Lightspeedcast Ep 1: Careerhacks for Women Engineers

For our first-ever podcast at Lightspeed, we wanted to share with you what it’s like to interview, get a job and grow as a woman in our Engineering team! We also hope you will find some helpful tips on how to prepare your interview and get a job at Lightspeed 🤗.

Thanks a million to our two amazing guests Lucille and Farzana for sharing their experience and to our wonderful host Adriana for her energy and contribution. Thank you to our in-house producer Mick — we couldn’t have pulled this off without you! And thanks to our make-up artist Elle 💚.

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Please scroll down for the transcript!

[Adriana] Hi everybody my name is Adriana and I am a product marketer here at Lightspeed. I am so humbled and privileged to be able to moderate and host Lightspeed’s first-ever podcast. Today we’re focusing on two things, Engineers and females.

I’m sitting in a room right now with two phenomenal women, Lucille and Farzana. Both who are Software Engineers and both who are really good friends of mine at Lightspeed.

We’re here to talk about their journeys, their struggles and some hot tips on how to make it in a male-dominated line of work.

I’m super excited to have a conversation with these two women, especially if it means we inspire other women out there to get into tech, so if you have a daughter, a sister, a friend… who is on the fence about jumping to tech, strap yourselves in prepare to be inspired!

Without further ado, let’s kick it over to Lucille. Can you give us a brief introduction of who you are?

[Lucille] Hi Adriana, I’m a Software Engineer here at Lightspeed. I moved to New Zealand two years ago and I started to work at Lightspeed just a few weeks after. I have four years of experience and I’m currently working as a Team Lead at Lightspeed.

[Adriana] Awesome, and now how bout you Farzana, tell us your story.

[Farzana] I’m originally from South Africa, I’ve been working at Lightspeed for a year and a half. I’m coming up on 11 years of experience as a Software Engineer, so I’ve been here quite a while.

[Adriana] Awesome, and so 11 years of being an Engineer, that’s quite fascinating, what made you decide to become one?

[Farzana] I didn’t choose to become one, it sort of just happened! I was approaching the end of my high school years and didn’t really have a plan for university or anything really. I went to the culture day and heard about this ‘build a website in a weekend’ boot camp and I was like “yeah what does that cost?” and they were like “Oh no it’s free you can just come. We want more youth involved in tech” and I was like “Sweet I’ll do that”! And I attended it, it was really fun, I really enjoyed it. I decided I’m going to be a Web Developer and I ended up studying Information Systems and Engineering.

[Adriana] Nice, and what about you Lucille, did you stumble into this or was it more planned for you?

[Lucille] It was actually a very different path from Farzana, I was lucky enough when I was a young girl to have a computer in my room. So very young I started to play video games, then I went on the internet and it was really my hobby, and very naturally that's what I wanted to do later for my work. After high school, I decided to join a University focused on software engineering.

[Adriana] Nice, and so talking more about our time at Lightspeed, I myself have been at Lightspeed for just over 3 years and I've loved every single moment of it. Lucille, you’ve been with us for what, 2 years now, almost 2 years? Tell us about your journey at Lightspeed so far?

[Lucille] I’ve joined Lightspeed 2 years ago and so I’ve joined Lightspeed as an intermediate Software Engineer and only after 1 year, I’ve been promoted to a Senior Engineer and then since a few weeks, I’ve been promoted to a Team Lead so I really feel valued here, which is really nice.

[Adriana] Congratulations, and Farzana, what did your one and a half years at Lightspeed look like so far?

[Farzana] So far it’s been pretty wild actually! It’s been really good, there’s been lots of challenges, lots of learnings, adapting to a new tech stack, leaning Go from scratch. It’s definitely been uncomfortable, but in that like good, ‘I’m growing as a person’ uncomfortable. It’s been great!

[Adriana] Nice, can you tell me a little bit about what the interview process was for an engineer because I’m pretty sure it’s quite different to a marketer.

[Farzana] The interview process for me was a little bit different, I spoke to a few people before Lightspeed was hiring, just to find out more about the company because I was looking to have a career change. I wanted to change to a new tech stack and do something different, and at the time Lightspeed wasn’t really hiring. When they did call me back, it was about a month later and they were like, “Hey we’ve got positions available, do you want to come in and interview for the Senior Engineer role”. I was like “not really what I had in mind but sure!”. And I came through, I was going through the process which was a technical interview and a practical interview. My interviews were all at the office, I was interviewed by three people and a cute little dog named Wilson — who just slept in the corner while I answered technical questions and scribbled on a whiteboard. It was really interactive, very conversational, the interview process was actually very nice.

[Adriana] Awesome and Lucille so you moved here from France, did you interview from France? How was your interviewing process?

[Lucille] Yes correct. It’s actually great at Lightspeed because you have the possibility to interview remotely if you need to, and that’s what I did. I was still in France, I was looking to move to New Zealand and so I heard about Lightspeed because I really wanted to work with the Go programming language which is a language that I was using before and that I really liked. Lightspeed is one of the very few companies using Go, and so I was really interested to join.

