Muse and Metrics S5 EP6 — Engineering Success with Sherry Yang [Guest Bio, Summary, Audio and Transcript]

Guest Bio

Sherry Yang, a dynamic Women Techmakers Ambassador with Google since 2016, currently excels as an Engineering Team Lead at Adaptavist. With over a decade of rich experience in the tech industry, Sherry has navigated through various roles, from applied research to startups, and now specializes in automation in word processing. Her expertise shines in engineering management, talent recruitment, project engagement, and digital advocacy.

As an Engineering Team Lead, Sherry guides a multi-million-dollar international software product, strategically steering its growth and success. Her journey includes leadership roles in multi-year government-funded research projects, where she consistently delivers innovative and impactful outcomes.

Sherry’s commitment to the tech industry transcends her professional responsibilities. She is an ardent advocate for advancing tech intersectionality and supporting movements like #BLM. Her passion for fostering inclusion and empowering underrepresented groups in tech is evident in her work, where she actively engages in teaching, coaching, and mentoring.

Internationally recognized as a global tech leader, Sherry has assembled dynamic teams from diverse backgrounds, managing a worldwide hiring process. This experience underlines her deep commitment to creating inclusive environments and promoting diversity in the tech sphere.

When not immersed in her tech endeavors, Sherry connects with nature, enjoying hikes in the Rockies and indulging in the tranquility of assembling puzzles over a cup of coffee. Her approach to life and work showcases her belief in the power of balance, creativity, and continuous learning. Sherry Yang’s story is one of relentless passion for technology, an unwavering commitment to inclusion, and an inspiring journey of leading change in the tech industry.

Summary

Key Highlights:

1. Sherry Yang’s Tech Leadership and Experience:

• Engineering Team Lead at Adaptavist.
• Over a decade of experience in the tech industry, spanning from applied research to startups.
• Specializes in automation in word processing, engineering management, talent recruitment, project engagement, and digital advocacy.

2. Role as a Women Techmakers Ambassador and Google Involvement:

• Active since 2016, initially joined for Google I/O access.
• Evolved focus towards empowering women and underrepresented groups in tech.
• Advocates for intersectionality in tech, supporting movements like #BLM and creating inclusive events.

3. Transition from Medical Aspirations to Tech:

• Aimed to become a surgeon but pivoted to tech after discovering a passion for coding.
• Shifted from university to a technical institute for focused software development education.

4. Growth and Adaptability in Tech Career:

• Transitioned career goals from traditional expectations to a tech-centric path.
• Emphasizes the importance of a growth mindset and adapting to changes in the tech industry.

5. Advocacy for Diversity and Inclusion in Tech:

• Focuses on creating inclusive spaces in tech, encouraging diverse participation.
• Stresses the importance of representation and being a role model.

6. Personal Life and Recreational Activities:

• Engages in nature hikes, puzzle solving, and enjoys quiet coffee moments.
• Strives for balance between professional life and personal mental restoration.

7. Leadership and Systems Thinking in Tech:

• Focuses on growing engineers, aligning personal goals with company objectives.
• Advocates systems thinking in leadership, emphasizing empathy and human connection.

8. AI, Technology, and Continuous Learning:

• Discusses the role of AI in our lives and the necessity to adapt alongside technological advancements.
• Encourages continuous learning and staying updated with tech evolutions.

Conclusion:

This episode with Sherry Yang on Muse and Metrics paints a detailed picture of her journey from an aspiring surgeon to a leading figure in tech. Her story is a powerful narrative of adaptability, continuous learning, and the importance of diversity and intersectionality in technology. As a Women Techmakers Ambassador, Sherry’s commitment to empowering underrepresented groups and advocating for inclusive environments in tech shines through, showcasing her as a transformative leader in the industry.

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Transcript

(This is a raw transcript — there may be errors)

00;00;06;00–00;00;18;17
Philippa Burgess
Hello and welcome to Muse and Metrics. This is your host Philippa Burgess. This is season five episode six. And today’s topic is engineering success.

00;00;18;20–00;01;06;11
Sherry Yang
Hello, everyone. I’m Sherry Yang. I’m a woman tech maker, ambassador with Google, and I’ve been a part of this program since 2016. My professional title is the Engineering Team lead at Adaptive UST. I have over decades of experience in the tech industry, working from applied research to startup to currently working in automation. In word processing terms of what I give to the tech industry is really my specialty in engineering management, talent, recruitment, project engagement, and digital advocacy.

00;01;06;13–00;01;33;00
Sherry Yang
When I’m not working in tech, I like to connect with the nature I like. I love hiking the Rockies as well as being able to having quiet time to bundle up and sit down and finish Thousands of pieces of puzzles with a nice cup of coffee.

00;01;33;02–00;01;51;07
Philippa Burgess
Those are all great things, so we’ll have lots to talk about. This is great. I. Let me start with the fact that the thing that among all those things, several things caught my attention. But I want to start with the seven years as a Google woman tech maker’s ambassador. So the program I would imagine, has evolved over seven years.

00;01;51;09–00;02;07;17
Philippa Burgess
What have you. What are you seeing? They’ll tell us that story about where you got it and where and how long the program perhaps existed before that. I don’t really know much of the history of the program and just what you’ve seen over the last seven years.

00;02;07;19–00;02;44;09
Sherry Yang
Yeah, the program woman tech maker, Woman tech Makers program evolved over the years, just like how I am as a person in my career evolved. In the beginning, I got into Woman Take Maker as a member because I want to participate in Google IO in person and Google I o we’re all very familiar with is pretty pricey. So as a member of a woman tech maker, you, you, you will be getting invited us at a discounted rate.

