're going to have to do an episode on here about how many people's husbands have helped them through their tech journeys. I've heard this so often. I've had ladies on here say you know what, in lockdown, they watched their husbands working from home and thought I'm going to retrain and go into tech and now they've got wonderful jobs in tech just from seeing what their husbands were doing or like them, inspiring them to, to keep going on something. And I think we're gonna have to. We're gonna have to go down that route with an episode.
Speaker 2:That's interesting because my my now husband was the person that asked me to co-found the crowdfunding platform with yeah, you've got.
Speaker 1:You've got two stories already, yeah yeah, we definitely need to do that. Wonderful Thank you. Ladies, we have so much to cover today, obviously about your own personal journeys into tech, because we do love to hear the stories in. They're not always traditional routes in, but I wanted to talk to you a little bit about what inspired you to take that path into tech and your own personal journeys into the tech industry. Actually, you mentioned your husband, obviously, and that you fell out of love with tech, but you took a traditional path. So what you said your husband inspired you to keep going there. Can you just dig a little bit into that and why? You know you fell out of love and then your husband inspired you back in. What happened there?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I never wanted to come into tech as a graduate. I wanted to be a physicist. So I wanted to graduate in physics and go for it, but life had other plans and I ended up in computer science, which I loved, by the way. It's quite entertaining and it's pretty much mathematics. So you love to solve problems and that's what I do on a daily basis.
Speaker 3:But after like two, three years I was not enjoying. I didn't feel that I was making an impact to anybody across. So as a junior engineer, you hardly see anything. That is that you're doing is actually reaching the hands of the customer, reaching the hands of your consumer. So that's where I actually started falling out of love.
Speaker 3:But then that's one of the advice that I got from my husband was you should try a very B2C product driven startup and that's where you would see your impact. That's where you would actually find and if you still don't like it, go ahead. Whatever like you can try other options in other areas. So I tried that. It was quite entertaining, Also daunting because you are the one taking all the decisions, and that was the first time where I was a bit of a senior engineer, taking decisions in a room full of men where they were all quite confident. And one thing to know about me is I have a very massive imposter syndrome, so it didn't help and there were men who were there and they knew what they were doing. It just felt like they knew what they were doing, but eventually that was not the case.
Speaker 1:You realized they weren't yeah.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, but it was amazing and that's when I actually saw whatever we are doing on a daily basis. It is helping somebody out there. So there was um, a company I worked for, which uh specialized in physical forms of communication instead of digital uh cards and all of those things. So that was actually very entertaining and you see people who struggle with tech, how you can make lives easier for them and how can you make whatever you build more intuitive for people who don't use tech on a daily basis. So that was one of the things that kept me going, and since then I've fallen in love with almost every other product that I've worked on.
Speaker 1:Good. Yes, yeah, it wasn't tech itself. It's where you were and what you were doing and whether or not you felt like you were making a difference. You were and what you were doing and whether or not you felt like you were making a difference, and I love that you said you went um into a startup and really and and and that your husband, um, recommended that because, um, I'm such an advocate for startups. It's so different and you just really do feel like you're making a difference. It's so hard and so challenging, but you, it's such a great story to be part of and to mentally get up every day thinking, in fact, we're going to do this, this is what we're going to do, um, and yet you can really throw yourself into into that, but there's nowhere to hide at a startup as well, so you're so in the thick of it. Emily, I know you're also from startup, fast-paced, challenging world. What about your path and what inspired you to want to go down that crazy route of startups, the life of startups and being in a tech startup?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I, contrary to Anjali, like 100% fell into it. I would not have predicted that this is where I would have ended up. So I studied languages at university and, like through all through school, I really loved languages, and what I loved about them was that you could do anything with them. So when you're studying the language, you study the history and the politics and the economics and, like you learn the language through engaging with, like, an entirely new country and culture, and so I loved the fact that you could learn lots of new things and that it was open. So I had no idea what I was going to do.
