Conversation With Women In Tech
Technology as a dedicated space for all, irrespective of gender.
I spoke with Ashvija Vijayendra, Product Manager, Lisa Patra, Senior Software Developer, and Ankita Agarwala, Programmer Analyst from our team. They’ve been at TechVariable for quite some time now, excelling at their respective technical roles.
Today they’re all in leadership roles actively guiding their team members, but could take some time out to chat with us about their paths, share some advice and laugh about all the highs and lows along the way.
We sat down with the team members to learn what it’s like to be a woman in technology consulting, challenges they needed to overcome and what we can do as a society to ensure more women explore and pursue tech careers.
1. What was your first job?
Ashvija: “I was a Verification and Validation Engineer at Patni Corporation. (Patni was taken over by iGate Corp, and is currently taken over by Capgemini Corp)”
2. What did you want to be when you grew up?
Ashvija: “I was good with visualization and technology, so I wanted to do something in the combination of both. Once that I learnt IT Industry can help with that, I always wanted to be part of it.”
3. What do you love about the tech world?
Ankita: “The more you let loose of your imagination, the greater revolution can be brought by you. The word ‘Impossible’ ceases to exist.”
Ashvija: “I love the way how technology simplifies any complex task to the level that it can even be made easily understandable to a layman.”
4. Is there a moment in your career where you feel like you failed? How did that help you grow?
Ashvija: “I fortunately never felt the failure in my career curve, but I do regret not starting the learning process earlier in my career along with work. So, now I’m part of the Upgrade Master’s Program and pursuing an online Masters in Data Science.”
Ankita: “I think I haven’t faced any such moment which I can call a big failure, but, yes, there are expectations that aren’t met sometimes, which always helps me to push myself a bit more to achieve the goals.”
5. Was there a moment when you realized you wanted to be in tech?
Lisa: “As they say, ‘Education begins at home’, from assembling the first PC at home by herself to introducing me to Super Mario Bros, my mother has been the major influence to spark my interest in tech. Mom, being certified in hardware, networking and RedHat, to my young inquisitive eyes it was magic on the screen in the Wordstar and Lotus days when Microsoft Office was still nascent.”
Ankita: “Since a kid, I was a computer enthusiast, the IT world fascinated me and always wanted to know how things worked behind the scenes, but then during my class 10th exam, I realized that I don’t study computer science simply for marks but I am really interested in the subject and I can spend hours working on it, just for fun. That’s it, that was the moment of truth for me.”
6. Did you always aspire to be a leader?
Ashvija: “I always aspire to be a teammate. If I can lead a team to succeed and also achieve that myself then that’s the best achievement in one’s career.”
7. What’s important for aspiring leaders to know about leadership?
Ashvija: “Always have your ears and eyes open. Ears to listen and analyze any concerns. Eyes to observe and provide valuable inputs.”
8. What practices do you have in place to ensure high-quality code and continued learning?
Lisa: “What we generally do is a peer to peer review to check and analyse errors in the coding and generally follow a checklist to ensure the coding quality. Moreover, there are numerous tools like Sonar-cube and PMD to check and find bugs in the coding.”
9. What drew your attention to TechVariable?
Ankita: “TechVariable is a handpicked family, it’s a startup based at Guwahati and its recent toll of accomplishment has grabbed my attention.
From successfully working with startup companies based out of the US to digitally transforming North-East India’s biggest Bus Service Provider, from developing Machine Learning based news aggregator platforms to creating analytics tool to evaluate and analyze the existence of Gender Misrepresentation in Myanmar, from working with a Fortune 200 giant, I’m beyond obliged to work at this Digital transformation hub.”
10. What do you appreciate the most about working at TechVariable?
Lisa: “The working environment, my colleagues and the helping nature of each one of the members. The way they provide mentors, internal and external events, networking opportunities and targeted training, as well as opportunities to serve as non-executive members of boards, even from a junior level.”
Ashvija: “At TechVariable, we have a steady and fast-paced delivery model. It keeps me on my toes and also I am learning new technology and trends every day. This helps me with my vision to become a Data Scientist one day.”
So, here you go with our small regular off the track ted-talks. I would also love to hear your stories. Connect with me on LinkedIn.
