Women of Geckoboard: Heather
To celebrate International Women’s Day this year, we sit down with a few of the incredible women who work at Geckoboard and share their stories and advice for other women interested in joining a tech-startup.
Wrapping up the series, we talk to Heather — the wonderful helping hand that supports and guides our customers and her team on the daily!
Heather, start us off, what does a typical day at Geckoboard look like for you?
I’m a Customer Success Team Lead here at Geckoboard. My day to day focus is providing customers with a great experience and helping them get the most out of Geckoboard. This role is a bit different than the typical customer success role, in that it’s fairly technical in nature, while also being remote.
At any given time, I might be offering in-depth guidance for our Datasets API, for SQL databases or support for the 60+ data sources we offer. I also get to work closely with other teams, like Product, to surface customer pain-points, which in turn helps them balance customer needs with the product road-map. Other days, I might be working to enhance Geckobot to automate a new process, or working to improve our internal documentation.
And last but most importantly, the other large component of my role is supporting my small, but mighty team. This could involve helping my team understand the best way to approach a new challenge, identifying gaps in a process that needs improvement or helping hire and onboard a new team member.
Can you tell us about your journey into Customer Support?
I’ve taken a fairly unconventional path to where I am, though from a very young age, I was interested in all things technical (including people 🙂). My education focus shifted a number of times, from political science to computer science to pre-medicine before graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Film and Media.
While studying at Arizona State University, I worked for Apple as part of their Apple Support university program and later worked for Uber. Nearing graduation, I considered pursuing screenwriting professionally, but changed course when realizing I was much more passionate for technology and empowering people. This, of course, led me to the Geckoboard team.
What is your experience of being a woman in the tech industry?
Generally speaking, tech (in the United States where I’m based) is very much a male dominated field. I worked for one organization where there were no women in leadership roles at any level and the culture was quite toxic, in every sense of the word. The overall focus was literally to ‘get ahead, at any cost’, both as an organization and within it. That said, I think the tech industry is perhaps less rigid than other STEM fields and thus is well positioned to make progress at balancing the scales toward equality.
At Geckoboard though, my experience has been nothing short of great. And I’m very happy to be part of a team driven by a clear purpose with meaningful values to guide the way. Making sure my team feels supported and included is also really important to me, and I’m glad to have leadership that values equality. And it certainly helps that the vision behind Geckoboard is to make data transparent for teams!
Have there been any women who’ve inspired you along the way?
One of my first jobs growing up involved learning COBOL to manage financial transactions for a government organization. I learned about Grace Hopper at the time and her experience of earning a Ph.D. in mathematics, becoming a professor and then selflessly enlisting in the U.S Navy Reserve during WWII. After the war, she worked on one of the first ever large scale computers and developed the compiler, which is where COBOL originates from. It’s incredibly inspiring to look back and see that, despite the many times she was told no (trying to enter university too young or join the military too late in life), or the times when her colleagues didn’t believe in her ideas, she persevered and accomplished such great things.
That said, the most influential and inspiring person in my life is my mom. She’s the most caring and compassionate person I know. She’s made incredible sacrifices to provide me and my siblings with an abundance of opportunities that she never had. She raised me to be a curious, independent thinker, and to never stop learning. I’m forever grateful to have her wisdom and experience as an example for my own life.
Advice for women interested in moving into tech startups or technical support?
Ask questions and be prepared to adapt! At Geckoboard, I’ve had many opportunities to grow and learn new things and work cross-functionally with other teams. If you enjoy the unexpected and have an appetite for learning, a startup is probably the adventure you’re looking for!
The Support Driven community is a great resource for anyone interested in learning from other support professionals or pursuing support as a career.
In fact, we’re hiring for a Customer Success Champion in your team right now, do you have any advice for candidates thinking about applying?
Be yourself! Showcase who you are, why you’re interested in a Customer Success role and highlight what value you can add to the team. We’d also love to see you build a dashboard that shows off your skills, ideally using the Datasets API, Custom Widgets or SQL with Databases.
Interested in joining Geckoboard? We’re looking for a Customer Success Champion to join Heather’s team! Learn more at www.geckoboard.com/careers
