Breaking Into Tech: 3 Tips for Women to Succeed in Tech
A Woman's Journey into the Tech Industry
Hello everyone! I'm Jena, a Software Engineering Manager at Synopsis, and today I'm here to discuss my 20-year-long journey in the tech world. As a mother of three children, I can confidently attest that tech is a truly promising profession for women. But let's be honest, it isn’t always easy.
Addressing Stereotypes and Challenges
Can software engineering be too challenging for women? I recall being discouraged from becoming a programmer by a woman whose husband was a software developer. She suggested my husband would become jealous of the long hours spent on the computer. I remember answering simply, "Then, I'll marry a programmer!" And as it happens, that's precisely what I did!
Engaging with Opportunities: The Power of "Yes, if"
While many people, upon being presented with a unique opportunity might respond with a "no, because...", I advocate the power of “Yes, if”. Being open to possibilities and seeing challenges as opportunities for innovation can open up many doors.
The Essential Ingredients for Success in Tech
After 20 years in tech, I would like to share with you three essential principles that have played a significant role in my success. They can help anyone achieve their objectives, irrespective of their field. These are:
- Understand Your Goals
- Be Brave Enough to Ask for Help
- Continuous Learning
Understand Your Goals
Setting well-defined goals and breaking them down into actionable steps is crucial for success. A psychologist named Gail Matthieu showed that people who wrote down their goals were 33% more successful than those who just visualized them. This theory resonated with my own experience, confirming the importance of setting clear goals.
Be Brave Enough to Ask for Help
Despite our innate strength, sometimes, we need help in achieving our goals. Author Mark Man once said, "Be strong enough to stand alone, smart enough to know when you need help, and brave enough to ask for it."
I cannot overemphasize the significance of this quote. Sharing responsibilities and delegating tasks is not a sign of weakness, rather a pathway to success.
Continuous learning
Continuous learning is indispensable to succeed in any field, especially Tech, which evolves every day. We must stay updated about the latest libraries, programming languages, and tools. Fortunately, technology has made learning accessible - whether it's through online courses, podcasts, or learning videos.
Balancing Work and Life
Many people struggle to achieve a work-life balance. However, when you love what you do, work and life beautifully integrate. Just remember to prioritize and plan, bearing in mind that family, friends, and personal time is just as essential as meeting career objectives. You shouldn't have to choose between a fulfilling career and a happy family. Instead, find ways to achieve both by leveraging the flexibility of your job.
To sum up, always do what you love, and success will surely follow. Embrace tech’s countless opportunities and never stop learning - the sky isn't the limit when there are footprints on the moon…and Mars!
Video Transcription
Hello, everyone. And thank you for your interest for in this session. And I'm glad to see all of you. Uh I am Jena, a software engineering manager at Synopsis uh and mother of three Children.And I'm here to say that uh tech is truly promising profession for a woman. I started my journey into technologies. Um uh 20 years ago, the day I made my decision to become a programmer at high school. And thank you for my great teacher of informatics to show me the beauty of the programming. Uh Knowing that our husband who's uh our neighbor, whose husband was a programmer, tried to discourage me that it's not for women because um you know, it's um your husband even in future will be jealous because it's been spending so much time in front of computer. So my answer was uh uh simple. I answered that. Uh then I will marry programmer then. And actually I did it. So that's the way we should accept the challenge and seek for solutions, right? So I will uh today um I'm not um before going into three main tips that I want to share with you, I will start with a quick question to you all. And uh while you're thinking, I will um create a poll.
So imagine uh your employer calls you and presents a great opportunity, business trip to Mars the planet to support the robbers working there, the machines. Uh Just think what would be your reply and you can write them in uh the chat box. But I want also to create a poll. So just think for a couple of minutes for the question and I will create a pole. Just think, imagine the question. Travel to Mars. OK. Seems like let me see. I just created a poll. Can you see that? Um I create a poll now you can go and vote for one of the options. Uh OK. In the poll, you can see the question. I see a question in the chatbox. Um If you see the poll. So the question is uh you need to travel to Mars for a business trip, your employer calls you and presents that. And what is the first reaction that comes to your mind? Is your answer starts with yes, if or it starts with no because I will just wait for uh for half a minute and then show the results. I hope you are voting. Please be active in order we will have many answers there. And also of course, we can expand your answer in the chat box and we can see your reactions as well. I don't see the results. I just need to uh ok, now I press to show results but I'm not able to see the results.