Speaker 2:I firstly fell into investment banking to begin with, like through graduate, internship, graduate schemes, that kind of put you on a hamster wheel, um, and then eventually got disillusioned with that um and so moved, moved to Egypt, and the one of the languages I'd studied was Arabic. So there's re, there's a reason there. It wasn't completely random. It was to learn Arabic again and I was having got partly disillusioned with the, you know, the investment banking world. I could also see that, like money makes the world go round at the end of the day, so I wanted to do something that was better for the world, but could still see that business adds value as well. And business is actually really good for the world because it creates jobs and that's how people are going to earn a living and survive. So I was specifically looking for something in social entrepreneurship. So I found this program that supports social entrepreneurs.
Speaker 2:This was in Egypt shortly after the Arab Spring, and this startup scene in Egypt was really, really blossoming. There was a real atmosphere of positivity and agency and ability, like particularly among the youth, of being able to take their future into their own hands. So there was a burgeoning startup scene that, you know, in this program I was in supporting social entrepreneurs really got me into. You know, in this program I was in supporting social entrepreneurs really got me into. And then, yeah, my colleague now my husband asked me to co-found the crowdfunding platform with him.
Speaker 2:So that was kind of the first foray into it and I didn't know anything about tech and we just hired an agency he's not an engineer, so he was in mechatronics engineering he's he's not an engineer I. So he was an engine mechatronics engineering, but not not computer science. So we just hired an agency to do it for us, but we were working with them to design like? What do we want it to look like? What are the different screens, what's the user experience? So that kind of got me into the the product and tech world through that as well, as, obviously, as you say, with a startup, anything and everything in between.
Speaker 1:So then that that was the first gateway into into the product and tech world incredible and, and I take it I mean you must have had ups and downs, but I take it there was no looking back at that point and you just thought you know what? I know this is really challenging, but I've made the right decision and you just kept going until you you moved back to the UK yeah, exactly 100%.
Speaker 2:So we did. We kept the startup going for a couple years, but it was like it's really tough crowdfunding, in particular, is it's very hard to scale um. So we ended up deciding to shut it down, which, by the way, if we hadn't shut it down, we probably would never have gotten married. It was tough to do this in a relationship, so it's a good thing we shut it down, learned a lot, but moved on. But, yeah, after that, like was very focused at that point on wanting to combine the experience I'd had in the financial sector with the startup experience, so I was specifically looking for a fintech company. So then found a payments, a burgeoning payments startup, which was great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and to bring over everything that you learn, and that's something that we we love to share those sorts of stories on here, because ladies that are transitioning from sometimes non-tech industry into tech industry, they as well don't think that they have any relevant experience or they don't realize the skills that you learn in one area that you can bring over to tech, and it's. It can be quite seamless and the tech industry is crying out for lots of different skills, um, and you just take everything that you learn with you and and move on. Um, and on that note, I wanted to ask you both what are some of the less traditional routes that you've seen or experienced for getting into tech? Have you, have you worked with people that have done less experience, less traditional routes into tech? What are some of those?
Speaker 3:I have um, so I attend a lot of these women in tech meetups or conferences and I meet so many women who are transitioning into tech from different backgrounds. But I've worked very closely with one of them and that's a story I will share, as I mentored a person who we in one of my previous jobs. We got through boot camp into tech and she was a primary school teacher for eight plus years and and super highly motivated person. Frankly, um, quite intelligent, um, and starting after eight plus years in a corporate world, uh, was challenging, but she was there for the challenge and she loved every bit of it and navigated it with such grace because I I think that came from handling kids there's gonna be a lot of similarities between handling a classroom full of unruly kids and handling a whole group.
