Uh should uh maybe before starting the session. Not maybe, but uh I would love to introduce our company because uh as known, this company gathered us all together and it's the reason why we're here today. So uh my name is Ost.Uh I'm the head of the guitar in company, so called Casti. So um at Cast T we optimize and manage uh cloud uh basically like OK, sorry, I'm a bit nervous. So um so we are cloud cost management and optimization platform that saves its customers uh in average around 63% of their expenses. Um In the other words, we can express that um our platform automates repetitive cloud engineer tasks and allows them to focus on solving interesting uh technological problems, increasing employee satisfaction and reducing engineering crunch. It's also worth mention that uh within the headquarters in Miami, Florida and European office in Lithuania. Since the end of 2018, we grown a team of 65 diverse professionals from all around the world. So I'm super excited and thrilled to be a part of this community of woman technology um and happy to be part of the, this conference and from now, I'm giving the floor to Eva. Ever. Could you unmute yourself?

Yes. Uh Yes, it's working. So, thank you. Thank you for uh saying a few words about uh about our team. Uh So I'm, I'm really excited to actually be a part. I've just returned from Lithuania, which is uh home to uh R and D. Um So I'm actually based between um, er, which is south of Poland and Berlin, which is, well, you probably know where Berlin is, right? Um So, um and I'm really excited to be part of this, of this team and I'm really excited to be part of the European tech sector. Uh And the sector that I think uh the three of us have been quite passionate about. Um for a while for me, it's been eight years right now. Um And I can't actually imagine doing anything else. Um Being a technology content writer, I do um a lot of different things. I'll tell you a tiny bit about it during, during the session, but I just wanted to um probably some of you already work for uh tech companies, some of you probably are thinking about it. I mean, otherwise you wouldn't be here, right? So, um and the stats uh basically confirm your I DS probably the ideas we all share that there is no other, no more exciting sector to be in right now and uh numbers, the numbers we get from uh from, from different research from different sources actually uh confirm um what we may sense that, you know, this sector on in the Europe.

Uh Obviously, we're uh eu centric based here in the European Union, in the heart of the European Union, we focus on the numbers from, from uh from our community. But you know, that applies to, to, to other continents as well. So our sector in uh in the eu grew like 10 times or 11 times within a few years. So you know, this, it's outpacing the rest of the economy, there's more investment, there is more start ups, there's more money, more uh more projects going on all the time. So this need for more talent. So and you can clearly like being in in the tech sector, you can clearly feel it because this any of jobs going um around, there was a very interesting study about ct uh tech hiring, hiring trends from from the very end of last year. And there only in the 10 countries, there were like there was almost a million of jobs, tech jobs. So you can imagine how many jobs there are for other roles as well. Those were just technical roles. Um And as you can sense, uh many roles have a negative ratio of office applications. So very often you may be only just one of very few people applying or even the only person applying for the role. So the chance of the roles are very high, right?

And only 50% of those job offers are for software engineers. We, none of us oa Victoria and me aren't technical people, but we work very closely with technical people and our roles are very important too. Um I see the Q and I is open so I just got the message. So

sorry, can I just interrupt? Um I just announced that QNE session is open so um feel free to ask questions there and we will be answering that those questions live.

Cool. Right. So uh I just wanted to quickly wrap up, you know that this intro, you probably, I'm sure you're well aware of the fact that, you know, this is the most exciting uh sector. It's definitely worth entering. But at the same time, um being such a, you know, such a devotee to the tech sector, I feel I, I very often say, you know, I, I don't wanna say I brag about what I do, but I'm really excited about what I do. I, I love what I do. OK, I write texts about hardcore uh programming, hardcore uh engineering and it's exciting and I grew to love it with all my heart. That that's also why the title of the session is with all your heart, do what you do with all your heart. But when I talk about it to, to, to other people who are possibly considering switching to it retraining uh for it. I very often bump up against certain myths. Um, and I think I'll, I'll stay at Victoria. You probably may have heard, you must have heard those and quite often on a regular basis. So that's why today we wanna basically present those five myths and then tell you from our perspective, being industry. I won't say veterans, but we all of us have like quite a lot of experience. Victoria's raising your hand. Go ahead.