00;02;44;11–00;03;16;18
Sherry Yang
So that was like really like my in to try to get to Google IO in person in California in Mountain View. And I didn’t know that though like this will now become like it’s such a huge community that I heavily participate with. But over the years I changed my focus in striving to empower women in tech and only get involved in Woman in tech initiative.

00;03;16;20–00;03;53;16
Sherry Yang
And later, as I grow in my career and getting involved with other technologies and different different companies, different groups, if a leadership I realized is the intersectionality in tech that I want to focus in, we should share resources, we should share our environment together. So as a woman tech maker, Ambassador, I started to focus on getting involved with existing tech communities and empower empower the existing tech community with the focus of E!

00;03;53;19–00;04;30;07
Sherry Yang
And I understand what it is to encourage more underrepresented groups to participate, create events that is inclusive, to all those who don’t look like us and try to get them to participate. I believe, you know, showing up is the number one thing to show representation as well as becoming someone else’s role model. So that has been later on and most currently like my drive to to be an active woman tech maker.

00;04;30;07–00;04;32;13
Sherry Yang
Ambassador.

00;04;32;15–00;04;50;01
Philippa Burgess
That’s wonderful. That’s a and again, the program’s evolved. You’re involved in it. And let’s talk about your journey to becoming your Fullstack developer today. How did you get here? Because as I understand it, it was not, as you perceive it, a traditional path.

00;04;50;04–00;05;27;08
Sherry Yang
Yeah, I as someone with a Taiwanese background and an immigrant to Canada, I my parents, just like any immigrant parents would, they’re their their first ideas of success is to become a doctor or become a lawyer of that sort. And that that will, you know, expedite your success trajectory in in the North American space. And I got that.

00;05;27;08–00;05;54;25
Sherry Yang
And I, I understand that that was something that I wanted to do. So my goal coming out of high school is to actually become a surgeon. I was really involved in a lot of biology is I love chemistry as well. So I was like, maybe I’ll I’ll become a surgeon, I’ll get into sciences and I’ll just like, figure it out.

00;05;54;28–00;06;29;21
Sherry Yang
But obviously that has that didn’t play, that played out. And I got a chance to touch code in university and decided that I want to pivot my entire education journey to tech tech because I really enjoy being able to interact with the computer and seeing results happening with like this process. So instead of continue, my journey on was university.

00;06;29;21–00;06;45;22
Sherry Yang
I dropped out of university and decided to go into a technical institute and finish my two year diploma with a technical institute in software development. And from from there, the rest is history.

00;06;45;25–00;07;13;08
Philippa Burgess
You clearly had a growth mindset and tech evolves and we evolve. And looking at your GitHub, you say, Hey, and here’s all the things I’m learning. And then of course, you’ve got most of them already crossed out saying, I’ve accomplished this, this was this, and now I’m moving onto this next piece. I also had immigrant parents, but I think just being British, I, I didn’t get the you need to be a doctor or an engineer.

00;07;13;08–00;07;33;04
Philippa Burgess
My dad’s an engineer. So when I said I want to go to Hollywood, they said, sure, go for it. So I went to USC and now some 30 years later, I’m still at USC, but this time I am pursuing a master’s of science. And so it took me this long to come to owning my identity as a woman in tech and a woman in STEM.

00;07;33;06–00;08;01;24
Philippa Burgess
But I’m getting there and I really appreciate the foundations that my parents gave me in math because I feel like a lot of people I meet who don’t have an Asian or South-Asian background are very math afraid. And I feel that that is just something that we culturally amplify because our media is a reflection of our society, and our society then reflects our media.

00;08;01;27–00;08;27;19
Philippa Burgess
And if you’re good at math, you’re an outcast, you’re the nerd. You’re not it’s not the way to become popular. Apparently, I’m spending a lot of time with my mom now, I blurted out, Apparently is sometime in my childhood to my mom, and she’s now reminded me that she was making a salad and having some friends over. And I told her, Mom, salad is not how you make friends and so on.

00;08;27;21–00;08;56;12
Philippa Burgess
I was like, That’s how some of our North American and I speak to as an American culture is not very supportive of people learning math and sciences. And now the U.S. government has an initiative called You Belong in STEM, and about how do we make the sciences both attractive and inclusive because it’s two sides of that. One, when people are in math and sciences is someone who had gone on a creative path.

00;08;56;20–00;09;21;28
Philippa Burgess
I never felt included or saying, come here or learn this. It was saying, well, you’re not one of us. And you will never be. So go away. So that arts and sciences are so split and yet coming in with an art background and learning science, I’m seeing so much crossover. I see so much creativity is needed in tech, so much problem solving skills is needed in tech, so much vision is needed to tax.

00;09;21;28–00;09;29;06
Philippa Burgess
So much collaboration, so much iteration, which are all the things you need in arts and communications.

00;09;29;09–00;10;00;20
Sherry Yang
I think. I think the academic itself is also a little contradicting and it’s sort of speak on behalf of your like arts and science are splitting, because if you’re someone who’s getting a computer science degree, it’s actually not faculty of science, it’s not under a science degree, it’s actually under an arts degree. And then if you’re someone who’s completed a software engineering degree, that’s a that’s a that’s an engineering degree, which is kind of weird.

00;10;00;22–00;10;27;00
Sherry Yang
I don’t know the the the divide there and I don’t quite understand that the difference between how I could academics decided to split that arts and science. But I would like to say and some people uses the new face of steam to include arts as well. And I think it’s important that we’re all create to know that we’re all creative.

00;10;27;05–00;10;46;02
Sherry Yang
It’s really important to know that we’re all creative here because we’re creating a solution. We’re using our creative mind to come up with solutions, whether it is a piece of art or is it a piece of software solution. In my mind, we’re all creative.