Speaker 3:Yeah, managers and she was so eager to learn. Um, so, and like I always say that, uh, boot camp taught her a lot of skills, so they taught her which languages that we'd be using and how to work and those kinds of things, but those skills are like learnable. What she already had was eager to learn. Always asking the right questions at the right time. Also, even asking the wrong questions is not a bad thing, so asking questions is what that matters. And she was, and I, and I'm sure, uh, I haven't had a chance to chat with her lately, but she's, I'm sure she's doing amazing wherever she is. And, uh, that was one of the stories. I said oh my god, after eight plus years in an industry very different from where you are now, and you're willing to start again. That's that. That requires courage.
Speaker 1:Yeah and you know, I spoke to another lady who who was a teacher and she said to me um, she actually retrained to go into tech to have some flexibility because when she had her own family she realized that I have to be present, I have to be at school every day. And she said I ended up having lots of my own children and I needed to be at home more, so she retrained Again. Her husband worked in tech and she retrained and she went on to be a developer and that was she said. You know, I had to move away from teaching for that reason, but she took all those great skills with her and just took them over to the tech industry. So, yeah, absolutely makes sense that those people just bring amazing skills with them, that the tech industry is crying out for. Emily yourself, what kind of stories have you heard along the way?
Speaker 2:So I mean well, so I mean I told you mine, which is very unconventional, um, although I my transition was into product, not engineering, and I did, I joked my husband, like I'm gonna go speak on this podcast called she can code, even though I can't code neither can I.
Speaker 1:I always say that when we do our hackathon. So I'm kaylee from she can code and I can't code, and you are all welcome here, because we get lots of non-coders at our hackathon. So yeah, completely, completely relate to you on that yeah, it's all good.
Speaker 2:So I so I've had um, like maybe to speak as a little bit, not just on the engineering side but also on the product side, like some people I've seen really successfully transition into product, have done kind of more consultancy roles in the past. It gives you the ability to see the bigger picture and come up with good strategies, um, but also just like plenty of people, as as angie said, doing boot camps and transitioning in I think the. You mentioned the transferable skills. I think it's so valuable. If I think around, what are the? And we've just had this, it's a performance cycle season, so we've been doing performance reviews and comparing we call them calibrations like comparing the performance of the different people across the team.
Speaker 2:And when I think about what is the feedback, I'm hearing about either people in the product organization or the engineers in our team. The most positive feedback I hear is never like oh, they're the best tech, they have the best technical skills, or like they're the ones that came from this tech company or they like their computer science knowledge really shines through. Like the feedback that you hear about, who are the best and the brightest are the ones who are proactive, they're the ones who are engaged. They're the ones that are stepping up, getting stuff done, just like can-do attitude. Those are like fast learners, pick stuff up, really just driving and getting things over the line. So that kind of energy, motivation, ownership, like for me, is going to be way, way more important than how really deeply technically, you understand, you know the basic, like the very, very low level computer science concepts yes yeah, especially in product as well.
Speaker 1:We've had a lot of ladies from our community say I didn't even know that that role existed and I didn't even realise that. When somebody spoke to them about the role and what it was, then they thought actually I already do that, I already do lots of those things. Why have I not even thought of this role in tech?
Speaker 2:exactly 100%. And also, like you mentioned, you know the the teacher. I have two small kids and I am constantly amazed by the parallels between being a parent and being a good product manager. Um, I it's. You know, one day I'll write a blog post about it or something, probably.
Speaker 2:But, um, but, just like the stakeholder, management, understanding, setting expectations and guiding people, even like tantrums, remind me a lot of incidents. Yeah, plan well to avoid them. I need to make sure my kids nap at the right time, are fed at the right time. I can do all the best preparation, making sure my tech is scalable to avoid an incident, but it's still going to happen, there's still gonna be an incident, there's still gonna be a tantrum. I need to monitor the alerts to make sure. Oh, it's the early signs of a tantrum. Let's intervene and try and prevent it from escalating. And then I need to stay calm. I need to stay focused and handle it like soup. It's like there's just so many transferable skills from uh, from you know, even if you haven't been working, if you've just been raising a family like massively transferable skills yes, definitely.
