The role of a software tester is rapidly evolving, and quality engineering has become a diverse field with a variety of career paths. Unfortunately, recognizing career opportunities isn’t always as obvious as we’d hope. In this session, the esteemed group of panelists will share their best advice for navigating this changing field and creating new opportunities for yourself.
Transcription
Darrel Farris
Hi, everyone, thanks for joining us today at mabl Experience. I am extremely excited to be hosting this panel about creating career opportunities in quality engineering. The role of software testers is evolving, and changing quality engineering has been increasingly becoming more of a diverse field with a variety of career paths. Recognizing those career paths isn't always as obvious to some as it is to others. So we've gathered this great panel of very experienced, quality engineering professionals. I always enjoy when companies say, with a combined experience of such and such years, we have over a century of combined experience on this panel here, including myself. So, I'm excited to hear some of the insights that this panel has.
So maybe just to start off, I'd like to say a few words about these panelists, because I admire them all so much, but I'd also like to give them the opportunity to introduce themselves in their own words. So today, we're very fortunate to have Maaret Pyhäjärvi, a very prolific blogger, author, poster, feedback faerie extraordinary. One of my favorites. As I said a few minutes ago before we started the conversation, she's one of the writers in our field who always makes me think, and I'm a better person for it. Susan Marie leads a group called TSQA (Triangles Software Quality Association) based out of Raleigh Durham. Monthly meetups, fantastic group, they run a fantastic conference. Always have a great list of speakers. Marjie Carmen works with Arch Insurance, one of our customers. Marjie has been at this for a very long time. If you look her up on LinkedIn, I was having a little geekfest, because one of my favorite first computers was a DEC Alpha, and guess what Margie was at DEC in the early days. Super cool. Karine Sully has worked across so many different customer-facing applications, most recently at Slack. So you can imagine the scale that we were having to test with, they're always very interesting to work on products that have just tons of user interactions and whatnot. LaDeitra Lee, fascinating background as well, once had top-secret security clearances working in all sorts of different verticals. I met her through our work with Charles Schwab. But LaDeitra is now working as a CTO and a really exciting nonprofit that I hope we will get to hear a little bit about. I'm Darrell Farris, I work here at mabl. I've been here for about three years. But I've worked in software testing for about 20 years, a little more. But here at mabl, I manage our team of Solutions Architect sales engineers, and we help teams evaluate the product and get to know it and see whether or not it's going to be a good fit for their workflows, and make sure that it's going to help them exceed their quality engineering goals as well. So thanks for joining us, everybody. Maybe just starting off with the order of everyone on my screen that I can say, Karine, any hellos? Anything you'd like to say to the audience?
Karine Sully
Welcome, and thank you for having me here. As Darrell said most recently worked at Slack. I built up the quality organization from a team of three to a team of 25 and taking a little break right now.
Marjie Carmen
Everybody, welcome. I've been in the industry a long time, as Darrel alluded to, and I've worked in all the fields, all the roles except for software architect. Most of my experience has been in the New England area building small teams or startups or working in large established firms. Then about five years ago, I made the decision to move to the North Carolina area to Raleigh Durham RTP Research Triangle Park, and I lead a team of engineers and QA engineers. In this area were dispersed all across the country.
Susan Marie
Hi, I'm Susan. I am also based in the Raleigh Durham area. So I work with a nonprofit organization with a focus on helping software testers get better jobs or get better at their job. Sometimes I like to say get better at your job or get a better job, whichever comes first. Then I've been in quality assurance for 20 years, working in banks and hospitals and medical devices, and also a little bit of social engineering stuff, which was amusing, I'll say amusing and high volume. So lots of learning opportunities there. Thanks for having me.
Maaret Pyhäjärvi
25 years since for comparing years apparently here, I now work as a principal test engineer, I was an engineering manager at some point. So what I try to do right now is from within as appear to other developers, I try to introduce better practices that way. So during the work with others and growing us all.