I'm

raising my hand. I'm being polite. Yeah, I just wanted to say that if anyone knows any myths that you are, you, you know, encounter daily, please share in the chat. Maybe that, that, that would be interesting as well. So I found five, the most popular ones we just want to know, maybe there is more and maybe even, even, even more interesting, you know, like

all of them. Yeah. Yeah. Let's, let's think about those because you know that, uh, I, I cringe when I hear those myths because I feel like this is the most exciting, this is the most exciting sector and the, the, the pets are, you know, it's low hanging fruit. You can start doing what you love. Uh uh ex experience, great working conditions, have exciting projects, do big stuff. But still people feel like, oh my God, I don't have a computer science and engineering degree. I'm not even good at math. I can't join A T, so why do you even care about not uh having a computer science degree. I actually did my masters uh in arts. So I'm, I'm, I'm a master of arts. I actually graduated from a renowned British uh arts college in South London. And I work in it and I write and I create amazing stuff about, uh, about, yeah, about, basically, about engineering. Right. So, it's, uh, it's, it is possible. Uh, it is possible and there's plenty of roles where you don't have to know math, even our engineers, our, we have amazing engineers at Cast A I. But even some of them don't really do maths. OK? They really great um at understanding business, they're really creative, they have strong business ECU and this is what you need to succeed. OK. So uh being a stand ninja uh may help you if you want to do technical. But there is uh there is plenty of other roles.

I, I surprisingly, I actually as a content writer um as a content writer, I actually do the same stuff I did when I was uh at Goldsmiths in London. So I'm pretty much like research, talking to people gathering information and creating, coming up with creative concepts that help to, to, to explain and to sell the product which as Australia and Victoria will tell you isn't that easy to, to grasp it uh right away. OK. So it's uh it's exciting because I help to, to, to explain um a really cool product and that's what you can do as well. So certainly not having a computer science or engineering degree doesn't uh mean you cannot um uh excel and you cannot love your job uh in tech. So that's myth number one. Myth number two, I think um many of us uh also know quite well. Uh So it's about tech sector, the tech sector being just for men and being uh not diverse at all. And we all know this, you know, this image of uh that, that's certainly what I had in mind before I joined the it in 2014, I thought it's just, you know, a little bit stinking man in flannel shirts um playing video games, sitting in their mom's basement, you know, having poor social skills, doing boring stuff.

And it's not really, you know, nothing exciting for a, for an arts college graduate like me. But suddenly, um I realized, you know, working closely, we're basically starting to work uh with uh with software engineers. And so uh software directors and engineering uh engineering there just that they are actually really great people and there are surprisingly, there are women. OK? And I'm actually, you know, I'm, I'm here with you with a say and Victoria who are both like senior uh managers and they work at a tech company. So there are women, OK? There's uh there's also a woman who run companies, own companies uh who who basically manage companies. And uh just to mention Google's uh VP of Engineering, Elissa Murphy Mozilla's Ceo Mitchell Baker. This, there are women. OK. Um It is changing, there are more gender balance teams as the companies really start paying attention and is raising a hand. I'm

sorry, I'm sorry, I saw that Cory. She wrote that I started in the arts and now I'm tech. Uh basically, I've been studying arts, my bach my bachelor degrees from art. So like, and it didn't make any damage. It just like I improved my mindset and it helped me to, to get into tech, like, so it, it doesn't matter at all.

Yeah. And I think it's also important to, to be aware of the fact that there are uh leaders who are basically paying attention to building gender balance teams. And I think Victoria, Victoria has led several teams and uh the team that uh the team in Victoria, of which I am part of um is actually 5050 right? So um Victoria Victoria is certainly paying attention to that. So um was it difficult, Victoria?