Speaker 1:I had a community member um talk to me about that when she first became a parent and she said you know what I didn't even know negotiation was a skill that I had learned on mat leave. And she said even the things that I didn't know were negotiable were negotiable with a toddler. She said by the time I came back to work I had all of these new skills just by raising children. So yeah, you're absolutely right and I wanted to ask you about that the skills or the qualities that you think are most important for someone trying to break into tech, regardless your background, emily, you just said then people are not normally picked up on brilliant computer science, tech knowledge. They're normally picked up on um.
Speaker 1:You know the skills that we we just talked about and um Anjali, you you were speaking um a little bit about that teacher as well and how highly motivated she was. I highly doubt they looked at her and thought you know, you're top of the class in whatever the. The technical tests that she took um are there? Are there any kind of skills or qualities that you think really stand out for somebody that's transitioning into tech?
Speaker 3:um, if you're transitioning into development, so of course technical skills are given, so you need to understand and know how to code and how to do things, but those are the easy part and those are the things that you would, of course, know but also learn on the job. Not exactly what you have learned will be applicable to wherever you go. There's going to be a different flavor of it everywhere, in each team or each company. But what is the most important thing in tech as an engineer at this point is the hunger for learning. I would say If you want to survive, because there's new kinds of technologies coming almost every other day and you need to be on top of trends you need to be on top of trends, you need to be on top of best practices. If you want to build a system that can scale, that can be robust and work for years and years, you need to have in mind that you will have to keep learning.
Speaker 3:That's one of the things I've I have at least seen in tech is that you can never stop learning, ever, and it will be on the job, it will be. It can be outside the job. It can be by via small articles, it can be via podcast sessions like these, you learn every day about different things and different experiences that people have. So I would say a hunger to learn, because I'm never going hire somebody who's a Java engineer, but I will definitely hire somebody who's super motivated to to go and figure things out and learn things out on their own yes, yeah, for me, that's what makes like jobs in product and tech so interesting and exciting.
Speaker 2:Like that's why I love it, because I do learn something new every day, like there's constantly new challenges, so I think that's what makes it fun, as well as being what's important in the person who's coming.
Speaker 1:Like you have to really want that yeah, and that's not everybody, that's not for everybody, but I completely agree it. Tech changes so much you have to stay ahead of the curve all the time and and some people don't want to continuously learn it's a big challenge to to keep up with um, but it must be quite a challenge when you are looking for people for your teams as well. It must be like how do you find that person? You know, there's one young lady I talk about all the time to our community is this poor girl. I tell her story all the all the time.
Speaker 1:But she went for a technical interview. She needed to do C++ and she said I remember going and they told me what I had to do and I learned it in two weeks. And I, because I didn't know it. And she said I took the test and it wasn't that great. But the company called me and said we were so impressed that you learned it in two weeks, even though it wasn't fantastic. They hired her and just said you know what you're going to be? Somebody that's going to just soak everything up like a sponge, and that's what they wanted. She didn't have everything that they needed on the job spec, but she was willing to learn something from scratch. So I'm sure you come across those people and think you know what. Actually, I'd rather go with you 100%.
Speaker 2:I would just add one thing on that, because it sounds like the way Anjali phrased it about like constantly learning new things.
Speaker 2:It sounded like a lot of pressure and time outside of my work and I, within my job, learn a lot every day from my colleagues, from doing new things and like figuring stuff out, but honestly I don't have a lot of time to sit and listen and read the whole time, like I think it's like for me it's come.
Speaker 2:This kind of learning and how much time you spend to engage and learn new things has come in waves. So like when I picked up the developer experience team, like that was a challenge for me because it was more technical team than I'd ever been involved with before, so I had like a wave of spending a lot of time looking into it, um, but then I'm currently on a wave where I'm not really doing that much because I have small children and I would like to read a book sometimes and sing in a choir and spend time with my husband and do other things, um, so yeah, and finding that balance as well of being in a good company that allows you to learn on the job and that flexibility when you need to learn, which not all companies obviously allow, but then, as you said, it doesn't become a challenge.
