Hi everyone. My name is Patrick Akil and
joining me today is Ornella Frigate Conyante.
She's from France and Burkina Faso and currently staff
software engineer over at Bobsleigh.
She transitioned into tech through a boot camp, which is
exactly what we cover in today's episode, as well as how to let
curiosity be your driver and what gives us energy as software
engineers, people, tech teams and much, much more.
So enjoy. I, I was wondering since I saw
you came from originally from the US where you started your
career and now in Europe, I've always had the people from kind
of an inverse perspective, starting out in Europe and then
having some colleagues in the US and talking about that work
culture. But since you've, I mean more on
the day-to-day experience both, what would you say the
difference is kind of versus the US culture versus the Europe
culture? I mean, it's tough to say
because I still work for a company that's based in the US,
but I'm French. For context, I'm from France and
Burkina Faso, so I didn't grow up in the USI only went to
college there and then started working there.
The biggest thing I would say is like in the US, there's a lot
less like hierarchy. So it's, it's something that
works really well for me because I don't really care that much
about like titles. And I find it really interesting
to go and talk to like whatever manager in whatever other
department or, you know, or I, I find it really, for example,
really easy to give maybe critical feedback to someone
who's higher up than me just because I figure like, you know,
you probably want to hear this. And if you don't want to hear
it, if it's not really relevant to you, whatever.
But like, I don't feel like it's not my role, I guess to give
critical feedback. And I had one manager from the
UK who was like really happy, but also really like taken aback
by that. He was like, wow, I find it so
cool that you're giving feedback to your manager who's like twice
your age and stuff. And I was like, I didn't even
think of it, to be honest. But yeah, I think it's, even
though it's not a flat structure in the US like I know that
Nordic cultures have that sometimes where there's just
sort of a flat structure. I think that there's just like
more freedom to just. Yeah, not care about titles and
and hierarchy. Interesting.
I, I don't know if it's Dutch culture specifically and I
haven't worked in, in many organizations, but there is that
what people call Dutch directness.
And I've also seen online that some people say, OK, it's just
rudeness. But in any case, I do think the
Dutch are kind of known for being direct.
If it's rude or not, I think that's more for interpretation,
but that also means like the directness of feedback and kind
of critical feedback to whomever if it's your manager or your
colleagues. That is what I've experienced
here as well. Yeah.
So I like that. That's also there, more so in
the US. Yeah, I think so.
I think the difference is I saw this really fascinating study on
cultural differences in communication, and one really
big one is the amount of context that you give.
Like, I forget what exactly the technical term is.
It might just be like contextualizing or something
like that. But like, as a French person, I
also think that French people are very direct.
Like French people will tell you what they think, but we give a
lot of context for it. Like, you know, I disagree with
you because like, I don't think this.
And I also think that and like, or even like, I agree with you
because this and that and that, Right, Right.
And in the US, there's like less context than that.
And there's also a bit less directness, I think.
And then in the Netherlands, what I found is like, people are
also very direct, but they don't give you context unless you ask
for it. Right.
Yeah. And and that's something that,
for example, like my boyfriend is, is Dutch and we renovated
our place together. And he found it really
frustrating that I kept questioning him because I just
wanted to know context for things.
But he took it as like a little bit of a, you know, attack or
something, you know, like, I don't know.
He's like, I want a black lamp. And I'm like why?
Yeah, I mean, I'm like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's funny. I I could see how that like, if
you're not used to those lines of communication or how a person
kind of communicates disregarding like any intent
that they have. Right, like.
Yeah, I could see how that kind of builds up in frustration if
you're not used. To that, yeah, for sure,
especially if you're in a stressful situation like
renovations. Yeah, I, I mean, I've always
seen online that diverse teams bring out more innovative
solutions. But then I was talking, I was
having a dialogue with a person that used to be my coach.
And she always emphasized like, yes, that is true, but it needs
proper leadership. Yeah.
And I think especially because of this, like even in
communication, if you think someone is has I'll intent and
they're just being curious and that's the way they communicate.
Like it can clash. Yeah, totally.
And for it to not be a clash, especially when time is tough
and like it's crunch time basically.
Yeah, it needs good guidance and leadership.
Yeah, for sure. I agree with that.
I, I wouldn't necessarily say it's always something that comes
from leadership. That's my bias against, again,
like a higher hierarchy. But I think what I've
experienced in being on very diverse teams is that you are
used to, you're used to being an outsider.
And even if you considered, you've always considered your,
your way of doing things to be the norm, like you realize, OK,
other people around me have different norms.
