Women In Tech — Mary Nicknish, Senior Technical Program Manager
The Women In Tech series is a new initiative by Plato to shine the spotlight on our women mentors. We talk to them about their journey in tech and dig into the challenges they’ve faced, how they overcame them, and what advice they have for young women entering tech.
In this episode, we talk to Mary Nicknish, the senior technical program manager at Quizlet. Mary has been in Silicon Valley for over 30 years and worked her way up from an individual contributor to the VP of Engineering of a 100 person engineering team.
Watch the full video here, or read it below.
Can you tell us more about your journey and how you got here?
It was my mother’s idea for me to go into computer science back in the day because she said this would be the next big wave. And she was right! I took my first Pascal class and I was hooked.
I had a goal at the University of Iowa to come to Silicon Valley and take a company public. I really was enamoured with startups. After a few years working at bigger companies, I joined my first startup and we went public. It’s super fun. I got lucky and I worked really hard.
Since then I’ve been to smaller companies. My last company hopefully will turn out well too and, now at Quizlet, we’re on a trajectory so it has been a lot of fun!
What does it mean to be a woman in tech moving to Silicon Valley and trying to break in? What has it been like for you?
You know, I go back and forth on this. I know a lot of people talk about how hard it is, how lonely it is. I’ve never felt that way. I don’t know if it’s because I grew up in a big family with a lot of brothers but I’m used to having a lot of that around so I didn’t really notice.
I will say the things I have noticed is that the salaries are not competitive. For sure it’s definitely underpaid. I think, more importantly, that we women tend to sabotage ourselves. I’ve gone through the imposter syndrome many times and I just went through it at Quizlet, coming to a new role and not understanding where I fit in.
It doesn’t do us any good but we do it to ourselves. Not knowing how to ask, wanting to be perfect, not stepping forward because we don’t think we have all the skills.
Well, guess what? No one has all the skills. So we should learn to step forward and just take a chance. I guess I’ve always done that and that’s how I’ve gotten to where I am.
What are some of the other challenges you've faced as a woman in tech and how did you overcome that?
One of the biggest ones I remember was at my first startup Brio Technology. I had a hard time speaking up at the table. I used to sit in the back because I thought if I didn’t have all the answers then I shouldn’t say anything.
That’s been a common theme for me except as I got more and more confident and better at my job, now I don’t even think about it. I always speak up, it’s not an issue. But I have to say early on that was a huge problem for me. It’s just learning that it’s okay to say something.
Now, with that said, you need to be in a safe environment because I’ve been in toxic companies and saying something sometimes is not probably the best solution.
So in those situations when you were in a toxic company, what did you do to change that situation?
My best advice is to leave!
I haven’t tried this but I had a coach who told me once when you get people, usually believe it or not it’s been women in my past who have done this to me, they challenge you and they don’t let you have it.
It’s almost like bullying. You’re trying to give your opinion and then they’re just trying to smash it. I think the advice I would give is to just repeat back what they’re saying and acknowledge it because a lot of times people just want to be heard.
So I wish I would have done that more. I wish I would have spoken up and said, “Hey now, I understand what you’re saying. Here’s what you’re saying. What if we think of it a different way and try a different tact”. And sometimes I feel like I just butted heads. I wanted to be heard and in the end, it didn’t work.
So practicing empathy and just trying to make sure the other person is feeling heard.
Yeah!
What are some of the other responsibilities you have and what does a day to day in your life look like?
So Quizlet is very different than my day to day at my last company. I actually do a lot of things. I’ve been asking people what a technical program manager is, and what I think it is is the right-hand man to the VP of engineering. So you help them run engineering.
I own all the processes. So I’ve helped all the pods figure out what’s working best. Basically just socializing across the pods: what’s working, what’s not working, and trying to get them in alignment.
Other things I do is I help with the budget. So I work with all the teams to figure out what they need and then get approval for the budget.
I also took on a new team. So I have two engineers. I’m going to hire a team of four. We’re going to do all the things that no one else wants to do. Basically, all the back end code to help the pods go faster.
