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. If you're still here and if you like the episode, leave a like, let us know in the comment section what you thought of this episode and we'll see you in the next one.