Preparation

• Discuss logistics with other girls
• Book flights, hotels
• Search for interesting talks and speeches at GHC

Day 1

Talks with other girls

• The US work culture is much more grinding and hustling than the Canadian one
• Networking is the reason many offers are filled before you are given a chance to apply or interview
• Most jobs ARE referred
• Schoolmates, friends, fraternities, sororities, etc. send each other essay questions and job opening drops

Roblox @ The Franklin Institute

• Lots of free foods, drinks, and merch!
• Activities: networking, make your own perfume, photobooths
• Talks with recruiter:
  • Technical companies have more innovation than design or sales companies
  • Get referrals
  • Roblox OA is tricky but unique
• Talks with senior developer:
  • The environment of Silicon Valley is very different, but the people are the same

Day 2

Career Fair

Today was the first full day of the conference and I was super excited to attend the career fair and expo. It was a bit overwhelming at first, but I managed to work up the courage to talk to a couple of recruiters and employees of various companies.

Note: I attended the career fair everyday, but I found that the information became repetitive as companies only asked us to scan their QR code & told us similar things each time: "You should apply at our company because we do a lot of great things" and "we would love to hire more women and if you sign up to be in our exclusive cohort".

PwC

I talked to a consultant working at PwC Seattle and she said that consulting is a great in between for product management and software development. You do a little bit of everything! Super interesting and I would love to do an internship in a consulting role or eventually end up there in my career. One takeaway from this booth is that someone offered to refer me if I ever choose to apply to PwC.

Jane Street

There was a super cool puzzle at Jane Street in celebration of Grace Hopper. I received the best merch at Jane Street: playing cards, a hat, a T-shirt and a Rubix cube. There is also a 2-week program for women called INSIGHT that seemed interesting; Jane Street will invite passing candidates to experience working at Jane Street and give out interviews.

SpaceX

I asked about jobs at SpaceX, but it turns out I need to be a US-citizen to work there :(

Learning the Hard Way: True Stories of Resilience and Growth

• There is no answer key in life; make of it what you will
• Being good and knowing everything might be detrimental to your career
  • You cannot rely solely on expertise
  • Expertise makes you needed and traps you in your current job and position
• Focus on your career and job
  • Career is long term
  • Job is short term
• You can say no but take ownership of what you do
• Success does not equal being the best at everything
• Be kind to yourself
  • You don’t need to chase perfection
  • Manage your expectations
  • Ask for help
  • Make time for play & enjoy your life
• Determine what you want for your life and career
• Excellence is understanding your work in relation to others
• Learn how to take feedback
  • Helps you become constructive when you provide feedback as well
  • Be curious
  • You can learn something from everyone
• Set boundaries and schedule in what makes you happy
  • Choose what sparks joy in your life
  • Be intentional and true to yourself
• Keep your integrity
  • Determine what is your mic drop money: the money needed to leave a company whose values don’t align with yours
• Closing Remarks
  • “It will never get easier. What happens is you handle hard better.”
  • “Discover what matters to you and use your personal compass to guide and stay kind”
  • “Take your seat at the table. Claim it”
  • “You are in power”
  • “Give yourself grace”
  • “Take care of yourself & invest in yourself so you can be your best you”

Engineering Your Own Path: Redefining Success in the Tech Industry

• Impact in tech
  • Social impact
  • Solutions directly to the people
  • Reactivity
• Bad experiences are a learning opportunity
• If you have an idea, build it
• You don’t have to achieve a specific thing to be successful; it’s what you make of it
• Sit down & reflect from time to time

Unlock Your Career Success (ShowYourWorth.ai)

• Goal: increase the number of women in leadership
• Bring your whole self to your work FULL ON
  • Burnout is your responsibility
  • Burnout gets you passed for promotions
  • Speak up
• Together we [women] will be in the room where it [promotions] happens
• Intentionally define your success
  • Incremental < Transformational success
    • Aim for higher positions instead of settling for small raises
  • Autopilot < strategic & intentional
    • Be intentional and strategic with what you are doing
  • Succeed on your own terms
  • Aim high
  • Align with your core values
  • Constantly celebrate small successes to hold a success mindset
    • Be kind to yourself; don’t beat yourself up
• Be Essential to the Success of Your Organization
  • Intentionally create value in all your interactions
  • Overcome internal and external barriers
  • Use your power quotient: your response to empower yourself to a disempowering stimulus or situation
  • Lean into your authenticity
  • BE DIFFICULT TO REPLACE
  • Challenges are gifts for growth
    • Use them to propel yourself forward
    • Think of them as opportunities for transformational success
  • If barriers are internal, change your belief system
    • Get rid of negative stereotypes
    • Make the world a better place for the women behind you
  • Show your Worth!!
• Grow Your Competence and Confidence
  • Intentionally grow in every interaction
  • Step outside your comfort zone
  • Reflect on your experiences to build confidence based on competence
  • It is critical to do your best at your work but it’s equally important to do your best for what is next
  • Apply for roles that you are scared of doing
    • Ask for help
    • Ask your senior executives for help for complex issues that will unlock your value for your company
    • Reframe and redefine your success
    • There is no such thing as failure when you step out of your comfort zone and learn competences
  • Take a chance on yourself and test yourself
    • Stop and reflect when you figure it out
• Thrive in Personal and Professional lives
  • Make self care your highest priority
  • Allocate you to be your highest priority
  • Set boundaries and learn to say “NO” effectively
• Build Relationships that Will Support Your Success
  • Boss, peers, mentors, sponsors, etc.
  • Look for the right mentor that will help with transformational success
  • Earn your recommendation by showing up every single day
  • SHOW YOUR WORTH
• Become known as a leader
  • Know deeply that you have the capacity to lead
  • Clarify around what is required
  • Share your leadership ambition
  • Create an upward spiral to unlock your career potential
  • Converse with your boss to fill any gaps
    • Make your boss your provider
• Prevent burnout
  • Selfcare is #1
    • Physical, mental, etc.
  • Recharge yourself, take breaks, and re-engage yourself
  • Work-life balance is very important
• BRING YOUR FULL SELF FULL ON EVERY SINGLE DAY