LaDeitra Lee
Hi, I'm LaDeitra Lee. I've been in the industry for over 20 years, I have stayed in this industry because I love technology. I love people and I love to help drive them to do things they never thought they would do. As we all know that technology is in every aspect of our life. So I try to encourage more minorities to go into engineering. So how can I encourage them if I don't stay in engineering? So that's what is here and I've been working as CTO of Spark studio, which is a black female-founded company. We exist to help monetize the work of various artists, people who put out their own films and movies and series. So you can actually use our platform to monetize your work and have watch parties and such things like that prior to that I worked with Charles Schwab. So I manage and develop a trading application. So as you can imagine, during a pandemic, a lot of people have been using our platforms, a lot of data moves, a lot of going from our on-premise Cloud to giving is hosted by Google Cloud, just a number of different changes in different various ways that we've been trying to modernize. Thank you for having me.
Darrel Farris
Thank you. So our topic today is, career-pathing and whatnot and I'm wondering, Marjie, could you tell us how you even got into this field in the first place? Like how did you get your first tech job?
Marjie Carmen
Oh, man, it was completely random I think. I worked as an admin to an engineering group and QA engineering group for a while and they created software that developed PC boards. So I've been in the industry for over 40 years. I remember thinking that what they did was really cool. One of the engineers said, hey, would you like to learn how to test software? I'm like, yes. So I never turned down what sounded like a good opportunity. I'm like, absolutely, when do we get started? It was just mentoring peer to peer. I'm very curious by nature. I love to know how things work, like, oh, how's that work? But what happens if I do this? So I'm always asking questions. That's how it started. It started in 1981. It was some really cool software. So I tell everybody, you don't need a degree to get into an engineering field, whether it's quality engineering or software engineering, you just have to be curious and say yes to opportunities.
Darrel Farris
I love that and LaDeitra. What about you? I'm fascinated by your background because I often see people moving into governmental roles, but from LinkedIn, it looked like you started there. How did that come to be?
LaDeitra Lee
Yeah, I actually get my first internship. It was actually a co-op while I was in college, and it was with the National Security Agency. So I did that for eight months. I really loved it. I really wanted to go there when I graduated from college, but I had already met my husband and soon to be so he was already here in Austin, Texas, working at IBM. So that's what brought me to Austin, Texas and we did research was like it's a low crime area, a great place to raise a family, a lot of tech jobs here. So that's how I ended up here. But when I started out, I was at Motorola. I was there for about a year and a little bit after that I got laid off. So I went back to school started on my master's degree and I actually was in the gym and I was on the elliptical machine and a lady was like what brings you here at this time of day, I told her about my layoff and she told me about an open position that has sorority sister hat. It was a great fit for me. We connect it right there called her friend and I went in for an interview a couple of weeks later. That's that was my first QA job. So that was back in I think February 2002 and that was my first introduction to QA and I've been there ever since.
Darrel Farris
I love it. So we have two random conversations where they're kind of Crux here, right? I got you both and I love that.
LaDeitra Lee
Yeah. Just like, Maaret.
Darrel Farris
That's fascinating. Maaret, what about you? I don't know this about you at all.
Maaret Pyhäjärvi
Back in high school, I studied the Greek language. So the spoken Greek, modern Greek language. Because of that hobby, someone thought I could read the Greek alphabet. I ended up testing localized Greek software for Microsoft in Finland, which makes absolutely no sense in hindsight. But I loved the work and when I then realized, the agency, the part of just being active and looking at things myself, I've been on that journey and I don't think I will return.
Darrel Farris
Karine, what's your origin story?
Karine Sully
It's kind of similar. I started out in customer service, tech support, answering calls was hired to a small startup that didn't have a product, and was building out my team and then they started to have a product and they needed quality assurance people to test it. Being a curious person, liking to problem solve, and to make products better. I started stepping into that role and helping out and then moved off to a couple of other companies in QA and kind of where I am.
Darrel Farris
So it goes, right
Karine Sully
Yeah, customer support, release management, project management, any job that needed doing, and a small startup, you just step in, and you learned so much from it.
Darrel Farris
Awesome, Susan.