And so you always have to like sort of question yourself much
more than you would if everyone is kind of like on the same
plane, like, you know, from their educational background or
things like that. And so I think that it kind of
like creates this culture where because everyone is like
abnormal or because there's no normal, then you just kind of
like have to question yourself more and then come up with more
innovative. Or at least that's the way that
I see it. Like the the teams that I've
been on that have been the most diverse tend to be the ones
where you question each other more and then come up with
better stuff. Yeah.
Process wise, do you think it's slower?
Because that from my perspective and especially now in product
management, I like to give people time.
And now it's a balance of, OK, how much time do you give?
And I have no patience for people that don't have any
patience. Like I like to give room and
space for people to think and to actually ask a question and feel
safe to do so. But I've also been in aspects
and that was probably earlier in my career where it was like
crunch time and people were looking for people like minded
because then decision making goes faster.
Yeah, if you're confident that is the right decision, I think
like what happens a lot is that you're like, Oh yeah, yeah,
everyone's on the same page and you come up with something and
then you get to the end and you're like, oh, we should have
probably asked more questions, you know, because you might end
up with something that's like not exactly what was needed.
Like I think that some friction at the beginning of problem
solving process is frustrating at times, but it's usually the
right thing to do, you know? Yeah, Yeah, I fully agree.
Something that you mentioned with regards to giving critical
feedback kind of got me thinking because I think I'm a person
that gives critical feedback. But it also, I mean, I, I try
and be very objective and it's hard to like self reflect and be
like, OK, that's 100% of the time the case.
But especially with people that I might not see as as as
objective or maybe a bit more reacting emotionally.
I've also been construed as being negative or being very
much down with regards to how I give feedback.
And since you've been working in diverse teams in those
environments, have you kind of changed how you give feedback
from a critical sense or? Yeah.
I mean, I'm not sure that it's been about being on diverse
teams, but definitely there's one person in particular.
Her name is Vanessa, who's someone I really admire for the
way that she gives feedback. I think most of us kind of wait
until there's a need to give feedback to do it.
But she's very proactive in her feedback.
And she includes like then positive feedback, like, oh, I
really appreciated like the way that you gave this explanation
today. It made a lot of sense to me.
Or like, I think you're really good at like, yeah.
And, and she might say something like I, I think you're really
good at communicating complex concepts.
And, and then like when she gives you feedback, like, hey, I
would appreciate if you, I don't know, like showed up on time to
meetings. You're kind of like, OK, like
this is good, good feedback as well.
And I have it like in context that, you know, it's not like
she hates me because I, I'm really late to meetings.
But yeah, you you have sort of the full picture.
So I would say definitely the way that I give feedback has
changed to be more proactive. Yeah.
And to not just wait until something bad happens, but to be
like, I appreciated this or like, yeah.
And one way to do that, that I've done for a few years now is
to have like regular one on ones with almost everyone that I work
with. Not everyone, but yeah, like
once a month or something, schedule 30 minutes on the
calendar with someone so that there's always an opportunity to
to give feedback and so that it doesn't wait until there's like
a boiling point or something. Yeah, that's, I think I, I can
learn a lot from that. I'm trying to be more proactive,
like I'm practicing with that. But it still comes out like when
it matters, like when we're having a session with leadership
and like something that someone did or something, like people
are giving praise and I feel like it's not me, Like I have to
give praise. What praise is due to the right
people. That's usually when it pops up.
But it's not proactive in the sense that I'm doing that as I
go. It's more so when someone asks
for feedback or when there's like a reflection period or
performance review or those sessions with leadership.
And I think I can do better. It's just, yeah, like my
day-to-day doesn't have that in mind currently.
Yeah, I get that. I work remotely too, so there's
really no like coffee machine discussion.
So yeah, you when you work remotely, you kind of like have
to force those inorganic sort of things that would come up
organically in other situations. But even beyond that, I agree
with you. Like I find it unnatural to and
sometimes you feel a little bit like, I hope this person doesn't
think I'm patronizing for being like, I really like the way they
used. So I'll just.
Take it you know. That makes sense.
I, I wanted to learn more about your transition in tech and I, I
don't know where it took place, if it was in Europe or it was in
the US, but can you share how you transition into tech?
Yeah, sure. OK.
I have to think about how I tell the story a little bit, but OK.
So I lived in New York City and I did a degree in Africana
studies and political science. And at the time I really wanted
to work for the Burkina big government.