No, it, no, yes or no. I had OSA help me. Uh o she sits together with us actually, this is not my favorite myth. So how can we the bank, the bank? It really, really fast. So we are at the conference with 100,000 attendees. Uh And the conference is about the woman in the tech sector. So definitely there are some women at least 100,000 and uh the I, I will, I will say really, really quickly, I think the major major issue is with, with uh not enough women in, in the uh tech companies, teams is that we are keep looking in the, into the same places, meaning that uh OK, I want to hire the content writer.

I want to hire a designer. OK, I will go and I will post uh my, you know, job ad in the, in the tech community. I will go to the developers, meet up, meet up and look, look there. Of course, we have a problem. We identified the problem. Long time ago. There is not enough women in dech. So either five companies competing for, for, for that one because everybody wants diversity. Now. It's, it's not everyone but we, I hope that, that it's that in my heart. Uh But uh I mean, OK, so if you are building the fashion start up, you know, or if you are building the innovation for onto, why would you go, you know, to the tech site and look for, for, for the product manager, you can go to the conference, you can go to the uh fashion show and you can definitely find some people that are open minded that, that are interested in tech and that would, would actually bring something uh from, from that industry, that industry knowledge.

That's one way how can we solve it and how we solved it at the, at our team is because of a, so Ostia was, was helping me to hire each and every one team member. And I, I looked at, at her process, she was basically looking for the, for the person with, for the skilled open-minded person, not, you know, not the tech geeky type one. So that's, I think that was the recipe of success and I congratulate her on that. So, so, yeah, so let's, let's move on. We, we have a couple of minutes and a lot of more myths to the

Yeah, so another one is like everyone in tech is in their twenties. Um And uh sometimes people feel like, oh, I'm too old for that. Well, uh neither of us is our in our twenties, I think. And so at cast A I at cast A I, we actually have people very, very different people. There are so we had a team, team gathering uh this week and there were people in their twenties, there were people in their thirties, forties, our uh founders I think are over 50 right? So there's a, there's a variety of people and so you won't be the only person who is not in, in her twenties. OK. So this is, this is definitely uh something uh worth mentioning. And also stats uh starts to prove that in uh different roles, have different media uh median ages, right? So it's not just twenties. Mark Zuckerberg was 2020 years ago, right? So time passes for everyone and it's, uh it's not stopped so everyone uh can be in different age and can still succeed.

Uh Myth number, um Myth number four is that tech isn't creative and many people get worried that they got stuck in a narrow career path or couldn't be themselves. Right. That's actually something that uh um I was uh worried about but uh how was it for you? Your stay in Victoria? Did you, did you worry about that or how did you approach

this? Um It's, you know, like I could say from my point of view. Um oh OK. So when I'm interviewing people all the time asking me like Ostia, how come that you stay with the company uh since the early beginning and you're still there? Um What I said that I keep saying that um still super excited because there is all the time, something new, you're working on new projects, you see uh the impact instantly. Uh If you have some ideas and you wanna create something you don't need to go through certain kind of milestones of approvals processes because of the processes and develop the process to find out what you wanna do. So, none of that. Um Maybe this is the uh directly orientated to start ups. But what I can say from this perspective, it's great. You, you need to use the, your creative part every single day, Victoria. Could you share how it's happening with your team

Uh So uh as as I mentioned, I'm leading the tech marketing team and uh it actually requires even more creativity than, than the the regular professions usually because imagine that you, you suddenly reading about the those Sao algorithms or how everything is connected, how you can boost your content somewhere.

And then you need to learn that, that that framework, that the technical aspects of the of the task. And only then you can start creating the, you know, the content. So basically you, you have even more constraints, those constraints are wider. Also, you have a either distribution possibility.

So now if you, you have to prepare an article for the for the magazine somewhere, you know, to be printed at the paper, it's it's the format is clear, everything is clear, you have a right amount of words and here you have all those possibilities. OK? I need to pick channels, I need to distribute. I need to do that. I need to do this. Everything requires so much thinking. So I'm usually saying that like working in the in the tech sector for one year, it's, it's the same as working elsewhere for three or four years, especially if, if you get to work at the at the effective environment where everybody is building something, not just coming there, you know, just to sit up and say that, that, that they, that they at the start.