Speaker 1:It's not something that you find you know you have to really work at. You're learning as you go and you're a company that allows you to do that as and when you need as well a company that allows you to to do that as and when you need as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly like we have learning budgets as well and learning days that you can uh that like you can do it as part of your job and you're given time to do it in the job.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so like it's great if you're passionate and have the time to do it outside as well, but definitely that does not always true for me I totally get it, and it makes very challenging to, to, to find time outside of your job as well, so it could also be a very simple thing as like. Okay, this is the board of tasks, and this is one of the tasks that I have never seen or done or explored in the past before. And not everybody has to learn new technologies every time, but smaller, incremental learning is something that is needed. Yes, definitely.
Speaker 1:I know that leads nicely onto the challenges. I wanted to ask you about the challenges that you've faced or observed in transitioning into tech and how did you overcome them. Anjali, you mentioned imposter syndrome. Uh, was it was a challenge along the way. What? What challenges have you faced transitioning in into tech?
Speaker 3:imposter syndrome. Of course, every day, even now, I just have one mantra in life and, uh, that came from as a child, when I was on the stage for the first time giving a speech in front of the school, and I was like fake it till you make it. And it transitioned into fake it till you make it. But at that time it's like, oh, maybe they don't know that you're wrong or you're fearing inside, so maybe try to just put a brave smile on your face. So, yeah, imposter syndrome, yes, but that stems from a bunch of things. Uh, as a junior engineer, I was like, still more confident. But when you grow senior and you have to take decisions, you're in a room full of people who are taking decisions and, like I said I, I've been also in a room full of a lot of male engineers who throw jargons and they're like oh yeah, this is, this is so easy and I've done it. And uh, if you do this, this is gonna scale better. Sometimes you don't know everything and sometimes it takes time to learn. So navigating that and how, how to? Um, like I stopped pitting myself on, stop calling myself a female engineer. First and foremost, like I'm an engineer, this is my job to figure out. I will figure it out. If they can. I can definitely so. So that was one of the things.
Speaker 3:One of the challenges to navigate is to get your voice in where you think you are not very well represented, and also not being afraid of being wrong. People are wrong almost all the time, so it's fine if you're wrong, but it has so happened that in the meeting you're thinking something and the next moment somebody else is saying it because you were thinking too much about it. So that was one of the challenges to help ourselves. We are here to deliver a single goal for the organization. We are not here to be the best engineers or to be great in this tech or to be great in that, but we have a common goal. We're here to deliver this. Let's work together on how, figuring out a way to do it. So that was one of the challenges and that's still something that I keep keep focusing on because, like you said, imposter syndrome keeps going back yes, it's always there, no, no matter what, and it's there as well as you move through your career and you step into new roles.
Speaker 1:And I love the fact that you you said you know, you stop. You stop then going at yourself thinking I have to know everything, because that happens again as you go through your career and you step into leadership. And then you, you have that thought and I've had lots of ladies say the same thing. They went into leadership and thought the team were looking at me like I was meant to know everything, because now I lead this team and I have all the answers and so many ladies have said.
Speaker 1:You know what I was so wrong. My team have the answers and I'm here to help and guide them and we work together as a team and, like you just said there, to help and guide them and we work together as a team. And, like you just said there, um, angela, it's just working together for a. You know, you're all on the same mission and it's working together. But we do have those moments where we, internally, you go somebody's gonna find out, I don't know, someone's gonna find out. Um, but yeah, you are right, they do. It does keep creeping up and it is a challenge. Um, emily, I can see you nodding along and smiling. Now I take it that's something you have totally felt throughout your career.