And then I did 1 internship in government and I was like, I
don't think I can work in government.
Like it's just not really my my pace.
And I also realized that I want to do like, I don't know how to
say it, but like a technical job in, in a sense that I, I was
doing like translation and I enjoy that, but I couldn't see
myself doing something like management or like, I don't
know, there's so many administrative things like that
where I'm like, I kind of need to do, you know, one domain and
be like technical ish person. So anyway, I always liked
drawing. I taught myself graphic design
and I got this job for a company NGO called LMCC, which is the
cultural centre of Manhattan. And the guy who hired me, I got
an internship there. The guy who hired me as an
intern quit like one month into my internship.
He just was like, you guys should just like take Ornaa.
So very thankful to this guy. And and yeah, part of the duties
included managing the website. I'd never managed the website,
but he was like, no, you're fine, you'll figure it out.
And I, I did, I ended up redoing their website a year later
because turns out everybody like hated the website and using it.
And I was like, oh, this is not so bad.
And I started to it, it was a WordPress website.
I started doing a few more WordPress websites for like,
people were also reaching out to me like artists that we were
serving who were like, oh, can you do a website for me?
And, and I decided, oh, like, I'm going to do a website to
promote black and Latino owned businesses in New York City in
my neighborhood, because I was seeing a lot of like businesses,
clothes and stuff. And I started talking to
business owners and they were basically like, oh, you know,
what you came up with was like pretty good, but can you change
this? Can you do that?
I'm like this is a WordPress template.
That's the limitation. And I was like OK, I need to
learn to code. And I looked into it and I saw a
coding boot camp. And the coding boot camp was for
for women and non binary people. And it was like, if you get a
job as a software engineer, you have to pay back part of your
salary or, yeah, like a pretty high price.
Or if you don't get a job as a software engineer within one
year, you don't pay anything. Gotcha.
Cool. I'm just going to do that, not
work as a software engineer. And then I get a free boot camp.
And then I, I looked into the outcomes and I saw how much
money was in software engineering.
I was like, OK, I'm going to do this like and get a get a get a
job. Yeah.
So that's basically how it happened.
And this morning, I just remembered that one thing I, I
want to hit on maybe is that this, you know, even though I
did a coding boot camp in 2019, it wasn't my first exposure to
code. And when I was in high school,
did you guys have, like, the graphic calculators?
Yeah. So one of my friends put Snake
on the graphic calculator, you know, of course as Windows.
And I was like, oh, that's super cool, but I wanted to do the
same. And I was like, OK, apparently
you need to code to do that. And I looked at something that
was like, you know, learning to code the basics of coding.
And I followed the tutorial and I ended up with like a HTML
page. And then it was like, now change
the colour to CSS. I was like, this is not I want a
snake. And also like this website looks
like crap. You know, like it's like looks
like it was made in 96 and like, thanks for showing me how to
change the color to orange. But like it looks way worse than
anything I've ever seen. And, and the reason I always
think about that is that I think that there's this idea, I guess
that like there's a natural interest in certain things and
that people follow like a career path or something because of a
natural interest. But like, I think, you know,
obviously I had a natural interest at some point and just
the experience that I had was like, not happy enough.
And I just thought, OK, code is not for me then.
And then I realized much later, oh, there's a whole bunch of
other code that you can do. It's not just like HTML and CSS.
And yeah, the first day that I got really excited about code
was when we were doing like brain teasers and JavaScript,
right? And yeah, that's something I
feel pretty passionate about is like giving people a lot of
opportunities to try something from different angles,
especially children, because, yeah, natural interest is like,
I don't know, there's, there's so many like small opportunities
to get into something, but one of them has to stick.
And I don't know, I don't know where I'm going with this a
little bit rambling, but yeah, I, I, I do feel pretty strongly
about that, that education doesn't have to be like one path
that like, if you like it, you like it.
If you don't like it, you don't like it, right.
Like pretty much any skill or any job is like a beast with
many tentacles, you know? And and yeah, like we, we should
not feel like discouraged or encouraged by just like 1
signal, but look for a bunch of signals.
I agree. The funny thing is like growing
up I always wanted to create video games and the only reason
why is because I love playing video games.
The reason why I was very young I could speak English is because
I asked my parents to translate because I would be stuck with
video games. Also in in the Netherlands like
nothing is dubbed, you only have subtitles because there's no
industry, it's not big enough the language there.
So then I don't know why, but in high school I didn't create or I
didn't pick the courses, for example, informatics or you can
play with computers. Like I didn't do that.
