Celebrating the Women of Drupal
Rakhi Mandhania, Project Manager at CoLab Cooperative
Firstly, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you became involved with Drupal
I have a deep love for challenges and finding optimal solutions to unique business problems and currently doing that in a Project Manager’s capacity.
I started as a Drupal developer at QED42, got the perfect amount of guidance and challenges to keep me growing, every step of the way and never looked back since.
Eventually fell in love with Project Management and moving to a non-code position professionally, code wasn’t my obvious choice of contribution and that’s when I started getting more involved in the community with what I could offer best. Looking forward to doing much more.
How do you remain innovative in your role?
Shortest answer — “Inspect, Experiment and Adapt” — scrum cycle and my life/work strategy to stay innovative.
What inspires or motivates you?
Watching and listening to others who are doing amazing work, “voluntarily”.
If it’s not part of the job description and even then if someone does it — then it’s purely out of love and Drupal being open source is thriving on volunteers contributing in their own ways(non-code/code), from across the world. That’s the most motivating aspect for me.
You’ve spoken at events all over the world, which is seriously impressive. Tell us about your favourite event
DrupalCon Barcelona — my first ever DrupalCon is my favourite event though I didn’t speak at it — mainly because the first of anything usually leaves a mark and decides the enthusiasm level for future participation and I was so amazed by the vast welcoming community that I am still glued to it!
What is your opinion (or experience) of inclusion and diversity within the Drupal community?
I have always felt included.
I remember very vividly my first DrupalCon, before which I was scared to approach Drupal ‘celebrities’ one can say :)
I had my first conversation with Webchick on a round table and it was so hard for me to digest that more than a celebrity (I like to call her that, given her work to Drupal). She is so warm and welcoming that she made me feel equally important, despite being a newbie. That’s when I realised I am always going to be welcomed here.
There is a ton of initiatives and work in progress ensuring everyone in the community feels welcomed just like me. So I am grateful for it all.
What challenges have you come up against in your career? This can be personally, or technically.
Professionally — it took time getting to understand that it’s all about “people” and understanding different preferences, working styles, bringing in the human element to work every day, figuring out how unique everyone’s needs and ways of working are and still getting things done.
What advice would you give to a woman starting out in tech that you wish you’d been told?
Strangely I have always been supported and don’t feel that “If only someone had told me this… Then my journey would have been better.”
Instead, I am glad about every piece of advice I have received on the way. The only advice I can probably give another woman would be that:
“There is absolutely nothing that you aren’t capable of doing and if someone says otherwise, they are wrong — You just need to believe it and work towards it!”
You’ve dedicated a seriously impressive time to Drupal (almost 7 years). What does your Drupal future look like?
D7 to D8 took a really long time and probably in that waiting period everyone was uncertain about Drupal’s future and yet everyone remained loyal and kept loving Drupal.
That was a testing time, but now, more than ever, I can say with absolute certainty that Drupal and the community is on an exponential curve of growth. It’s only going to grow!
Thank you so much to Rakhi for her time, answers and everything she’s done and doing for our community!
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