Yeah. And, and I would opted out because yesterday uh I spoke with a team who's um a team is a, is a, is an engineer, but he actually joined the company as a sales engineer. So he changed the role. OK. So I would say in smaller companies or in, in start ups where everything moves dynamically, you also get the chance to, to, to try different things and to see where you excel. And so there's a lot of, there's a lot of opportunities to uh to connect with business. So even if you're in a technical role, you build products, you interact with business, you interact with clients. Uh So that requires a lot of creative skills, right? So it's, you know, it, it depends what type of company you join, right? And it's very important because you can get that chance uh to, to actually do stuff that you find creative and uh you can try different roles. Um Right? The final myth that we hear often here is that it takes years to learn the skills I need to work in it. And my previous experience doesn't count, which is basically bull crap. Um I felt like that. Uh But it's not OK. So before joining the, it, I had years of experience in um in pr in managing media relations. I did that for international cultural uh projects uh including European, the European capital of culture. Um And I thought this experience doesn't count. Uh It does.

Uh It does because you've got the skills that you need. Even my customer, I had to work all my studies as a as a waitress to support myself financially. Even the customer service um does help to do what you do because you need teamwork, you need to problem solving. You, you need to uh to have uh critical thinking writing. So all the things do uh you can use them, you can focus on acquiring very specific skills that you need. For example, in my case, that was uh content marketing for, for tech companies, then look for a job. Uh look for a job and use the skills you already have and keep on learning. OK? If you're determined to, to learn, you will succeed. If you, if you're determined to learn on an everyday basis, because just as Victoria said, you know, um one year in tech is like a few years in different industries because everything changes so fast, everything moves so fast. OK. So um um so that's basically, that's basically it.

If you uh if you take this lifelong learning attitude, uh you will succeed. There's no other way basically, but you need to be ready to do it. So, um I would say, um don't let those and other myths stop you from starting a career in tech. It's a very sweet business, very sweet, very lucrative, great working conditions, uh great opportunities, uh great people because there's plenty of very talented people, very ambitious as well. Um So some final thoughts uh from, from our experience, I think the sector is wide enough to let you do what you truly love. OK? You can still enjoy the perks of one of the most dynamic industries, right? So great working conditions, great projects, uh funding everything you want. OK? There's a lot of, there's a lot of variety, there's a lot of companies uh that you can choose from. OK. So you need to be aware whether you wanna do start up or you wanna uh do software consultancy or you wanna do corporate life. OK. They have different dynamics. So if you try one, don't get discouraged, OK? It may be that you have to look, that's basically what happened to me and I think to, to, to, to stay in Victoria looking for your path. Um There are many different career paths. OK? So it's not just technical.

Uh You may uh actually one of my neighbors who used to work. He wa he was one of the best tech content writers ever. Now, he's an engineer. OK? And so you can see this um There's some space to move, right? So you don't have to worry. Oh my God, I'll, I'll now training to become an engineer and I just have to do it all my life. No, you can become a writer or you can become a salesperson. You can become even a designer if you're in the right environment with the right people you will have the opportunity to try different things and find your path. OK. So, and uh the tech sector has plenty of great people. So you certainly, when you start talking to them, you'll certainly find your path. And mm don't discount the um the, the, the significance of soft and creative skills. OK? You need them to thrive in uh in your tech career. But you also need to uh to, to ba to basically, to have the lifelong learning, flexibility and openness. OK? So you need to, the fact that you don't know everything. I most probably you will never know everything, but you carry on learning the stuff that you need to do your job well. OK. So you to, to accomplish your task.