And the only reason why was I wanted to do the the most
minimum education possible and then get my paper and then do
whatever I wanted to do. Basically.
That was legitimately it. But then I also realized that if
I wanted to create video games, like the courses that I chose
already prohibited me and limited me in my educational
journey in university. Like I didn't have more advanced
maths that I needed to do informatics on the university
level. So I was like, OK, I can
probably do three years in in six weeks.
And then I didn't make that. And I was like, OK, well, that
door's closed. Let's see what's still open.
I found this education where it was more business studies and
still a little bit of programming, more data science
stuff. And somehow in a roundabout way,
I still end up being or doing software engineering stuff.
And I feel like throughout my educational journey, like I, I
haven't had that depth with regards to how certain things
work. And from an interest
perspective, I think I can dive deep, but it's there or it's not
there. It's very like hit or miss
worthy enough. And if I now look at the gaming
industry, I would love to create games.
But I've also learned that if you work at a company like that,
it can be pretty cutthroat. So I'm like, man, do I really
want to go there? Like I feel like that's at least
what I love about the tech industry is it's still very
wide. And if you're really good at
communicating, there's a role that can still be technical for
you where you can leverage whatever you're good at.
If that's communication or if that's teamwork.
Like there, there are roles for you to grab, but you do have to
work for it and you have to be vocal about it.
And then you can grow into those positions from an educational
stance like. I feel like, yeah, there might
be certain limitations on kind of your viewpoint, but
eventually your interest will guide you, I think, if you let
it, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I think that's fair.
Yeah, there's, yeah, the point of like your interest will guide
you, I think is super important. And I, I would say also
genuinely, I think I could, I don't want to say do pretty much
any job, you know, like maybe not at a high level.
I could probably not be an amazing bodybuilder, but like, I
think pretty much anything in the world, I could find
something that I'm interested in.
But I, I think that there's this sort of like overemphasis on
weirdly an overemphasis on like interest and like personal
choice and stuff like that. Because like, I didn't know how
much software engineers made until like, you know, five years
out of university, right? And I think that's like a fairly
common experience that like we don't look at things on a very
like practical level when we're guiding kids into like career
prospects or anything like that. It's not like, OK, like, yeah,
you want to be a nurse. Amazing.
This is like what your hours would be like, You know what
it's actually like to work in a hospital?
What you're, you're at least in my experience, like what the
money would be like versus like, yeah.
And I know that now TikTok and things like that, there's like
day in the life of stuff like that.
I think that's really amazing to get like a real picture of what
a job could be like. But yeah, eventually, I think if
you're curious enough, you basically end up in, in in
something that fits you. Yeah.
I mean, from the financial aspect, I used to think like I
shouldn't look at, let's say, the outcome of whatever role
you're going to be doing. But now that I'm a bit older,
like it's not that black and white.
Like what you do on a day-to-day is going to impact your
livelihood and and kind of your standard of living at the end.
Yeah. So I'll role as a software
engineer. I see online people getting into
it indeed for a certain amount of salary, right.
And people are saying, oh, you shouldn't look at that.
And and I agree to a certain degree.
Like, if you really don't like coding, you're going to be
miserable. Of course, yeah.
Unless you are incredibly disciplined, and when I say
incredibly like I I think 99% of the people are not going to be
able to do that, then you'll be fine.
You can hate coding, earn a living, You'll be fine if you're
that 1% with the rest of discipline.
Otherwise, like, yeah, if you don't like it, then it might not
be for you, but that doesn't mean the whole tech field is not
for you. Like that's why it's so varied
and wide. Yeah, I do see this kind of fear
with regards to AI that certain tasks are going to be automated
and software engineering is not going to be as big of a field as
it used to be. I think things will evolve and
things will stabilize and there will always be people needed
because in the end we communicate, we interact with
other people. I heard a colleague of mine
saying that a really good software engineers nowadays is
not even about technical anymore because there's so much
education, so people can self educate.
So if that's the baseline, then how do you differentiate
yourself? Yeah, it's about how you
interact with people, basically. Yeah, 100.
Percent. I truly believe that.
Yeah. And I think like, yeah, it's
interesting that he's looking at it as like a time thing.
I haven't thought of it that way, but I, I do think that's
something that's always surprised me is like this idea
that software engineers are like, you know, sitting in a
dungeon just like talking to a machine, right?
Like you have to be coding stuff for a machine to understand.
Sure, but that's sort of the easy part, right?