00;10;46;04–00;11;10;04
Philippa Burgess
I agree with that and we’re all communicators. I notice that the reason that I did as well as I did, even though I just put it in academic grade terms, I did my master’s in urban planning. It’s master’s of Arts. Straight is my lowest grade, was actually in my economics class, was an A-minus. And I that was really sort of my first time retouching math.

00;11;10;09–00;11;37;24
Philippa Burgess
And once my client got it, I was like, yes, okay, this is interesting. And I’m it just took me a little longer to get up to speed with it where as everything else was, research, writing, papers, presentations, super easy for me to to deliver. And then when I started my gist, which is geographic information, science and technology, I was completely overwhelmed with just the concepts of science.

00;11;37;24–00;12;02;00
Philippa Burgess
How you presented the science scope of focus and the methodology, the results, the discussion. And once I kind of got the template of what it was and what they were looking for and what datasets we were using and really understanding that science was meant to be replicable, that people can build off of what you’ve experimented with and that they should be able to repeat it, get the same results.

00;12;02;02–00;12;21;15
Philippa Burgess
But ultimately, if they look at your discussion notes, they can see what limitations you were up against and perhaps even do the experiment better next time because they took what you learned from this so they can evolve it. I put in the same amount of effort. So grades sometimes I think people perceive like, if you’ve got a low grade, you just didn’t put in the effort.

00;12;21;15–00;12;40;24
Philippa Burgess
I put in the same amount of effort and it went from B minus B plus B plus. And finally I finished out with an A in the four courses that are part of the certificate. And I only saved my grade because if I had to write a paper, I was getting an A on that paper. If I had to take it exam I was getting, I just don’t know how to study for science yet.

00;12;40;24–00;12;59;21
Philippa Burgess
I just I’m finally figuring it out. But it took me a while. And so I don’t think sometimes bad grades are a good way to say, get out of here. You know, it was I had to figure it out. It just took me a little longer to get there. I want to learn school. I just took a sequel class.

00;12;59;24–00;13;30;11
Philippa Burgess
My brain needs to now go and practice like the 1f1 and F two and F three enough. Like how do you clean and how do you sort out and make it logical? I don’t naturally go there, but I’ll get there if I give it enough time and focused attention. And so I think that it’s just I think also people who have a natural inclination to science, how to think that way about writing and presenting and communicating just takes them a little longer to get there just because they’re not naturally going to get the aid doesn’t mean they shouldn’t do it.

00;13;30;14–00;13;42;05
Philippa Burgess
And so I think we need to find ways to also be supportive about that. It’s okay to struggle with things. It’s okay to take a little longer to get there.

00;13;42;08–00;14;21;13
Sherry Yang
Yeah, I think engineering in general for people is intimidating or they would you often get the comment, you have to be so smart to get into it. I’m like, No, it’s the reason why is into engineering is to intimidate writing is because for us it’s a black box. We don’t know what’s inside, but once you get into it, you started to dismantle this black box into I’m into understanding the system, how the system works, how every single line of code works, or even just like understanding the processes.

00;14;21;16–00;15;04;24
Sherry Yang
You you’re just like, this is so easy. Once that idea of the system clicks in your brain, it it makes sense. And I’m pretty sure it will maybe be this thing for me if I decide to take on like oil paint and understand color theory and understand paint strokes and how how texture works on a canvas, that might click for me, but I think it’s for me to see a monet is like, how you know, how does someone do that is also like something that I’m just like, there’s no way I can achieve that.

00;15;04;24–00;15;18;04
Sherry Yang
But if I actually put brushes on canvas with paint, I might be able to, you know, maybe not the Monet level, but like paint something that is interesting.

00;15;18;06–00;15;40;05
Philippa Burgess
Well, you bring up a point that I want to sort of address, which is there was a point where we went from playing live music to recording music. And when people played live music, it didn’t have to be perfect or is good. When we listen to a recording that’s recorded, it’s the best that it can be. It’s as remastered, it’s mixed, it’s produced.

00;15;40;07–00;16;04;18
Philippa Burgess
So all of us have stopped playing musical instruments because we think we can’t be that good as what we hear on that recording. So we don’t even try and it for mental health. Well, my my stepmother works in mental health and what they do is they play games, they do art, they do dancing, they do talk therapy. All of those things are so incredibly valuable for our mental health.

00;16;04;18–00;16;41;16
Philippa Burgess
You talked about nature puzzles. Those are the ways that we restore ourselves. We put ourselves back together again. They’re part of our healing. And when you have healing, then you have self-expression. You have courage, you have engagement, and we need mental health. So I think when people say, well, we don’t need the arts because they’re extraneous, it’s like, no, the arts are actually how we interpret the world, how we process things, how we make peace with things, how we learn to grow and evolve and grieve and celebrate and that that person picked that particular moment.

00;16;41;16–00;17;03;01
Philippa Burgess
I think that’s one of the hardest things in art, is to commit. You’ve got a blank canvas, what am I going to commit on this page? And then the actual art of the brushstrokes and which colors and the technique, you just you do learn over time. I’m evolving the podcast with yes, it took me a while to get there.

00;17;03;01–00;17;26;08
Philippa Burgess
I decided to start where I started. I will learn to get better as a host. I will learn to get better as an editor. And now I’m moving into video and I was spinning for a while thinking, Where do I start? And actually my interest in video and audio and podcasts in in the pandemic. I wanted to say something and I didn’t know how to say it.

00;17;26;08–00;17;46;05
Philippa Burgess
I didn’t know where I wanted to say it. I didn’t know who I wanted to say it to. And I happened to meet a woman and she runs 360 talk radio for women. And she said, Hey, I’m just launching this channel. I need hosts. And I raised my hand and I said, Tell me more. I’m totally interested because I knew I wanted to say something.