Speaker 2:I was going to say is it really boring if the same challenge that I had is also imposter syndrome? No, we've all been there, especially like so, moving from Egypt to the UK, like there's often a sense in Egypt that like, oh well, we're're, you know the the startup ecosystem is not as advanced as in london or in silicon valley or whatever, and like we're copying them. So there's a sense. There's that sense of I'm coming from an ecosystem less well established. There's also I was in a smaller startup coming to a bigger scale up and was working alongside people from amazon, from meta, from google and from Google and was, yeah, just like massive imposter syndrome and a couple of things really helped. So one like focused on being a sponge in that quick learning. So I just really took every interaction with my peers as an opportunity to learn from them. So I would just like listen to like, oh okay, you've just talked about how did you do hiring at Google. So, all right, I'll just take a little bit of that. Now I know a little bit more about how to hire and everything along the way. I was constantly learning and picking up these little pieces from them. So really taking that as an opportunity. But then also and I recommend this to everybody's coaching.
Speaker 2:So Checkout offered a program at the time called Coach Hub and this is a platform called Coach Hub that gives you access to coaching. So I had three months of unlimited coaching and every week, like we talked, like I had goals that was going to work on through the coaching and did a bunch of stuff. But one of the things was every week, just at the start, I would be telling her how my week went and at the end of whatever had happened was top of mind that week, she'd be like, okay, and what are your words of wisdom from that? To like be proactively thinking about what did I learn from that? And gradually over this course of these three months, like without even really intending to realize that it was, you know, the word of wisdom that week was that well, actually that person that I was really intimidated by, I actually spoke more than them in the meeting and made more valuable contributions than they did, or like, actually I really helped that person, they gave me nice feedback or I handled that situation well and just like this gradual, regular reminding myself each week that I was actually doing a good job really, really helped.
Speaker 2:And another thing was a realization that imposter syndrome is a gift and it's a superpower if you turn it around. So, like I was looking at other people around me who, when they got constructive feedback and criticism, they would be defensive and be like you know that person is wrong and they would not take it on board and get better, whereas the slightest hint of criticism or constructive feedback to me was like oh yeah, I'm terrible at that, they figured it out. But then exactly, then you take that and you're like, okay, well, I'll get better. And so I was actually feeling myself grow and learn through all these things because I had the self-doubt, rather than someone who's already super confident and then is just like rejecting the feedback because like, oh, I'm already great, so I think it can. I really liked that positive spin on using imposter syndrome as a superpower.
Speaker 1:Yes, I love that, I think, because everybody looks at it as a negative, and you're so right, taking that time as well, to step back and think what did I learn from that? And you know, I've had that thought where I haven't realized what I learned until sometimes five, ten years on. And you look back and you think you know what. I was the young person at that company that was trying to drive people forward, or you know. And when you actually take a look back and you think, yeah, yeah, actually I didn't do too bad.
Speaker 1:But we're so hard on ourselves in the moment and you just get very wrapped up in maybe I didn't represent myself very well in that meeting. And then it's years later that you kind of think, actually, why was I so hard on myself? And this is what I learned in that moment and you take it into your next role. But to stop and actually think that along the way would be incredibly useful, so we don't all have to do that years later. I wanted to ask you ladies about myths and misconceptions about careers in tech, because there are lots of misconceptions about working in the tech industry. Is there anything that you would like to debunk for our listeners about what you thought it was going to be like, and perhaps you know now you're in it it's. It's something that you wish someone had told you I think we've covered this a bit before.
Speaker 3:Um it's a lot of myth is also, but you have to be the best coder in the world to to survive or you have to be really good not best maybe, but you have to be really great at coding. But I would say, even from a junior to a senior engineer as it, it's very less time coding but it's more time navigating different areas of um. I would say software development life cycle or even, uh, product development life cycle is what you would, what you can call. Coding is, of course, a very essential part of it, but it's not all of it. You have to manage stakeholder expectations, even as an engineer, if you're willing to lead or if you want to lead in the future.
Speaker 3:For example, in my team, I don't like the fact that if I say, okay, this is a senior engineer, this is the only person who's going to lead an initiative, no, anybody can lead. They might need more or less support while doing it. So if you're doing it, you would have to navigate stakeholders. You would have to navigate some of the processes that come, challenges that come along with. You might also have to have a conversation with a customer to to help them, like, calm them down or understand their problems. So the the whole point about actually just skills and coding is smaller compared to the rest of the things that you have to do, and this is on a daily basis. This is not even, uh like once in a while scenario yes and yeah, you're so right.
