Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining my session on unlocking the inner tech rock star, a woman's guide to becoming a software influencer.I will talk about my past experiences, the awkward situations, and the things I wish I knew sooner. We will explore the strategies and tactics to overcome imposter syndrome, build your personal brand, and establish yourself as a thought leader in the tech community. But first, who am I? I'm Baril Gupta, and I'm a software engineer with several years of industry experience. I currently work at a big tech company in Bay Area, California, where my main focus lies in research to production delivery of AI models with a focus on Python. Now let me be clear.

My talk is not sponsored by my place of work, and these are my own personal opinions and experiences that I've seen throughout my industry experience. I'm also an early contributor to Fairlearn. Fairlearn is an open source community driven Python project that helps data scientists and AI researchers improve fairness in their AI systems. I would like I also like to get involved in early career technologies and mentor them towards their goals. Story time. I still remember the day I graduated and stepped into the industry. I was bursting with excitement, ready to dive firsthand into the real world challenges. But little did I know that I was about to be thrown into the sea of unknowns. As I looked around my colleagues, I couldn't help but feel like an imposter wondering how I'd measure up.

I was consumed with this deep seated fear of failure, paralyzed with uncertainty that surrounded me. I was utterly lost. To make matters worse, I withdrew myself, isolated myself from others, and started to struggle to find my footing. As a result, I found it challenging to make meaningful progress towards my career goals, feeling stuck in the rut with no clear direction forward. I finally talked to my manager who helped me recognize that I needed mentorship. And so I started building healthy work relationships, a trustworthy network. I found good mentors to learn from who I'd look up to and feel inspired. Mentors help you identify your strengths and weaknesses and set you up for success. I then started working to set up a cycle of trust with my colleagues. I trusted my colleagues and gained my peers' trust in return through work and casual conversations.

This ultimately helped me build meaningful, reliable relationships to depend on creating a support system of my own. One thing I wish I'd known sooner was to become visible. Don't wait to communicate until everything is perfect. I used to hold back, worried I'd waste other people's time by reaching out too much. That was a mistake. When when working with stakeholders and other cross functional teams, always communicate early to avoid surprises and align expectations. At the same time, also communicate often to adapt quickly when challenges arise. I know it feels kind of silly to keep repeating yourself, but it is always better to overcommunicate than undercommunicate. And speaking of communication, I found that writing is an exceptional way to communicate effectively. Writing is an art.

It was very early in my career when I realized that I needed to excel in writing if I want to become an effective effective engineer. It allows you to scale your ideas. It is easier to send your notes to other people than iterate on your ideas to every new person you meet. It shows that you've thought through the process or the problem space. It showcases your dedication and your preparation. Working people in corporations are adults who are responsible for their own work and progress. You don't need to be micromanaged. Sharing weekly updates with shareholders, or stakeholders helps you identify any misalignments early on. And trust me, people read. At the same time, also respect the reader's time. Readers will lose interest if your writing is not on point or is not concise. Next is work hard and loud.

I think it's pretty obvious that if you want to succeed or excel, you need to be dedicated and hardworking. There is no replacement for hard work. However, the latter is less obvious. For a very long time, I overlooked the importance of working lousy and got frustrated when I didn't receive the recognition that I expected. I learned it the hard way that working loudly has a lot of perks. In big tech companies, your hard work can get underrated if you don't show impact or don't publicize it well. Talk about your work. Make your work shine. People will give you intelligent feedback if they see you and your work. However, if you decide to work in isolation, the discoverability of your work can become a real challenge.

Your work will be downplayed and not given the importance that it deserves. Then comes conflicts. Conflicts are often associated with a negative connotations, but conflicts are almost unavoidable in all working relationships. In fact, I think that if you're not having a conflict, you're doing something wrong. You're either working in isolation or your work is not important enough for people to care about and cause conflicts with you. Conflicts can occur while working in your own team or across team. In both cases, it's important to understand the diverse perspectives from all sides. In most cases, no one is really wrong. It's often a matter of difference in of opinion and how to go about certain things.

Sometimes, especially while working with other teams, conflicts arise due to prioritization. Something which is important to you may not be important to another team. In those cases, it often makes sense to come to a compromise, either in terms of timelines or leveraging help from management. Whatever the source of conflict, it's a great learning experience and helps you gain the experience required to level up in your career. And with conflicts come an organic competition in your work play place. It can get even more intense as you grow up the levels. In an ideal world, competition is healthy as it allows you to perform to the best of your abilities and fosters growth. However, realistically speaking, toxic competition will also frequently arise, which will result in others stepping on your toes. To deal with conflicts, it's important to understand others' perspective.

At the same time, put forth your own. Oftentimes, the result is a stalemate. What do we do then? I often suggest people that pick your battles. You have two options. You can either disagree and commit, or you can escalate. Choosing between the two depends on the situations. For example, if you feel strongly about your idea or you know for a fact that the other person's opinion will result in a bad outcome, escalation is the route to go. However, if it's more of a difference in implementation ideas with both approaches being reasonably good, then sometimes slipping down and committing to other person's approach can be considered to make progress. And, yeah, it's often not easy to self publicize, but it it can be really uncomfortable to talk about your own work, and it takes time to overcome from that inertia that you may have that you might not be worth it. But build your personal brand. Find your niche, your expertise, and follow the strategies that we've discussed today to become a software influencer. Thank you.

I'm Parul Gupta, here at my LinkedIn. If anyone wants to take a look at it, go across, happy to help. Thank you. I would love to be connected.