00;17;46;07–00;18;14;26
Philippa Burgess
And she said, One hour audio for women, Women empowerment go. And having a So in some ways, the constraints help art because you you get clear of what am I doing? I think when you have all the possibilities, it spins out. And so when an artist finally figures out I’m painting this model or I’m painting these flowers, it it comes it’s easier.

00;18;14;28–00;18;40;19
Philippa Burgess
But we also have to be comfortable being not great at something that it’s okay to paint a bad picture. It’s okay to make music. And same that speaking foreign languages. It’s okay to fumble through it and not to expect perfection from ourselves. And I think the same thing in coding when you begin just being comfortable beginning and then and being okay, getting stuck.

00;18;40;21–00;19;08;21
Sherry Yang
Yeah, it’s like especially with language learners, I have a real close friend who is a language teacher. I have a language teacher who is polyglot. And so the first thing he always, in terms of tips he always give out is don’t be afraid to try and talk in this new language that you’re learning. You are not going to be perfect the first time.

00;19;08;24–00;19;31;17
Sherry Yang
And the only way you’ll learn and you what you get better is to keep going at it. Like say it, like communicate, use it. And that is like the same thing with everything you can get better if you don’t try or if you don’t do it. That’s that’s just like anything in life, I guess.

00;19;31;19–00;20;02;05
Philippa Burgess
Yeah, it’s just putting the time in. I was recently just sort of spinning in, wanting to kind of do more on YouTube, and then I realized that my computer had rebelled and was like, I’m not editing anymore. You’ve maxed me out. And I look longingly at new computers and I’m like, No, I’m not. My editing skills aren’t really as good right now to sort of justify why would I be or want a new computer just to run Premiere Pro I, I’m moderate at it.

00;20;02;05–00;20;22;28
Philippa Burgess
I would need a lot more time in. But then I said, Well, let’s go with the constraints. Let’s go with what we have. And what we what I have right now is the ability to go live, the ability I use Canva. I can make a really good looking thumbnail. I have tons of ideas. And so I said, So actually yesterday I actually decided I was like, okay, make some thumbnails, go live and make it really short.

00;20;22;28–00;20;42;27
Philippa Burgess
Say what I have to say. It’s not fancy and it doesn’t need to be. If I find the audience, if what I have to say resonates, if I can get the momentum, get my own discipline, and then over time it makes sense to make an investment because I’m already proving progress. I’ll make that investment, but sometimes it does.

00;20;42;27–00;21;07;25
Philippa Burgess
You start with exactly what you have in front of you and and go with imperfection. Because the nice thing about virality is if it’s awful, nobody will see it. And if it’s good, it will find momentum. And also maybe some of my messaging is meant to be useful. So one of the videos I made yesterday was about a scholarship program, so I’m finding little ways to create content.

00;21;07;27–00;21;42;02
Sherry Yang
I was drawing. And maybe this is like my, my, how my brain works. But when you were talking about small increments and how how we evolve over time through practice, it drive like it makes me think about, you know, in the tech world we, we talk about the Agile methodology is exactly that. It’s like incremental incremental changes and improvements over time and that’s how successful company evolve.

00;21;42;05–00;22;22;02
Sherry Yang
It’s and successful products present themselves is being able to release when the the MVP is ready release increments and feature based because they listen to customer and they iterate themselves into improvements into successful products. And if you if you see how Google works with their products, same thing they go all strong because they have the MVP and then they cut it like no one’s business because they no longer see traction or there is no way to grow.

00;22;22;04–00;22;59;13
Sherry Yang
So and you sometimes just need you to find this in yourself to make sure you’re not being bottlenecked by perfection and and you’re ready to just, like, show the world what you’ve got. And that. And I think like part of that is is really aligned with one another in in solution in just systems thinking and and I appreciate the fact that we’re talking about these like small things that will get us to, you know, the end goal or the bigger picture.

00;22;59;16–00;23;31;24
Philippa Burgess
Yes. And I’m playing with language learning because language learning also intersects with the intelligence community. And that’s the intersection that I see myself working in the intelligence community and the tech community. And so we talk about machine learning is part of that. So actually, that’s one of my I I’ve been spending time thinking about these micro channels of where do I take all my interest and then put them in different buckets because that was another tip they said to sort of niche out a little bit as opposed to just taking one channel and kind of throwing everything on it and one of the channels is actually called you and I.

00;23;31;27–00;24;02;20
Philippa Burgess
So looking at and part of it is I’m my own audience for this because there are things I want to research, there are things I want to know. So for example, within the scholarship, it’s supported by 17 government agencies and they just have a logo. And I don’t even know who all those agencies are. So I was like, Ooh, I want to make a video about that so I can better understand who all those agencies are and who is all the who are all the players that define the intelligence community or geo and and then I think same thing learning this just technology journey.

00;24;02;22–00;24;29;23
Philippa Burgess
A big part of it was just understanding the platforms that I needed to learn, understanding the path forward. there’s this, there’s this, there’s this is how these things connect. So even without doing the deep dive into knowing the programing, it was understanding what are all the programing languages and what are they used for and what are all just how, how the whole ecosystem works together.

00;24;29;26–00;24;44;05
Philippa Burgess
And then this kind of leads me into the conversation of leadership, because you do a lot with engineering leadership and leadership has a lot to do with seeing the big picture and how all of these things fit together and then going in and kind of optimizing.

00;24;44;07–00;25;17;23
Sherry Yang
Yeah, Most recently I learned this phrase systems thinking, and I’m like, that’s what I have been doing all along is thinking about the bigger picture. But if you ever looked up systems thinking, you will understand what I’m saying, it’s it’s being able to adapt to like, I think like my history of working with different companies in different industry, different teams allows me to see that bigger picture.