So if you dedicate yourself to, to um to, to this approach, if you dedicate yourself to learning every day, then you will succeed and your age and gender are far less important than your talent and willingness to learn and collaborate to collaborate with other people. OK? So if you know how to work in teams, if you are focused on achieving common goal, then you will certainly be a very valuable assets. OK. So uh that's at least my experience, right? So very often uh I saw companies hiring people who didn't have the, the, the exact skills, but they were dedicated to achieve the goal. OK? And they wanted to learn, they were hungry for knowledge. So those people were doing really well and use your skills acquired in previous jobs uh to get a foot in the door in tech and keep on learning. So, yes, the first job may not be exactly what you want to do may not pay exactly as you would like. But then you value uh in the sector will be only going up. Ok. So treated as an investment. So my first job in it didn't pay that well. But each year I was getting better and better and more exciting jobs and this is exactly what you can do. OK?

It's an investment and the more experienced you are in tech, the the the more valuable you will, you will be and the more offers you start receiving, this is how it's been for me at least, right? So that, that's it from me. Do you have any questions? Oh Victoria ST I, I feel, I feel like I've dominated this speech and you and you have plenty of you should,

every woman should dominate something once per day that then that's how we were going to change the world. That's, that's the only way. Um So yeah, uh I just, you, you know, uh we can probably finish the session if we don't have any questions. Uh So today just, just reminded me about funny story about the Dominic. So today during the meeting, one of the team members uh said uh OK, I'm going to participate at the, at the business development meeting in, in the two hours. And I asked who invited you? Because no, no, no one invited her to that meeting. And she said, I invited myself and uh and we were clapping during the meeting because that's how you do it. You know, sometimes you need to invite yourself somewhere to, to not OK, not uh let's not do it aggressively. I mean, I mean, step by step sometimes when everybody is is is forgetting about you, you need you, you need to push further and for being a woman in tech, it's definitely definitely like 10 times harder, but there is no other way we need to help each other.

Yeah, help each other. And also understand the fact that you know, we're uh we're in it together and it's a great sector and OK, sometimes we are the only woman in the room, but this is changing. OK? And it's certainly um if you're the the only person you can approach it in two different ways. Oh my God, I'm the only woman. They will expect me to do blah, blah, blah or you can, you can approach it from the other side that hey, I'm really cool, right. I'm here surrounded by all those engineers. I am good enough. OK? I am more than good. I am really, really strong. So yes, such situations will happen but also um never feel that it should never undermine your sense of you know, of your, of your, of confidence in your skills because otherwise they wouldn't employ you. Right. So, they wouldn't hire you. So, your skills are good enough. Right.

Don't, uh, don't give in to impose syndrome, which obviously sounds hypoc hypocritical because I suffer from it as well. But I think, uh, being aware of that is the first step forward. Right. It's the first step to change. So, can I

just, can I just ask one thing? Uh, really quickly yesterday I had a conversation with my sister on the phone. She's like, ah, you know, like I'm changing the job and I was saying, oh, try tech industry. She's like, oh my gosh. But, you know, I do not have experience. I just, I do not know what I would, I would be doing there. I, I said, just try, just go, just move yourself and you're gonna learn when you're gonna be there because you cannot learn everything in advance and prepare for everything in advance and plan everything in advance. Just do it, just go for it.

Yes, that's it.

And like to wrap up to do it with love,

do it.

Never, never, never see all those

things. Like, do everything with passion and it's gonna work. So,

yeah. And certainly if you're not happy, uh, then, then you shouldn't really grit your teeth. Ok. So if you're unhappy about something, obviously we all have to do stuff. Uh, we all have to work hard but if you like, in perspective, if you feel unhappy, there will be thousands of tech companies that we will love you. Right. So, keep on uh pushing. Right. You'll, you'll find the right. Uh you'll find your path. Ok. So I think that's the most important stuff. Right. That's the most important takeaway. We would like you to live like you're good enough, your skills are good enough already. Uh Just try to think how to package how to wrap those skills up and never give up because it's a, it's a, it's a great sector. So you should uh you should uh be part of it, right? I think uh that's it for, from us. Uh Have a look at uh caste. I, we have some job offers. I'm sorry, really bothered sales. But uh if you'd like to join us, we'll be happy to get to know you. Right. You ok. Thanks a lot. It was lovely to, to see you take care.