7 Skills to Jumpstart Your Career

• Version Control
  • Branch: reference point in time
  • Clone: Create local repository from remote ones
• Contribute to Existing Code
  • Read documentation
  • Sometimes documentation is stale
• Building Code
  • Dependency management and control
• Software Debugging
  • Add debugger statements
  • Set breakpoints
• Scripting & Software Testing
  • Unit testing
  • Test driven development
  • Write test to develop code faster
• CI/CD
  • Continuous Integration and Delivery Deployment
• Linux & Containers
  • Deploy and build code in the same environment
  • Kubernetes
  • Docker
• Don’t get stuck, ask for help
  • 30 minutes of self help before asking for help
  • Rely on your team
• Make mistakes & Learn
• People don’t know everything, that’s normal

Day 3

• OA:
  • Read the tutorial
  • Remember what you did so you can reflect properly
  • Play the practice question
• Work environment
  • Good teams at Roblox and very friendly!
  • If you get an offer, you need to relocate but you will receive a $10,000 stipend

Methodical Debugging in Technology

• Component isolation
  • Go straight to problem spaces
• Be systematic with tests
  • Document tests: tests ran, condition, outcome
    • Helps with recalling test run
  • Allows for running slightly different test
  • Onboarding is quicker
  • Run informed tests
    • Read documentation
    • Trial & Error is slower

Get More Done: Building Influence Skills to Lead & Achieve

• Positional power
  • Granted by centrality and autonomy
  • Falls short as an exclusive lever
  • Currency of influence: positional power + credibility + expertise + relationships
    • Positional power is hard to change
• Credibility and expertise
  • Know your brand
    • Who you are and knowing what others think you are
  • Reflect, listen, & pitch your power
    • External & internal power
  • Self Awareness:

• Building expertise
• Address skill gaps
• Learn the deep smarts
• Grow through OPPIy (opportunity)
  • Observe, practice, partner, and take responsibility
  • Soft skills are important
• Self-Advocacy
  • Share your story (focus on facts)
    • People want notice (it’s not bragging)
    • Acts of service for community
  • Be a storyteller, share your work, and practice, practice, practice
    • Create a trusted network
    • Tap into your authentic story
    • Build your credibility and expertise
• Influence our evolving reality
  • Define your story before crises

• Relationships
  • 75% of an individual’s capital is their relationships
  • Be strategic
    • Power map to identify influences
    • Listen actively
    • Build coalitions and team up
    • Leverage your relationships
  • Network smartly
    • Choose your pack wisely
      • Include energizers and weed out de-energizers
      • Create bonds and bridges
      • Diversify and remove gaps
      • Think holistically
        • Develop beneficial relationships
        • Holistic network
          • peers, friends, mentors, sponsors, coaches, stakeholders
          • provides information & expertise, mentorship & sponsorship, well-being, and work-life balance
  • Give and take balance
    • Maintain reciprocity
    • Pay it forward
    • Think beyond tangibles
  • Influence in our evolving reality
    • Be proactive
    • Be holistic
    • Be intentional
    • Play the long game
• Conclusion
  • Positional power
    • Granted by the organisation’s hierarchy and centrality & autonomy of your role
    • Falls short as an exclusive lever of influence
  • Credibility and expertise
    • Build your brand
    • Build your expertise
    • Self-advocate
  • Relationships
    • Be strategic
    • Network smartly
    • Balance give and take
  • Influence is about motivating to do things they may not do on their own and effectively leading upward, downward, and sideways towards a common goal

Hacking the Coding Interview: Secret Strategies to Ace Your Next Interview

• The job search dilemma is why most people struggle
  • Interviews are hard
  • Lack of preparation
  • Gaps in knowledge
• Fixing the flywheel
  • Efficient preparation
    • Fill gaps to gain confidence
    • Hack the interview
    • Better performance
• Crack the code
  • [Personal Trainer] Take one week to review the book: Cracking the Coding Interview
  • [Gym] LeetCode & Practice Efficiently

Data structures

• Array, List, Set
• HashMap
• Graph, Tree
• Stack, Queue, Priority Queue
• Algorithms

Mock Interviews

• Interview simulation
  • Talk out loud: what? Why?
• Level up your soft skills
  • STAR method
    • Situation
    • Task
    • Action
    • Result
  • Work documents
  • Stories
  • Competences
  • Research

Cracking the Interview

• Structure
  • 5 minutes: understand the problem
    • read/ask predetermined questions & clarify assumptions
  • 10 minutes: solve
    • identify data structures
    • discuss multiple approaches with trade offs and justification
  • 15 minutes: implement
    • write clean and modular code
    • explain what and why at each line
  • 5 minutes: test: dry runs and debugging
    • Use good examples and test cases

Always remember

• You either win or learn
• Each failed interview and practice session takes you one step closer
• You only need to win once!

After Thoughts

Grace Hopper Celebration 2024 was super exciting, and I loved being surrounded with women in computing science and technology. I didn’t find the career fair very useful but, I learned a lot between networking, attending talks, and chatting with the fellow WiCS girls who attended with me. Thank you to WiCS and the Department of Computing Science for the opportunity to attend. I feel significantly more assured and confident as a woman in computing science 😊