00;25;17;26–00;26;06;22
Sherry Yang
My professional goals right now is really to grow engineers to their full capacity to make to deliver a successful product. That’s really what I want to do for my current role, and that allows me to see, see this like human connection one on one, understand each engineer’s needs and then align their person like their professional goals with the product goal, with the company goals, and then show showcase the options on what what can potentially be their path and then get them to agree on it and keep going.

00;26;06;25–00;26;38;08
Sherry Yang
Understand and being able to showcase that piece like do you know that, hey, this can aligns with our current initiative and you should work on this as part of your goal and then, you know, this will help you grow as professionally as well. So that’s something that I like really focus on when it comes to like keep the engineer motivation going as well as like understand each other’s needs and still align with company goals.

00;26;38;11–00;27;14;26
Sherry Yang
That’s a huge things that I don’t see a lot of leadership do. I don’t. I understand the traditional leadership where you introduce framework exist, like to, to to get a process going for structure, but then at the same time as managers, you often forget that it’s the people that you’re managing and people requires a lot of empathy, requires a lot of human connection and trust.

00;27;14;29–00;27;50;15
Sherry Yang
And that is probably the toughest part that often engineering managers can not take on because they have such heavy technical background that they forget that it’s the people that they’re managing, not the system, not the CO, not anything else. And I come from a perspective because from from this unique perspective, because I just want I want this kind of management for myself.

00;27;50;18–00;28;24;21
Sherry Yang
So I am trying to showcase that to my team to make sure that they are also getting that that support and have motivation to keep going because there are more interesting things out there than what we currently do and it can quickly attract them. The there is no more 3030 year career journeys anymore nowadays. Unfortunately, that’s just the reality.

00;28;24;23–00;29;00;27
Sherry Yang
And I like this like newer generation that’s coming in that has, you know, wears their feelings on their sleeve. And we’re very open about like talking about just you. You mentioned before, like mental health. We’re very open about how we feel personally and, you know, share with your colleague on how your environmental change can affect your work. And that’s that’s important to discuss now, especially nowadays.

00;29;00;27–00;29;19;06
Sherry Yang
So as a as someone who’s in a leadership role, that’s what I try to put in for my engineer is it’s like I’m I’m not only thinking about the technical goals here, I’m also thinking about personal goals. And I care about everyone that I manage.

00;29;19;09–00;29;41;20
Philippa Burgess
That’s huge. I worked for a hypergrowth startup for a while that had some growing pains and I saw a lot of things that they were trying to do right, And I saw a lot of things that just went very wrong. And I think that in they say in many, many management books about how people will stay for their manager, they will also leave because of their manager.

00;29;41;22–00;29;46;07
Philippa Burgess
So I think that sometimes, like management is also in those details.

00;29;46;10–00;30;19;21
Sherry Yang
Yeah, sometimes. And there can be like very unclear side when it comes or even on their side of like promotions and pay raises or even just like employee benefits. And those are some, some companies are very transparent about that, some companies are not. I would encourage people to really get it on paper if you are having a conversation with either h.r.

00;30;19;21–00;31;07;01
Sherry Yang
Or either your manager and you are talking about future plans, that is going to be part of your career package, you should definitely get it on paper because there’s this verbal agreement never really stick. So we need to make sure that that is being written down. And you mentioned before on like, on like not prepared the manager being put in to manager roles and not being able to like not being able to take on that role completely because lack of training, a lot of software developers out there think that their only career path is management like that is the ultimate goal.

00;31;07;04–00;31;34;16
Sherry Yang
That is not true. There are a lot of technical roles and senior and beyond roles that that allows you to be technical focused, but showcase leadership and your leadership style is not people management. Your leadership. Your leadership style is based on technical influence and that is key of your growth as well.

00;31;34;18–00;31;57;22
Philippa Burgess
I just finished a leadership class where we identified four different types of leadership and I feel like a lot of the woman talk maker ambassadors I speak to all come into the program with two of those types of leadership pretty well defined and are using in their in their work in their life. And that strategic leadership and operational leadership.

00;31;57;24–00;32;08;22
Philippa Burgess
And I think where I’m seeing the growth for many of the technical ambassadors is in thought leadership and in bridge building leadership.

00;32;08;24–00;32;50;04
Sherry Yang
I agree are there is definitely a different touch for women taking in leadership. I, I, I don’t want to say that we’re different pieces of I just want I do want to emphasize the things that we care for is is very different from traditional management and that’s why diversity is important. Having different kind of leadership is important because the traditional leadership was great but no longer work.

00;32;50;06–00;33;23;28
Sherry Yang
Nowadays. I was talking about how my leadership style is different than traditional leadership, mainly because there is a lot of like business sort of based business management coming down because at the end of the day we are working for a company that is making money. So there’s always that big business management leadership coming down where it will influence the decision being made.

00;33;24;00–00;33;54;13
Sherry Yang
As for all of our developers, because we are the doers and we’re the one who creates so essentially that traditional or old school way of doing will eventually have to come in contact with newer trends and newer workforce, newer culture. And I think we’re in that evolution for sure.

00;33;54;16–00;34;21;00
Philippa Burgess
I can definitely see that evolution. And I think just thinking back, I mean, Hurricane Alley right now in Southern California, this hurricane hasn’t come to this part of the world in 84 years. So let’s just think about how much the world has changed in 84 years. My mom’s 85, and in her lifetime, things have changed significantly in terms of the role of women.

00;34;21;00–00;34;57;22
Philippa Burgess
Women in the home, women in the workforce, and and just the cost of housing and the cost of housing plays into this because you used to have one person could manage a family and the other person could their income could pay for the things, and then the other person managed the house and that was the social structure. And then as women went into the workforce, it just became that now you require two incomes and then you have to think about the commuting distance and the commuting time and the house you can afford relative to two jobs and their locations.