Speaker 1:We say that to people that come along to our hackathons as well we go, come along and try something, but you have lots of other skills and lots of other things that you would need to know. So don't be intimidated as well, feeling like I have to come in and know what I'm doing and code something for the day. Just come along and try, bring all those skills. And you're so right because you said something there that made me think. Another myth of working in tech is that you will work on your own and you said it there as you work with lots of different people, stakeholders, and there is very rare if you're sitting in a basement on your own coding with a hoodie up and that is it and you. You talk to nobody. But that is kind of a misconception about working in tech, and you have to have all of those soft skills, those communication skills as well, which is, I think, a lot of people think that's what life will be, especially in engineering. Emily yourself, any myths or anything that you want to debunk?
Speaker 2:that you kind of thought before you came into tech I mean like similar, similar things about the backgrounds you need.
Speaker 2:So like the computer science background, like needing to have studied computer science, like, honestly, you know and I don't review cvs for, for engineers, um, specifically, but you know, when I'm looking at cvs, tire for product, or when I think about, when we're talking about the different new people that might join the team, I talk with my counterpart Anangeli about what candidates we're looking at. I've never heard anybody say, oh well, they studied computer science at this university, so they must be the best, or like this is what their degree. I've never heard anybody talk about what degree they did and I barely know on the CV. It's all about what you, you, you know, the diverse skills that you can bring, and like we care, we care a lot about having those diverse perspectives and how valuable it is to add that to the team. Um, so yeah, it's like don't don't hold yourself back by thinking that you're kind of missing that computer science degree or background. And we can, we love to have people from all different backgrounds. They bring such interesting diverse perspectives yeah, I, you know what.
Speaker 1:That's all right. I wish somebody told me that when I was at university, because it is. It is right you you should pick, you know the best course for you, the most relevant, go to the best uni that you can. But I've noticed years, when you get into a position where you're hiring, I don't look at universities and think, fantastic, that person went there and studied that. I tend to look at the skills that that person has learned throughout their journey, those soft skills, and mostly what kind of attitude they have and how they're going to bring that to the team and fit in with the team and the culture. I wish somebody would have told me that as a student, actually don't get too hung up on the education side it is important but don't forget about all of the other elements as well that just come with work and being in the workplace.
Speaker 1:Um, ladies, we're nearly out of time, but I wanted to ask you one last question. What advice would you give to someone considering a career change into tech but feeling unsure about where to start? We get asked this a lot. We get asked it a lot on our live webinars. A lot of our ladies say is it too late. Where on earth do I get started? Um, what would you love to share with our community on where to get started? And, you know, having that feeling of what on earth do I do if I want to move into tech.
Speaker 2:Well, firstly, you're already doing a great job because you're listening to a great podcast to get you. Yes, you're already on the right track and there's tons more where that, where you know, there's tons more other things to read and listen to. Like I mentioned when I picked up the developer experience team and I felt like I don't know enough about this. Um, I listened to, like the base cs podcast. I don't know if you've ever heard it. It's another female, female run podcast talking about basic computer science. Um, uh, stuff. So like learned a lot through that.
Speaker 2:Um, the tech community is really open. There's so many people that are coding in public. Like I reached out to somebody on twitter and had a conversation with them live. Like we had a video call. Like to chat and ask what you know, get advice on how I should help. Think about the team. So like there's tons of support out there to begin with, like it's a really open community.
