Finding Her Professional Sweet Spot
How Prachi Manchanda Transformed a Love of Creativity, Mathematics and Computer Science Into a Fulfilling Career
“Hey! I can build games!”
This was the insight that came to Prachi Manchanda when she was a young girl playing games on her family’s clunky and oversized desktop computer. Her classes at school complemented this interest, providing her with the ability to implement logical decision-making in the games she created. “It felt like magic,” she fondly recalls.
That magic appeared to fade when Prachi entered the Netaji Subhas University of Technology. Female peers were few and far between. Discouraged by the chasm, she began to question whether she made the right choice. “Computer Science is not for me,” she concluded and proceeded to sample other fields, such as finance. Prachi may have been ready to let go of Computer Science but the field was not ready to let go of her.
Prachi was selected to be a Rails Girls Summer of Code (GSoc) scholar, allowing her to discover new sources of support in the Open Source Community. She recalls building a piece of code in a relatively short time and feeling amazed when her code began trending on GitHub. When it continued to trend for three days, Prachi realized she had created something that was valued by others.
“I’m good at this!” she realized. “So why am I quitting?”
Today, Prachi is a Software Engineer at Microsoft, where she builds tools for the next generation of collaboration. She describes her profession as the ‘perfect Venn diagram blend’ of her three core interests: mathematics, computer science and creativity.
“Computer Science seemed to be a good blend of creativity and math, which was why I decided to pursue the subject.”
Prachi’s experience with the support of the open-source community motivated her to give back to others. She credits her experience as a co-chair for the Grace Hopper Celebration Open Source Day as a catalyst for this endeavor. She found that she was good at mentoring; recipients valued the advice and insights she had to offer. One particularly memorable interaction was with a young woman who had never worked on any open-source projects before. Prachi recalls the student’s enthusiasm, delight and newfound self-confidence when she completed her first pull request on Open Source Day.
Prachi’s advice to young women entering STEM is, “find yourself a mentor, preferably someone outside of your workplace who is suitably senior and unbiased. Ask them questions and engage with them. It’s always good to have someone in your corner who can back you up when your self-confidence takes a hit.”
She also encourages young women to “join a community, such as Systers, and become an active participant.” A Systers Keeper herself, Prachi helps to determine the direction of the community as a safe space for women in technology.
“I believe I am only scratching the surface at present in terms of my contribution. In the coming years, I hope to achieve even greater heights. I remember what it felt like to be ‘all alone,’ wondering whether I should continue to pursue Computer Science. I also remember feeling encouraged, supported and uplifted by the Systers community. I believe in paying it forward. My actions take a small amount of time but they yield dividends.”
This story was written by Saranya Murthy, Wogrammer Journalism Fellow. Connect with her on LinkedIn. Support our mission to celebrate more amazing women in tech, like the one featured here, by donating to AnitaB.org.