And then I also tend to just take on things like postmortems. It was very different than my last company where I was VP of engineering and built a team from scratch. We had 20 engineers in Singapore. I hired a team of 45 in Palo Alto and then another 45 in Ukraine as contractors. I pretty much just managed 100 people at once and it was kinda crazy.
So you went from managing a large number of people to managing none. But I guess you’re managing upwards and managing sideways in this role.
Yeah, they call it an influencer. You have to get people to do things without being their manager. It’s very different.
What are some specific soft skills you require for this role versus managing a team?
Listening, which I always thought I was good at but it turns out that I still have some habits of being in charge and just saying what I need and that doesn’t work so well. I had to learn how to hear everybody and let them make the decisions, instead of me making the decision. So that’s been very different for me.
Learning about budgeting. This is a pretty fast growing company and just learning how high in the sky it is. I always thought there was some recipe for this but there really isn’t. “What do we need? Where are we going to go? How many trips do we have planned? How much is the cost?” You just kinda have to wing it.
So I’ve been doing that. At Quizlet, we don’t mind if you make mistakes, we’d rather that people try really hard and learn. So it’s been a learning process but those are the two big things I think I’ve learned here.
You’re now in a position where you are also mentoring people and coaching them and you’re a mentor on Plato as well. Can you tell me why you decided to become a mentor on Plato?
Okay, I’m Plato’s biggest fan! I went through my whole career without really having any mentors. That happens more often if you’re in smaller companies. So when I found out what Plato was doing, I just thought Plato was exactly what people need.
I was being coached for about a year as a mentee on Plato and loved it. I loved that I could go out and poll for ideas like “How do you guys do sprints? What about two weeks sprints vs three weeks sprints?”
I can get a lot of data from a lot of different perspectives. I don’t think there’s one right answer. I tell the people that I coach I don’t have all the answers. I just have my perspective and what I’ve been through and I can tell you about that and then hopefully you can apply it to your situation. But that’s what I think it’s been so great for.
And so I wanted to give back, I’ve done a lot of things. I didn’t realize how much I knew until people start asking questions. It’s been a lot of fun!
We are really grateful that you are a mentor on Plato. Can you tell us a bit more about that experience as well?
A lot of my calls are about managing difficult people. So it brings back a lot of memories. I have many experiences with that.
It takes me all the way back to being a first time manager remembering how afraid you are, having to give that first bad review or the first time you have to lay somebody off, the first time you have to fire somebody. It’s hard.
I forgot how hard that is because I’m so good at it now. It’s not like I enjoy doing it but I know how to do it with compassion, honesty, and respect. When you’re first doing it, it’s a lot more intimidating. So that’s one of the biggest things I get.
Other than that, how to let go as an individual contributor and coaching people through their identity crisis because suddenly they’re not writing code every day and they don’t know if they’re really adding value. So I’ve coached a lot of people through it. It is okay, the idea is that you’re spreading across other people ad if you make them effective it makes you a good manager.
It’s been fun. I mean it’s been like a journey for me going back in time and reliving some of this stuff and pulling it forward for others.
For young women entering tech today, what advice do you have for them?
I think the biggest thing is not to take it too seriously. Sometimes we’re all trying to figure out why we’re not doing well or we want to blame others for our problems.
So my biggest advice is to just get in there and work really hard. Make sure you come to the table.
Don’t worry about being wrong. It’s how you present your ideas: “Hey, what if?”, “I was just thinking”, “What about this?”, and make it safe for you to get this input without making it feel like “I know everything and I’m going to give you guys the right answer” because that’s not good either.
So I think just being able to come to the table. It is hard and you have to work hard. Don’t think that things are just given to you. Step up, everyone else is doing it. You might as well put your hat in the ring with everybody.
Want more advice from people like Mary Nicknish?
Plato connects engineering managers and PMs with experienced mentors and tech leaders from top companies like Google, Lyft, Netflix, and more. You’ll get to have group mentoring sessions alongside peers, and private conversations with mentors like Mary.
To get a taste of Plato, sign up for a group mentoring session here — http://community.platohq.com
Looking to mentor, or know someone who’d make a good mentor? Apply here — https://www.platohq.com/become-a-mentor