Do you see the results in the poll? Mm I have trouble to see the results. Could you please confirm if you see the pole and? Oh, well. Ok, great. So 20 years. Oh, wow, great. I'm so happy to see all these. Um Yes, if answers so, so many. Ok. Yes. If OK, great. 87% of yes, great. OK. So yeah, today I want to share uh also my opinion uh for the no because and tse uh why it is important to consider. Yes, if even for such an unbelievable question because uh while not because closes all the doors, for the solutions, all the possibilities, it just kills all the possibilities. Uh Yes, if opens many doors and at the end, we then we can see multiple solutions, not just the one which comes into, into our mind at first, yes, first reaction. Uh But yes, it opens doors and at the end, we can see different solutions to the problem. For example, in our case, we can come up at the end with a solution with the innovation of new machines that we can send to Mars and support them. But also we can consider yes, why not? The traveling? Yes to Mars. Uh You know, when I heard that um synopsis product is used now in um the pers perseverance, Rob recently landed on Mars.
I was just thinking if our product can be there, then one day we can also travel there and support that uh machines here doing the engineering support from Mars. So that's, that's amazing and exciting. So uh I experienced yes, if in my life in many situations and I see how easy uh things can go when we just start thinking with these two simple words. Yes, if being open for any challenge. So um today, I'm not going to uh share with you uh anything new, but I want to share with you three is which plays uh played a big role in uh in my success. And uh I think it's three of them are um um important, not just uh for tech, but uh applying them can help us to achieve whatever we want. So first, if that I would like to start is understanding what we really want, we should understand if goals are well defined. And um um of course, after uh setting the goals also, they are uh divided into actionable steps uh written into milestones. And uh we have a plan for the execution. Uh There was a study by psychologist Gail Matthieu who showed that people who wrote down their um goals and shared their um um plans with the friends and also sending them updates, weekly updates here.
Uh They are 33% more successful achieving them than those who just formulate wishes in their heads. So, and I believe this not just because there was a study but also uh because from my experience uh that I applied it um in many cases, and the outcome is the same, the same from our, from my experience. So the first uh important thing is to uh set the goal. Exactly. And I have, uh for example, for me, I chose my profession when I was young, but the goal for me was clear and I consider it as a start of my success. And also I know um I have successful um experience um to help women breaking into text very successfully. In one case, like it took a year for that. In other case, two years were needed to transfer to change the profession. Now uh being from 10 years in accounting, changing into tech. But in both cases, uh the goal was clear and actions were set and plan was the plan was there, there's also a story again, I experienced that um there was a big desire and I tried to help but we didn't succeed.
And the difference was that in that case, there was no exact goal but just uh wish was there. So the first important if uh is understanding the goals and creating actions, OK. Now the goals are there plan is there how to execute? Of course, the first thing to understand is what resource do we need for the execution, right? And as women we inherit list of responsibilities including housework and childcare, which makes the time as the most difficult resource for us to find because we want to find time for family, for Children, for housework and for career. And but let's uh look back uh for, for the paper generations, like for our mothers, for our grandmothers, it was really um too tough to uh succeed in career because of the tornados work um housework and childcare. But fortunately, technological innovations and day to day growing services for almost everything gives us opportunity to get most of that that time back, which means that you can see that for her housework. So many solutions we have um and for cooking for everything. And um it means that now we have as women, we have great chance to build a successful career. And here what I want to share is um the only important thing is to be brave enough to ask for help.
There is a quote by Mark Man giving all the insight, be strong enough to stand alone, smart enough to know when you need help and brave enough to ask for it. It sounds so obvious. It also um um it's so easy. Yes. Uh but also I see how uh my friends or people around me have difficulty with this and um also myself challenging in many cases, but I'm doing my best to overcome this because we are not alone. But in many cases, we need to think how to find time for this, for that. Then we are ending up doing everything alone and this is possible, but uh we will sleep less, we will have less rest or no rest. The thing is that, that this is not scalable and we will not go far in this case. Uh So um it means that we need to share responsibilities, we need to ask for help and accept that help. Uh You know, I can share one example um from my life, uh which is also a great example for ESC which happened a couple of years ago. Um It was a Saturday morning and I was invited for a networking breakfast. And just when I woke up to prepare, I realized that my son has a high fever and that was surprise for me and I was confused by the first solution that came to my mind was um ok, I can call and cancel my participation.
