The first woman on the LRX Engineering team!
1. How did I become a woman in tech?
It was an enduring and hard road to get here. My journey in IT started long after I graduated from a non-tech university back when I worked in the beauty industry realizing I could do more and bring more value to people all around the world. I didn’t have a tech background at all, but the idea of becoming a software engineer deeply inspired me. I took my first programming course and fell in love with it the moment I wrote my first line of code. After 2 years of strenuous work, I got my first job as a developer. I was highly motivated and inspired by the opportunities of growing and developing my knowledge and skills. This enormous desire and will brought me to where I am today and I still haven’t reached the peak.
2. Dream job
While working for other companies I was always following the Crunchyroll events and meetups. Perhaps, I visited them all dreaming that one day I would become a part of their team. Due to my ‘imposter’ syndrome and the fact that Crunchyroll hires only senior engineers, I didn’t apply to any vacancies for a long time. In spring 2021 I finally pulled the trigger and took a chance to apply for the react-native Engineer position. I previously worked as an iOS and React.js developer, so it seemed well-suited. I passed all the interviews and the job offer came so quickly that I had a moment of disbelief. To be completely honest, I didn’t fully comprehend what exactly the LRX department meant, I was just so self-assured that I could do everything to meet the expectations my teammates and manager held.
3. First woman as an engineer on the LRX engineering team
It was not shocking that I was the first woman on the engineering team, as this was a normal situation for me. It seems that I’m quite fortunate as I’ve never felt gender discrimination which is widely discussed in society. In fact, I have always met open and friendly people during my professional journey. There are a lot of questions regarding why I ditched the beauty industry and dove head first into tech. And the answer is — people.
People in the tech industry are so damn smart. Along with being smart, the tech community is one of the most supportive I’ve ever seen. You’d be hard-pressed to find someone in tech who isn’t willing to grab a coffee with you or a developer who refuses to help you solve a problem. There are also these magical groups of supportive people from diverse backgrounds. I was lucky to interact with people from other departments within Crunchyroll and could confidently say that people here are amazing, friendly, and intelligent.
So what are we doing in LRX?
LRX stands for Living Room Experience, so we are a team of 8 engineers and we are developing the Crunchyroll application for living room devices: FireTV, AndroidTV, Roku, PS4, PS5, Xbox and other. It sounded a bit intimidating, but actually, it’s quite the opposite. We are writing a react-native app using the You.i library, which provides us the possibility to develop and run our application on different devices having the same codebase.
My team is everything to me, they were always there to help during the onboarding process and they have continued to do so. We interact and communicate a lot, I guess we have the most number of meetings among the client teams, but this is due to the diversity of the platforms and each of us is more or less an expert on one or two of these platforms.
And what does my workday look like?
Usually, my workday starts at 10 AM when the daily Stand Up meeting begins. The whole LRX team joins this meeting, including engineers, product managers, QA, QE, and our project manager. This daily Stand Up is dedicated to identifying if someone has any blockers or questions and possible solutions to help the workflow. We also provide a short update on our ‘work in progress’ tickets. Afterward, we have a tech sync meeting where we discuss some technical issues and questions and assist each other if needed.
After these two meetings, my workday really begins. I’m very keen on the great diversity of tasks that we have, such as new feature implementation, bug fixes, Spikes (tech investigations), API integration, and so on. It keeps my interest in the work and provides the possibility of growing different skills. My workday ends at 6:30 PM and I have some time to spend with my son or devote it to my favorite hobby which is sports. As we are working on the agile methodology, every two weeks we also have grooming, estimation, sprint review, retrospective, and sprint planning meetings. Additionally, we have pre-grooming, pre-estimation, and tasks distribution meetings, where we assign tickets for adjustments and work.
Crunchyroll culture and environment
I’m not sure how the environment in the team was before I joined it, but now we have great communication, we go out for team-building, we are constantly joking with each other before, during, and after our meetings, but still persisting to develop high-quality applications. I’m very proud to work with these dudes on the project, which is based on the latest tech, design patterns, and principles — An ideal place to grow both professionally and personally.
I would also like to mention the overall attitude of Crunchyroll towards their employees. I feel needed, appreciated for my job, and understood as a worker and a person. I could never have imagined that I could be so happy and inspired by belonging to a company with such an amazing working environment.
4. Love what you do and be open to new ideas
It has been 7 years since I took that first programming course and I haven’t looked back. I love tech, I am often an early adopter of new technology, as I’ve already had experience working with 3 different platforms and I’m always open to studying and trying something new. I’m like a kid on Christmas day when I obtain a new tech gadget, or better yet if my code is working after spending hours fixing a problem or implementing a new feature. I love my job. I love how it pushes me every day to be my best, I love problem-solving, building new technology, and collaborating with witty people.
I am where I am today because I fully committed to my goals, worked hard to achieve them, and remain open to taking different paths when opportunities arise. And all of this has brought me to the Crunchyroll family.
If you feel you could do more, you should definitely choose an area you like, commit to it and be open to opportunities.