00;34;57;25–00;35;17;06
Philippa Burgess
And now we’re all sort of wanting to say, well, we want to be more environmentally friendly, where every hour you spend in the car is not environmentally friendly. And so how do you manage all of that? I really believe there was a trend and that we saw in I want to say that really started perhaps in the nineties.

00;35;17;06–00;35;42;05
Philippa Burgess
I really felt like I saw this a lot through the last 20 years, is that women in a lot of cases decided that being divorced and having their kids every other week was what solved the problem because they’re like, I can work and have my, my week where I focus on work and then I can have my kids and I just and my husband just would not step up when we were married.

00;35;42;07–00;35;48;20
Philippa Burgess
And because of this, on again, off again, now he’s sort of forced to step up.

00;35;48;23–00;36;21;09
Sherry Yang
That’s a very interesting perspective. As a single woman with no children, I think I definitely would take that as a different perspective. I don’t know. I can’t say that I know or understand, but where you mentioned like where the social structure becomes double income, have to figure out the geography of where you work and also be mindful of the environment.

00;36;21;16–00;37;10;13
Sherry Yang
It’s a lot for us to take on right now. Absolutely. Like what? What defines as a family is very different now compared to 80 years 80 years ago. Our our, our, our our demand is different and. Being like having work from home as an option nowadays is especially for the tech industry. It’s a boost in how we can share our roles and having all these gadgets to help our, I’m going to say, home maintenance is also a great way for us to to do more things when it comes to having more income or be part of this gig economy sake.

00;37;10;14–00;38;05;23
Sherry Yang
Yeah, same thing. I think like just the time and the environment and the technology is changing the way we live and we we need to be part of that process to grow, to reflect back to our education system. It’s actually lagging. Our education system is not evolving fast enough for what we’re facing right now. I was talking to someone who has, again, their parents, their parent themself, and for for them to to to say like, it’s so it was fascinating to watch their child attempt to use the flip gesture on the on a book is just like a very it’s it’s sort of sort of like weird because what their what their children are

00;38;05;26–00;38;39;00
Sherry Yang
are used to is this digital interaction. But when they face a physical book, they don’t know how to flip it for real. And that’s that’s just a that’s a challenge where where our where our education needs to to really speed up on this process of technology emerge and into our our daily world and trying to make sure that we are also educating the process and uplifting everybody is part of this process.

00;38;39;03–00;39;02;01
Philippa Burgess
And when you talk about the intersection of physical books, digital books, I feel I’m Gen X, so I am totally analog and digital, so I learn cursive and I learned handwriting and I constantly hand journal and yet I type and my mom raised me to be a secretary. I was raised, I am in a fabulous administrator. Like that is just the job that I just do naturally.

00;39;02;01–00;39;19;23
Philippa Burgess
That was the job that I was raised to do. And I was when I said I was at the start up. And I wore a lot of hats, I would have guys who had many more advanced degrees than I had at that time come to me and say, could you type this up for me? Because they typed with two fingers because nobody taught them to type.

00;39;19;26–00;39;41;09
Philippa Burgess
And yet I type like the wind because that’s I was taught I was raised by a mom who’s 85, who, you know, knew that I wasn’t that inclined to nursing. And so she figured, well, secretarial is your next best option. And I guess educator and teacher would be number three. But really, at the time that she grew up, that’s what women did.

00;39;41;16–00;39;49;20
Philippa Burgess
Those were those were your options. You’re going to be a nurse. You were going to be a secretary, or you were going to be a schoolteacher.

00;39;49;22–00;40;24;18
Sherry Yang
My parents influence in me is very interesting. Now, I didn’t come from a traditional background for for the for the role that I’m in. But my parents also didn’t have the traditional background of someone who has a daughter who’s in engineering management. My my mom is a homemaker. My dad is the mechanic. And for them, growing up as immigration dream for me to become a doctor, but then at the same time, they didn’t stop me from what I was doing or exploring new things.

00;40;24;20–00;40;53;13
Sherry Yang
They exposed me to various things from like piano lessons to Chinese calligraphy to even like, you know, math, heavy, heavy math. And to to my dad, you know, in front of his, like, broken engine at us with the scooter. And he’s just like, Come check out how I make this engine work. You know, like, they didn’t really stop me from learning or exploring.

00;40;53;13–00;41;41;12
Sherry Yang
And I think that’s really that’s a huge influence in our in how we become the person we are today. So in terms of like this gender gap that we have in the tech industry is influencing your children to be whatever they can be. I think to to relate to the pop culture now with how far Barbie is breaking this like gender box and Barbie slogan is you can be whatever you want is is a huge deal because when we are put into a certain box or trying to become be assigned to a certain role in women, it limits your capability.

00;41;41;12–00;42;09;22
Sherry Yang
And you’re just told to be. And that is that is a huge, huge part. Why the reason why we are here that there is there’s the gender gap and and that we need to recover or we need to improve. Is all of this capability or tell your the future generation that they can be whatever it is that they see themselves to be.

00;42;09;25–00;42;45;15
Philippa Burgess
Yes. And that also whatever we be can evolve over time. Because just because I was not necessarily encouraged or educated in the math or science when I went on to college, I that was just not part of my college education. And now that I’m going for the science degree, it’s still not technically part of the education, but everybody around me within the program is saying it’s really helpful to know statistics and calculus and linear algebra, especially if you’re going into AI and machine learning and all the things that I want to do.

00;42;45;15–00;43;10;08
Philippa Burgess
So there’s Khan Academy, there’s other places where I can lean in and learn these things that now I’m very interested in learning. And just because I didn’t learn them at 20 or 30 or 40, I’m now 48. I, I but I’m it’s there and I’m my curiosity and we’re all living longer. I absolutely, God willing, expect to live till at least 98.