Speaker 2:And then, in terms of kind of like actually finding the first opportunity, I've seen like basically two different approaches that worked really well. So like, for me, joining a startup at the startup, really it's that all-in attitude that people care about. They want to see you willing to step up and I'm going to pick up everything you throw at you and I'm going to really drive and own this um. So I think having the right attitude can really make a big difference, particularly at a startup, and they're willing to take a bet on people that have the right attitude, because it's way more important at that stage. And the other thing is I've seen people transfer within roles at bigger companies. So like there's someone in my team who was working in a different part of the company um and wanted to transition into product, so had been working quite closely with what we do, so I had helped and coached and mentored them. And this has happened with numerous people, particularly in the product team.
Speaker 2:Um, you can find opportunities to get closer to the product or the tech org, to try out things within that department, partner with them on something, spend some extra time on an extra project, and then you're working. You can get it's kind of easier to get an opportunity to switch because the people know you, trust you. Ideally, you've shown that you're really good at your current job, that you're really proactive and motivated and engaged, and they're willing to give you and give you an opportunity. So I've seen both of those work well, depending on what kind. You know where you are right now, where um, is that something in your current job or is it um, and you know what kind of level, like what kind of environment, you want to be in as well yes, and I love that.
Speaker 1:some really good companies as well try to retain their staff and they're thinking, you know what, if they want to try something new, we'd rather retain them within this company as well, so they allow them to go off and try something new, instead of losing that person who might have a really good attitude and really good skills in a completely different area. If they do want to try something, angela yourself, any advice that you would like to give to somebody that's transitioning and might be slightly overwhelmed, maybe, on where to start?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's actually easy to be overwhelmed, because A it's easier now to get into tech because you have so many options available. Because you have so many options available. Because you have so many options available, it's also easy to get overwhelmed on where to study and what to do. But what I would like to say is, first of all, one thing that has helped me and still helps me sometimes I just don't get enough time to do it anymore is is go to these super amazing meetups. They are people like you transitioning into tech and, more than anything on a course or on a website, you will learn from their experience and they might have already tried what you're going to try and they can give you feedback. So, all the women in tech events happening across your city if you're in a city where they happen more often, then definitely go to these, talk to these people. Networking will give you an idea of what are the different areas, because tech is super vast.
Speaker 3:Like I said, I fell out of love, but I then went back into love into tech, because there are different things that changed and you can go into backend engineering, frontend engineering, full stack, whatever suits you, whatever you like, but there are a lot of courses available online that you can, you can actually pursue and use, and a lot of companies I think I genuinely do like.
Speaker 3:There are companies who who offer amazing boot camp programs, companies themselves and then hire those people and because they have had six months of training them and that they have invested in them and they would hire them and that's a good time because they teach you. At least in a couple of bootcamps that I was involved in my previous companies, they teach you different areas of the organizations and there would be a data engineering activity or a task. There would be front and back and forth. Everything would be there. So that would give you also a good idea of what you like and where you would like to be in. So I would say there's a lot of data available. Don't get lost. Try something out and in tech it's very easy to transition. So it's never going to be that you try this thing out and then you don't like it and you're stuck with it.
Speaker 1:So yeah, you can keep moving around. Yeah, I love that, and you're so right finding your network and talking to other people that have done it and can tell you what it's like, because it is very vast and you almost need to hear it from someone that's doing it to think, actually, I've been doing something similar anyway. Why, why have I not considered this before? Um, you're right, it's finding those, those people that are living and breathing it. Um, and then and then just giving it a go, something we always say here just give it a go, but what have you got to lose sometime?
Speaker 2:um, especially if you're taking a, like a free boot camp or something you know, just, just just give it a try so many free courses as well, like I did when I was first getting into tech and like I was never going to be an engineer. That wasn't the path I was interested in, but even just like being able to work better with engineers. I did some of these the free code, academy, um uh courses and stuff as well. You can just like try it and play and yeah narrow down what you want to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, ladies, I could keep talking to you um about this all afternoon, but we are already out of time. Ladies, thank you so much for coming on and having a chat on spinning the tea today and sharing your insights of our community. It's been an absolute pleasure chatting happiness thank you thank you for everybody listening, as always. Thank you so much for tuning in and we hope to see you again next time.