Like it has to compile and cool, but you have to be building
things that like other people can understand.
You have to be building things that make sense for, you know,
the actual organization and products and stuff like that.
So I, I've always thought that like, you know, there's always
this idea that like girls are interested in, in people and
boys are interested in things. And that's why like technical
jobs tend to have boys and, and non-technical jobs tends to have
girls. And first of all, I think that's
like nonsense in the sense that like there's so many technical
jobs that are super female dominated and then there's so
many like social jobs that are super male dominated.
I don't know, like you think of like sales, right?
Like is that technical? Like it's not a technical job or
I'm sure there's like some techniques to it, but you know
what I'm saying? Where is I going with this,
right? The idea that AI can like
replace your job, I think is, is fair in some aspects of, of our
jobs. But ultimately, like, you know,
a software engineer is not like a coding machine.
They're like someone who has to like talk to the PM and, and
figure out the requirements and then like build with their team
mates and make sure that it like doesn't repeat something that
someone else did like last week and things like that.
So, yeah, some, some parts of your job can be automated.
And the ones that can be, I think it's a good thing that
they are because it means that they're probably not taking up
that much like brain power. But other parts of of our jobs
are always going to be like things that require human being.
And even on that note, one thing about the AI debate that I've
always found interesting is that it's sort of we forget that like
human beings are making the AI like, you know, open the eye and
all of these companies, they have a bunch of people working
on those models, right? And that's also a job that is
like opening up because of this, this trend like jobs are
shifting, I guess. I, I think I agree.
One of the things that I mean is a trend that I've seen is, and
that it's also something that might be a sad reality is that
whatever you create as a software engineer maybe 1020
years ago was a lot more interesting by virtue of there
not being a lot of knowledge on how to do certain things.
And nowadays what businesses need is not the most latest and
greatest technology or not super innovative.
Like the majority of businesses need people that can execute.
And I feel like if you've reached a certain level of
seniority, you've executed so many times that if you don't
like the nuances of trying to figure out what the business
needs and what value is, and you really get energy out of, let's
say, the technical details, then at some point you're going to be
like, yeah, this is the same thing.
And I have to do that again. And I have to do that kind of
similarly in a different way. Maybe it's because I'm at a
consultancy, but a lot of people going from project to project
are like, man, this is the same thing.
And they either get energy out of, let's say, those business
conversations and figuring out what the right thing is to do,
getting people aboard and then executing very quickly because
that's what they're good at. Or they go to a company which is
like very niche, where innovation really matters and
where they can play around with technology.
Yeah. Or they do playing around with
technology and it's a misfit. But yeah, that's.
It's like why did you like Kubernetes cluster for like my
little Etsy website? That definitely exists.
Yeah. I, I was wondering since you've
gone through this boot camp and I have a lot of years with
regards to experience on your bill, where do you stand on
that? Do you get energy out of more of
the people aspect of like the depth of technology or does it
vary or where do you stand? I mean, I think both.
I, I think it's really important to me that I find like my
day-to-day job stimulating because genuinely it depresses
me to show a better job and feel like what I'm doing doesn't
matter. But at the same time, I think
like mattering is like SRE is always going to matter, right?
Like there's certain jobs where what you do everyday, you're
like solving issues because like some website is going down.
This service has like too much load, things like that.
Like what you're doing everyday for sure is going to matter.
I've ended up in situations where I knew my job didn't
matter because like business wise, it was not a business
critical position, right? Like it's like if, if the
business is going to experience down to it and they decide, oh,
we don't want to do so much AB testing anymore, your job is, is
gone. Whereas like they're never going
to be like we don't want our website to be up so much
anymore, right? So in that sense, I, I feel like
it's important for me to feel like my job matters.
But yeah, there's always a people aspect to it.
And I think that just never goes away.
But yeah, right now I'm I'm at one of those niche companies
that's solving a brand new problem that's very fun.
Yeah, Yeah, I always like, I think about joining a startup or
like a larger organization and learning from that.
I feel like time is limited and there's so many choices.
Like I always have kind of, I wouldn't say analysis paralysis
with regards to decision making, but it's it's close to that.
Yeah. Like I would love to experience
everything. Yeah.
The problem is I cannot. So I have to decide.
Yeah, yeah, it's tougher being limited by life.
Yeah, true. I was wondering because I I saw
your blogs and I saw I think in 2022, every month you decided to
to create a blog post. What led to that?
I think it was the fact that I was quite active on Twitter at
the time. And so I've always liked to to
write right. But I would see often people
sharing like problems that they're experiencing or even
things where they're just ranting.