00;43;10;08–00;43;47;15
Philippa Burgess
So I, I look at it like, hey, I got another 50 years and I want to know that I can contribute to society in that time. And then I am sure that 20 years from now there’ll be another pivot and another way that I’ll have to reskill. I saw that in 2012 when I moved to Colorado. There were a lot of middle aged boomer women who had very stable jobs, typically in the real estate property management industry as an example, and they were mad about social media, they were mad about digital marketing, and they felt so on the back foot, they didn’t understand what it was, how it worked.

00;43;47;15–00;44;07;02
Philippa Burgess
Yet it had come into their workplace and and gave them this sense of destabilization. And over the last 20 years, we’ve seen that that everybody has had to become digitally literate. And now where we are now and it’s coming out as very quickly is all of us need to become data literate, even if we’re not coding and programing.

00;44;07;09–00;44;28;08
Philippa Burgess
AI is in our lives and it’s coming at us. If you just even open a Google window and do a Google search, you’ve got AI in front of you. But AI is making decisions about your finances and what you’re approved for and the legal system and countless ways that all of these things are coming into our lives.

00;44;28;10–00;45;01;29
Sherry Yang
It’s really important to know that we cannot stop technology from improving. We just can’t. I think there was also an era about robotics when manufacturing becomes robotics that robotics take over human labor. I think there is no like there’s absolutely no stopping that. And same thing with AI. There’s absolutely no stopping that for me from getting into our our workplace.

00;45;02;02–00;45;59;12
Sherry Yang
And we need to understand, we need to take time to understand why it’s being introduced. It’s always efficiency when it comes to process, right? So if you think and developers nowadays might think that their job will be taken away by AI because they can code now, but that’s not true. You had to envision yourself as a person and really understand what the purpose of a code generator and then getting to know how it’s learning and how it’s coding and then understand how you can be effective as an as a programmer, as a solution creator, as a problem solver, then you will find yourself very useful in this case, because AI is a AI is still

00;45;59;12–00;46;27;06
Sherry Yang
controlled by data and the knowledge that it knows. But you as a human, we as humans we are more dynamic, have multi angle AI looking at problems than what a computer code could could do. So we need to we need to like get to get to that side of the spectrum to really understand that technology’s not here to take over the world.

00;46;27;07–00;46;49;21
Sherry Yang
It’s here to help us and we need to have this like positive aspect to it to, to to see how can we make ourselves useful to, to make sure that we can work alongside these technology and and become part of the that trend. Essentially.

00;46;49;23–00;47;30;12
Philippa Burgess
There’s I agree with all of that. There’s a great book called Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O’Neil. And math being imitates destruction. She talks about how a lot of companies still kind of put AI in a proprietary black box and that it’s important for us as society to speak up and speak out. Where is AI creating bias or inequities that there needs to be a reporting system that if you’re seeing a problem that it’s causing in your life or your community, that there’s a way to speak up about it and to say, hey, we can do better.

00;47;30;14–00;48;05;06
Philippa Burgess
And in all of these things, it’s super simple things. I use an AI generator for my transcripts and it understands if you have a very clear North American accent, but if you don’t, it does not understand you yet. And there’s bias in that. So we need to train our models not just on North American accents, but on different accents and different languages and different things so that we’re not creating more division in the world, but we’re can create more opportunity.

00;48;05;06–00;48;31;27
Philippa Burgess
And and that’s where I think the whole conversations about DEI are incredibly important and that making sure that people are aware of how AI is being deployed in our society so they can because a lot of times the technologists they feel always come out this from possibility, potential growth and they miss how it can be subverted and used in ways that they hadn’t considered.

00;48;31;27–00;48;55;23
Philippa Burgess
If you go back to Facebook, Facebook had English moderators. It wasn’t moderating in all the different languages. And you had a coup in Myanmar that was completely orchestrated on Facebook because there were no moderators. That conversation would never have been allowed to happen if it wasn’t happening in English. But they didn’t think that they needed to manage it in different places in the world.

00;48;55;25–00;49;03;20
Philippa Burgess
And so I think that we also, again in society, need to be the guardrails.

00;49;03;22–00;49;35;07
Sherry Yang
Yeah, when we create a new piece of technology, we need to we need to think about who are using who, who are the people who are using it. And it’s very likely that we are not the person, we are not the the role model or the perfect example, because there’s your there is a there’s a slogan that I used to make my students say when I used to teach is that we are not our users, I am not our user.

00;49;35;07–00;50;01;00
Sherry Yang
We I ask them to repeat, I am not my user because there is this aspect of the piece of doesn’t matter what it is that you create. It’s always going to be presented to someone else. And these those people will never really use the software or technology or the solution that you created, the way you intended to be used.

00;50;01;03–00;50;41;00
Sherry Yang
Right? Because they they just have this like very creative way of using it. But and it’s not their fault because they, they, they, they use it however they see it and everyone’s perception is different. So we need to we need to employ people with different aspect of of background or different knowledge base. If just just there’s an there’s there’s a lot of there’s a lot of benefit when it comes to having an AI on board.

00;50;41;00–00;50;44;14
Sherry Yang
What’s your solution making process?

00;50;44;17–00;50;48;06
Philippa Burgess
You reminded me when you said that of Tide pods.

00;50;48;08–00;50;50;01
Sherry Yang
Yeah.

00;50;50;04–00;51;11;08
Philippa Burgess
Nobody at Tide ever thought, okay, the kids are going to go with this trend and it’s going to be dangerous. And it we that was not the intended use. So as again, a society we have to put up guardrails because there’s just unimaginable that people will use things that are just not as directed.

00;51;11;11–00;51;13;29
Sherry Yang
Exactly. Yeah.