It was funny because when I did the technical interview I was prepared to answer some very specific Go questions and in fact, it was really not the case. And actually it’s good, I think it's normal because if you don’t know how to programme in Go, you should have the opportunity to do the interview too. If you haven’t done any Go before its completely fine, all the questions are very general so we can have good discussions, and then we have a practical test where you can use the language of your choice and you can also do it in the office or at home if you feel more comfortable. And then we have a conversation with Engineers to talk about what you did.

[Adriana] Cool and so after that interview process it was obvious Lightspeed wanted you both. What was your deciding factor, what made you want to work at Lightspeed? Maybe we start with Farzana.

[Farzana] I think a factor for me was… the impression that I got that it’s somewhere I could grow. This is somewhere I could learn. It’s a very relaxed environment. The people are very friendly, they were very welcoming and I just felt like this is where I want to be, I’ll be happy here. And it turns out that’s pretty much it! It’s a really nice environment.

[Adriana] Cool, what about you Lucille?

[Lucille] First I knew Lightspeed for the Go programming language. The tech stack was what brought me to the company. But then I think that through the interview process I could see that people were actually really nice, I think I was really like “my choices matter”, I’m not just a candidate. They asked me which time was good for me to do the interview so all these little things made me realised that Lightspeed was actually not just good for the tech stack but also really good for the culture and the way people were treated.

[Adriana] And I’m quite interested in… because you moved here from France. And so you relocated here, what made you onboarding easier at Lightspeed Lucille?

[Lucille] I think what is really nice at Lightspeed is that we have people from a lot of different countries. When I joined I was a little bit afraid of being that person coming from overseas. But in fact, we have a lot of people coming from overseas, and it’s really nice to share our culture. People are making the effort to understand you even if like me you have quite a strong accent. So yeah I was really feeling welcomed since the beginning. Being someone from another country was really not an issue and in fact, it was even quite nice so I could share things about my own culture.

[Adriana] Awesome, so Farzana how was your onboarding at Lightspeed once you accepted the role?

[Farzana] One of the things I was really uneasy about with joining Lightspeed was that I never programmed in Go before. It’s not a language I was familiar with, it’s not something I had experience with. So I was very uneasy about that and I was like “I need to be productive” in this language that I don’t know. But it was actually a really great experience because a lot of people would just sort of help you and guide you and there was no pressure — other than what I put on myself because I had all of these expectations about “Oh you have to be productive within your first two weeks!”. But it wasn’t like that. It was very much like you have the time to like get up to speed, get familiar with things and it was just a lot of guidance and a lot of support from the team. And even people that were not part of my immediate team would reach out and help out with things. It was really good.

[Adriana] Great. Lucille, so you’re part of the inclusion and diversity committee. Can you tell us a bit more about that at Lightspeed?

[Lucille] Yes so that’s something that I really enjoy at Lightspeed. As I mentioned we have people from a lot of different countries, and we really like to celebrate that but we also want to make sure everyone feel included. So yes we have a committee and we are focussing on three main areas which are culture and ethnicity, pride and women. That’s how we call them. We’re trying to have some events, we also have people trying to do some more training session like about unconscious bias or what it is to be part of an inclusive culture. For example, we have a book club where we talk about books written by women or which have a subject about women so it’s very interesting and it’s starting some good conversation.

[Adriana] Cool! So last question for you. What tips would you give to female engineers who are currently maybe thinking about interviewing at Lightspeed or are currently in the interview process with Lightspeed? Maybe we start with Farzana.

[Farzana] My top tip in general to all women out there: ask lots of questions. Always look at it as a two-way thing, it’s as much about ‘Do you want to work for us?’ as ‘Do we want you to join us?’. So don’t be afraid to ask questions. If something seems unclear to you, ask people to clarify. They’re here to help you. The interview is about seeing where you are versus where we can help get you to. So don’t be afraid to ask questions.

[Adriana] Cool and Lucille what about you?

[Lucille] I think my first tip would be for women to actually apply for the job. Even if it’s a senior role. You have the knowledge to do it. Because statistically, women think that they know less compared to what they actually know… so try to gain confidence and apply for that role. And when you have applied then try to show all the knowledge you have. Usually, it’s hard when you don’t have a lot of confidence but the technical interview is actually based on a lot of very broad questions. We are expecting people to really talk about everything they know so don’t be shy, you can talk about what you know. Just show us what you know!

[Adriana] That’s amazing thank you. So this wraps it up! Thanks so much, ladies. This conversation today was all about jumping in headfirst and grabbing the world by its balls and not being afraid of failure. I’m a big fan of transformational stories. It doesn’t matter where you start, it’s about the hustle and how you level yourself up. Before we finish off I just want to remind everyone listening that Lightspeed is always on the lookout for engineers. However, if you’re not in engineering but are dying to work with these awesome ladies we also have non-engineering roles open. This is Adriana, Lucille and Farzana coming to you live from the Lightspeed’s parents room!

Thank you very much we will see you next time!