But then uh I asked my husband what we can do if there is any other solution than um rather than cancellation. And he told that he can take care of him during my absence if I give him instruction, what to do because this is his first time. He don't know how to reduce a favor. Um And I was so happy to listen that uh but at the same time, it was difficult for me to accept that help because I didn't want to um stay outside in that situation. But then I realized that um it's even unfair to not give uh opportunity to my husband to take this, um especially that he was ready for that. Right? So, um so, so I gave him instruction and went for my um for breakfast. So everything went well. Uh except just um later realized that by mistake, he gave a double dose to reduce the temperature, but it was not a big deal. And I think this is what we call experience, right? It it's, it's everywhere. So I'm I'm really thankful to my husband, uh our parents, my sisters and friends, everyone who, who is there for their readiness to help whenever I need help and I can help them um whenever they need uh my help and I consider this as a key for my success. So uh this is um and uh coming to the last one, uh I want to uh share is learn uh continuously. There is a great um quote from Brand Tracy that continuous learning is the minimum requirement for success in any field. I totally agree.
But I want also to highlight the crucial for this quote uh especially when you are in tech because technology keeps changing every day and you need to follow what, for example, what libraries are developed, what programming language is, how the programming negative is that you are using are being changed every day on.
Um We need to know what solutions are available new solutions. And because the uh speed is enormous and without continuous learning without following the update, we cannot go far. We will stand now even not stand even we will go back because the changes are huge every day. So uh that's the reason we need this and learning. But when to find uh time and how right again, we are fortunate now because technology gives us great tools for that and opportunities. So for example, our smartphones, right? Uh for me, I can say I have passed the whole course course online course in Coursera um during my commute to work or I uh listen um listening podcast or technical videos during house work, which is possible or, or while uh we are uh uh in a queue at hospital or somewhere else.
So we now we can um spend our time more efficiently and use each uh moment to learn something it is important uh to um uh for the success. So, and one example, again from my life, um I remember it was a year ago, my eight year eight year son woke up in the middle of the night and when he saw that um I'm in front of computer, he asked me what I'm doing and my reply was that I've been doing my homework actually, that time.
Yeah, I was passing a course again online and, and he didn't ask me how long I'm going to study and do homeworks because it's not his favorite job. And I replied that always, and this is really true. Um I think that we always need to learn. So I'm thankful for technology to giving us all this opportunity, which makes our, our life easier. I'm also um exciting that I can also uh put my effort and energy into this. Um and then uh get it back, right? So uh I think technology uh is great and I really admire it. So use the power of technology. OK? We talk a lot enough about uh work uh and career. But what about uh our family? What about work life balance? We hear this every time. Yes. So many people are talking about this, how to find this balance. For me again, the answer is simple. Um Because I think that um when you love what you do, there is no work life balance, there is a life and there is a life and um for is just part of it, there are for sure, priorities and planning and we need to just prioritize everything, right? So, um you know, I'm fortunate that uh at uh at my work uh in my company, um I have the, the work that the work and life are really like integrated.
And um for example, our colleagues, my colleagues are also my best friends and uh I'm excited to go to meet them to do amazing work to have our coffee and tea breaks, which are part of our life and, um, it's, it's not just about work anymore and it's about, it's like a family.
Um That's why it's, um, it's important. And, um, unfortunately, the current reality, the COVID pandemic changed our life and it's more than a year we are working from home and uh don't have this chance to meet each other and have this nice stuff. But uh this pandemic also showed us that really work cannot be separated from life and they are together, they are integrating and uh the mo or the uh your you have flexibility at work. The more um efficient integration is and because tech is the one of the um flexible fields, uh I believe that that it's also one of the promising career for women because we can build our day, we can put the priorities and have happy family together with our favorite career.
So I just want to conclude that do what you love and success will follow.