00;51;14;01–00;51;46;10
Philippa Burgess
And I was doing some tech talk for a while in support of Ukraine, and I’d kind of stopped in the fact that I kept getting in fights with Tok because I would see videos that are monitored and managed by the Russian Tech talk team and they have completely different standards than the North American tech talk team. And so when I was looking at it going, well, they’re allowed to post things that show people in military uniform, or if I saw many things that just they just hold different stand outs.

00;51;46;12–00;52;02;22
Philippa Burgess
And I just got to the point where I decided that I wasn’t going to fight with them anymore. And I might add, my energy was better somewhere else. But, you know, just even in community, moderation has different standards.

00;52;02;25–00;52;55;01
Sherry Yang
Yeah. And I find that is really interesting with community, community moderation to every if you’re part of the open source community, you know, every GitHub repository has their own culture, has their own approval process, and yes, it is important to understand them and to abide by them. So yeah, I think like a code of conduct is really important when you’re building a community and that’s where that’s where you pretty much share the manual or the guardrail that you mentioned that that you want people to abide by because there’s just so many different ways that people will behave that is not okay when it comes to sharing a safe space.

00;52;55;03–00;53;16;01
Philippa Burgess
Yeah. And so actually, that leads me to let’s bring this back to women talk makers, Ambassador and the I Am remarkable program because a lot of putting up guardrails is learning how to speak up, learning how to say, hey, something’s wrong. Hey, I need to advocate for myself or my community. Hey, I see something that could be improved here.

00;53;16;03–00;53;32;15
Philippa Burgess
And I just signed up for the arm. I am remarkable programs haven’t done it yet, and I know that you’re also a facilitator on that. So tell me how that is something that kind of helps people have that voice.

00;53;32;18–00;54;25;19
Sherry Yang
Yes. So I am remarkable is intended to to challenge the perspective of self-promotion, as well as teaching and coaching people who are having difficulty with self-promote and to understand how to be good at it and practice. So I’m remarkable is a workshop that gives you that first step. First of all, to understand why we’re here and then understand how to make change and then teach you how to self-promote and then exercise self-promotion, and then ask you to challenge the perception of self-promotion.

00;54;25;21–00;54;59;06
Sherry Yang
And that that is for me is a great program because. I encompass all the underrepresented trades in my industry, and I want to. There were definitely times that I wish that I had this program that I could just feel comfortable to speak for myself, to highlight my accomplishment with the people around me. But it took me through my own learning to get to where I am.

00;54;59;08–00;55;34;09
Sherry Yang
So I was really happy to see such a program being promoted by Google where I could use it and and train other people and empower other people like me to to be able to get the get to self-promote better for themselves, whether it is personally personal use or professional use. I think it’s important for everybody to be able to speak on behalf of their accomplishment and feel comfortable with it.

00;55;34;12–00;56;07;19
Sherry Yang
We are definitely in a digital world where we we see perfections than we normally get and with the AI manipulation as well look perfect. And that’s, that’s why it will. There is definitely a social shock where we want to present our old self, but no one is going to talk about your accomplishment than yourself because your accomplishment is done by you.

00;56;07;22–00;56;36;05
Sherry Yang
And we wish that we can take our mother to work because they could be your best cheerleader. But that’s not the case, right? So we have to be the voice of our accomplishment and then be our own cheerleaders, too, to get better at what what we want in our career. And this is what I am remarkable opens the door for for all the information you will be able to find on.

00;56;36;06–00;57;01;26
Sherry Yang
I am remarkable e-comm or I’m remarkable with Google you and like you mentioned, the workshop is 90 minutes it will walk you through exactly what I just described and you will have sort of like a trip trick in your back pocket. And again, self-promotion takes time. This is the skill that you have to learn for yourself and it will take time to practice.

00;57;01;29–00;57;13;05
Sherry Yang
So what I am remarkable offer is that first step, and once you get there you will have the momentum of building on top of that.

00;57;13;08–00;57;30;11
Philippa Burgess
And sometimes you have to advocate for yourself in front of your mom. Because as I embark on my YouTube journey, my mom’s like, Well, how much did you make? Like, it doesn’t work that way, Mom, I love you, but it doesn’t work that way. You have to begin. You have to kind of equated it to Uber driving or Airbnb.

00;57;30;14–00;57;43;07
Philippa Burgess
You have to get your vehicle, you have to sign up and you have to open your app and you have to show up and you have to run the rides. And for me it’s posting videos and then they deliver the audience.

00;57;43;09–00;58;03;27
Sherry Yang
Yes, yes. Self-promotion is like, if you don’t share that with anybody, you will not get you will not get the credibility that you wanted because the rest of the world don’t know you. And if you want people to notice that, that’s the only way to be comfortable self-promoting.

00;58;04;00–00;58;05;15
Philippa Burgess
And.

00;58;05;18–00;58;43;03
Sherry Yang
My advice for people who are getting started with the tech industry is to utilize your resources. Just as you mentioned that you posted a video in a general hallway, see, you know, engage with that opportunity that is showing up in front of you, engage with the resources that is being presented to you and utilize them, get them into into your your tool bills and understand why these resources are available to you.

00;58;43;05–00;59;21;24
Sherry Yang
If you are someone who is trying to learn Java, the the Internet is your oyster, the library is there for you. There is so many resources out there for learning that you you don’t even know. Activate the community who are focusing in some specific technology that you’re into. Get involved with them and, you know, work on your project that has some influencing opportunity with your local community or city.

00;59;21;27–00;59;49;28
Sherry Yang
Be part of the change because that is going to impact how you decide what your career is going to look like and how you decide what is the next best thing you want to create. And for for us all in the tech world, we are all problem solvers and we we are here to to challenge our brain to solve one problem at a time.

00;59;49;29–00;59;53;23
Sherry Yang
And it is up to you to find your niche and your interest.