They're not thinking of it as like a problem.
And obviously you don't want to be like a reply guy and just be
like, try this, you know, but, but it made me think a lot about
like, I, I do think I'm a very like strategic person and almost
a schemer because I, I think some things don't necessarily
come easily to me. And so I have to be intentional
about like how I do them. Like, for example, socializing
with a big group is not something that comes easily to
me. So it had to be something where
I was like, you know, how do I deal with this situation?
And I have like techniques that I apply, right?
Or like how to network at an event or things like that.
And and then I also came up with like a calendar that I later
realised is like, I didn't really come up with it because
human beings have been around for a long time.
But a 13 month calendar. And I thought it would be fun to
do like then 13 posts like one for one for every month.
I love that, yeah. What did you learn after like
those 13 months were over about yourself or about how you were
writing or what you were educating people on?
Great question, what did I learn?
I learned that vulnerability is rewarded.
Like people would reach out to me after certain posts that I
felt like, like, can't believe I'm writing about this.
Like, especially the ones that had to do with like, you know,
real struggles that I experienced.
Like, for example, this talking in a group thing.
It felt to me like, Oh my God, I sound like a, an alien who's
like trying to understand human behaviour and who's like, first
talk to this, you know, and, and yet those were the ones that
like really resonated with people and that I, yeah, I had
people respond to and like share tips sometimes and things that
they try. And it's like, yeah, I'm really
not like alone. A a lot of people have to be
intentional about learning like fairly basic skills.
Yeah. So I think I learned that
vulnerability is rewarded. Yeah.
I like that a lot. Like the fact that you realize
that you're not alone with regards to certain perspectives
or experiences or certain certain thoughts, I think can be
quite eye opening, right? And the only way to figure that
out is to be vocal about kind of how you're thinking or what your
perspective is for other people to resonate with.
I like that. And people are opening up more
and more. And I feel like the whole, yeah,
you should be bulletproof is like a very outdated thought
nowadays because people want to work with a human being.
They don't want to work with a machine, like, in the form of a
person. Basically, I was in a call and
it was new leadership, and they were trying to get people over
to transition to their team specifically.
And I was like, these people are like, I wouldn't want to work
with them. At some point, one person said,
like, there's not a lot of questions.
I can step out of the call if that helps.
Like I've I've heard that helps. And I'm like, that's like a
super red flag to me. Like the fact that you realize
that and you being there makes people not want to open up.
Like that's a bad thing. I don't understand how you can
say that from a leadership perspective.
That was just cold. And I was like, OK, like there's
a lot to gain there from transitioning, but in the end,
do I want to work with that person?
Like that's going to be a huge decision making factor, at least
for me. Right.
Yeah, Yeah, that's funny. I I heard that and I thought of
it as like a good thing in the sense that like, you know, as
much as I don't care about talking to leadership, some
people do feel a bit more nervous about that.
And I thought, I think it's like kind of cool that you're, you're
like, I don't care if you like talk shit about me as soon as I
leave you. I don't know if it was in that
aspect. Yeah, yeah.
It's an interesting perspective. No, but I see your perspective
as well though that like if you don't, if you haven't cultivated
that trust and you're aware of that, that's like a bit
concerning. For me, the like I've had really
good experience last year working in a, in a team like a
really good team. It's not often that I can say
this team is really good. It's resilient.
It has gone through like routines and certain conflict to
become a team. But I also feel that from
certain aspects for leadership or like when we're talking about
reorganizations, the fact that teams become teams all of a
sudden are just people on paper and they can be moved around.
And I think that's such a real shame.
Like it's, it's really hard to quantify.
I mean, I have experience working in such a theme.
It's really hard to quantify what that means.
And like tearing it apart and trying to set it up again is
going to take so much time. And I, I don't know if I was
aware of that, let's say, having not been working in a team like
that, but I feel like that's what some of the people that
make those decisions, that's their experience.
It's like, yeah, it's people. And we have new organizations,
so people shift and move, right? And that's really hard for me.
Yeah, yeah, I always find that to be an interesting yeah, a a
bad or it's a shame in the sense that like I think it's not
informed by by data. Like if if you're, you know,
maybe it's something that you think as a human being.
But if you do any sort of research or if you read like
leadership books or things like that, people will tell you that
like, you know, teams haven't been together for a while.
Is is in and of itself. It's an asset, right?
Like people are more than the sum of of their parts.
So, yeah, I often see like decisions that I'm like, you
know, from a, from a leadership perspective, that doesn't even
make sense. But I also do think that like a
lot of people who are put in leadership positions, weirdly,
they're not like doing management training and stuff
like that is often like optional.
You know, it's not like a job that's taken as as seriously as
I think it it should be. Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I could see how if you grow from a certain level of
expertise to a leadership position, that's how naturally
people like software engineers got into like engineering
management, even though it might not have been the best fit.
Like that could be lesser of an issue because they have the
experience necessary. But nowadays you also have
people that are like, OK, engineering management is a
different position, which I agree with.
You need certain level of technical expertise, but not the
same as let's say staff engineer, like in depth.
And then people come in without any sort of technical experience
or having not worked in a team like that and like
underestimating that. It's a trade off for me.
The people that experience it and that are really good at
that, they can do justice to that role, let's say.
But then they might not have the right skills or they might not
want to execute the same way. Like when I moved to product
management, what I really love it is kind of having those
critical dialogues with people and figuring out what the value
is, right? And what I really, really miss
is like the hands on fulfillment of delivering something that is
valuable. Like I don't have that.
I mean I have it on a different level but not the hands on part.
Yeah. So then, yeah, I feel like
people miss once they have experience of software
engineering, like it's simpler, some stuff it's just more black
and white for sure, yeah. For sure, for sure, for sure.
People are just complex. Yeah, no, definitely I've, I've
had a couple of managers encourage me to pursue
management, especially because like I, I like people and I, I
like to do sort of like glue work.
I think a part of that is just being a woman, to be honest.
But generally I think I I wouldn't be a terrible manager,
but just that has never tempted me because I'm just like, that's
problems that I don't want to deal with.
Have you tried it like more managerial aspects of the role?
Yeah, before my coding boot camp, I actually became a
manager, but I was only managing one person.
So it's not really. But I think, yeah, I actually
ended up doing like a manager training when when I was at
Disney because my manager was trying to.
Or actually it was more like, I found this manager training and
I sent it to him. I'm like, oh, that sounds cool.
And he was like, Oh yeah, we're going to get 10 spots and you
get 1. Cool.
So I ended up doing that and it just, yeah, confirmed to me that
as much as I think there's super interesting parts of it, like I
really enjoy mentorship. I really enjoy, like, onboarding
people. I even enjoy like,
organizational politics to an extent.
OK. I just, I want to like, have
immediate satisfaction that you get from coding.
Yeah. You know.
There's not a lot of roles that give you that.
Yeah, yeah, I fully agree. I I was also wondering since I
don't know, the landscape with Rosatech is very different than
three years ago. I remember having a conversation
with a person from the US, this is while I was still doing
remote episodes and they were a recruiter, had a recruiting
company. And I said times right now for
software engineers are really good because there's a lot of
jobs and people are looking for software engineers.
He said, I don't know when, but if times are opposite and
there's not a lot of roles, then it's going to be rough because
there's going to be a lot of people and not a lot of jobs.
I feel like that's what we are facing now, not just the
software engineers, but any person in tech, right?
You're already saying, oh, if I'm part of a company and if
tough decisions need to be made, I want to be in a position where
I'm I'm good, right? I'm solid.
If you're kind of high risk, high reward and people can
afford that from a company perspective, then yeah, that
part might get caught. I feel like people that are
managing or like this certain level of hierarchy that you
observed compared to kind of a flat hierarchy, I think that's
getting cut now as well when people are realizing, OK,
certain managerial aspects. Do we need a full time person
for this? And I don't know where I stand
on that. Like I, I do agree not all
managers are good leaders, but then some stuff doesn't need to
be managed, I feel like, but maybe not in as big of a
quantity. So then, yeah, I don't know
where I stand on that. I think flat hierarchies can
work really well when there's a really good level of maturity
within the people that you have. But I also believe in putting in
certain levels and checks and balances to have people that are
more early in career grow and grow really fast.
And right now I feel like we're only relying on what a stable
like experienced people and like flat hierarchy.
And that's rough for people that are starting out.
Yeah, definitely I, I definitely feel like I got in while the
going was good as far as like junior software engineers go, it
was still not simple. It took me like 6 months or
something after my boot camp to find a role.
And I, I wouldn't say that it was like, you know, there was
still a bit of like, oh, you're just a coding boot camp grad at
this point. But at least like there were
positions on the market. And as you said, that's not
necessarily so much the case now.
But yeah, it's, it's a complicated problem.
I on a personal level, I always had what, you know, some people
at times told me was like somewhat unjustified, like
anguish about, you know, especially if you come from I, I
came from like a non profit job where I was doing a whole lot of
work for maybe 1/3 of the money that I made as a software
engineer. And, and I was like, I don't, I
don't see how this is sustainable.
Like, I know there's a lot of money in tech right now, but
just the idea of like people coming in and not having any
experience in making like 6 figures, you know, it seems to
me like it's maybe a bit inflated, right?
And I think because I also came into this career, not because of
ideals or anything, but because like I wanted to make money and
save money. I'm, I'm pretty pragmatic about
again, like, does the business need me?
And if so, why? And I think that's like a shift
that is necessary for junior engineers as well.
I think the particular skills of junior engineers tend to be
along the same lines, right? Like especially if you're coming
from a coding boot camp that from what I've seen, the
curriculums haven't changed all that much.
And it's basically like, you know, you learn to make websites
if yeah, making websites is important.
But like there's a whole bunch of infrastructure stuff, data
stuff that doesn't get touched on that much.
And yeah, you're like, I think it's, it's tough to have a lot
of people coming in and doing the same job because, you know,
there's only so many openings. So I think it's more so about
like it or it's not more. So for sure we're going to wait
it out. We're going to see like what
happens in a few years. Hopefully tech money comes back
and VC money comes back. But on a junior engineer level,
I think it's kind of thinking about like what are the
positions that a company always needs and how do I get into
those positions? Yeah.
Do you think the, the educational journey nowadays is
still a, a big differentiating factor?
Because I feel like you have internships, you have boot
camps, you have traineeships which are kind of different.
You have traditional education and you have self education.
I feel like they all have kind of their place, but I, I don't
know what's like a a differentiating factor in those
educational paths or if it even matters.
Yeah, you tell me. Yeah.
I don't know. To be honest, I don't know.
I've always felt some type of way about not having CS degree.
And my first year as a software engineer, I ended up taking like
on on the side a university course in computer science.
And I just quickly realized like it was just not helpful.
Like it was just like, OK, this is stuff that I do everyday.
People around me are like studying to get my job.
So, you know, what's the sort of point?
And, and even this year is the first year that I kind of
accepted like, yeah, I basically don't get any value from doing a
computer science degree at at this point because I'm like
advanced enough in my career that, you know, the skills that
I would learn would be good background, but they wouldn't
necessarily help me in my in my job.
So only if it's like a prestige thing where like recruiters tend
to accept you more or whatever. But even then, my Co worker and
and mentor last week, I was telling him this and he
basically convinced me not to do it because he was like, OK, but
or now at the end of the day, like people get jobs through
their network and you're someone who everyone who's worked with
you. He told me that I started crying
after, but he's like everyone who has worked with you would
hire you again and would even make positions for you.
So you know, fair enough if you want to get a degree for
yourself, but just like getting a degree isn't necessarily how
you get a job. It's always been networking,
right? So if you're, if you're good and
people like you and people trust you and you have a good network,
then just keep building on that. Yeah, and that's not, I mean,
part of the hard skills is yes, because that's how you execute.
But your network and who you are and if people want to work with
you, I feel like you have a lot of control about that.
It's just getting the right people in the right room, having
a conversation with them. Like it's, it's, it is maybe a
bit more daunting like putting yourself out there.
But I think once you're in, you can be the best version of
yourself and people would want to work with you again.
Like even if you're not the best person to execute, if you're
eager, you're curious, you're flexible with regards to your
thinking. You don't think things as black
and white. And I think specifically you're
curious that people would want to work with you again, because
that's also how you learn and grow.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
Even if I think of like people that I've helped out and I've
mentored, you know, the ones that I there's some that like I
would help you at any point in your career, right.
That's great. Yeah, not even because like, I
think you're good at your job, obviously, but just because,
like, you're a great person to work with.
And yeah, I think that's a good thing to focus on also.
Awesome. Let's run it off here.
Yeah, I've really enjoyed this conversation.
Me too. I'm not sure that we even talked
about anything. At some point I was like, what
are we even? Did anything happen in this
conversation? It felt very natural is what I'm
trying to say. In a very insulting way.
I yeah, I wanted to touch on like transitioning into tech,
but there were a lot of things that were like top of mind and I
felt that I just wanted your perspective on it.
Yeah, I I was trying to hit back on those topics also, but I, I
hopefully did, yeah. Cool.
Then I'm going to round it off here.
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