Susan Marie
So I don't know if anyone ever grows up and is like, I want to be a QA tester. But I did I think I'm one of the few people who did. Actually, my first career was as a teacher in high school. Then when I realized how little money I would be making and 20 years from that day, would be, I thought a little bit harder about that my brother had me, he's nine years older than me, was in quality assurance. I thought, well, what kind of a job is that? So the first job after being a teacher, when I realized that I needed to spend my time and talent doing something else, I was close in age to students. I met with a gentleman that was a former Navy Seal, I was a scuba instructor in college. Like all of these ladies just was I just had a curiosity about things. I had this logical brain that said, well, what happens if I do this, and I was able to break down that where the logic was failing in this logistics management, where logic was the most important thing and was able to find some key bugs just by thinking about how I'd be a user of it and if I'm in that person's shoes, how am I using this. That's just been the pattern of my career and like these ladies, too, I can also speak to getting to be on camera and getting to do user interviews, things that you just don't get an opportunity to do when you're a software engineer developing code or other career paths that could have gone down.
Darrel Farris
Awesome. In your intro, you mentioned that, now you're helping other people find career paths and opportunities in QA, if you could compare and contrast your beginnings with where you are now, what do you think enabled that for you?
Susan Marie
I'm a softy at heart. It's my other identity is a mom. I love people and helping people get to better places. Sometimes I have that tool and I feel like it's my right and my responsibility as a person who as I get older and get more mature into my career, I need to be helping the people around me lift them up and get further as well. We all get better together kind of an idea. When I think back on my early career. Maybe the major themes are in teaching. So the assessment of software is a lot like the assessment of student progress. Like, how good are you doing? How well are you improving? Are we actually getting to the next level? It's somewhat different. You got the same software testing rubrics, you've got an algorithm that you will hold a student accountable to and you say, are they making it through that process? I think software is similar, managing people and helping people get to their potential, and to their next place is something I'm passionate about.
Darrel Farris
Maaret, I don't know if you were a teacher, but you certainly are now. I think whether you like it or not, but what is that like, for you being so visible in the testing community in that way and knowing that people like me, are looking up to you for advice, how does that feel?
Maaret Pyhäjärvi
It feels really weird. So I started speaking, because I had a huge fear of speaking like, I would basically faint, if I would have to introduce myself, that's why I started speaking. Then I realized that it was a way for me to manage my social anxiety. So when I get on that stage, I don't have to go and talk to the people, they come and talk to me. But it only worked for a few years. Because when you get status, then people think you're busy and you're important, and they no longer talk to you. So somehow, there might be many people, but they usually come kind of like in small groups, or, one single person every now and then. I still approach it as an opportunity to meet awesome people. So it's great in that sense. But it's funny how sometimes people think that I'm too important and too busy to be talking to others and that's not true.
Darrel Farris
I'm starting calendar invites later today. That's great, though, I think it's very important as we're thinking about careers, and helping folks elevate themselves, I think it's really important to be accessible to those people and be willing to have those kinds of conversations. LaDeitra mentioned that you're kind of working in this capacity now, where your mission is to elevate voices and get their content out there. Are there parallels? Do you think in terms of careers and quality versus just self-promotion and self -acknowledgment to build confidence in that regard so people can take those risks and do things?
LaDeitra Lee
Yeah. Because I think that in quality engineering, that confidence, making sure that the people you're hiring, the people you're working alongside, are very confident about what they're doing what they're finding, and they don't hesitate on speaking up. We talked about being in QA, and as QA has evolved to where more people are considered software developer engineers in test, it's you always have that, are you technical enough? I always tell people, QA knows the most about the product because we know from a customer's perspective, we're testing the full product from the front end that everybody sees all the way to the backend, versus as a developer, most of them are assigned to developing their particular piece and they don't really go outside the realm of every aspect of the application. So in QA, and that's why I try to make sure I'm telling, my team of developers, and QA and business analysts, the main thing, you want to make sure you have the confidence in your work, and what you're putting for, because if you don't have that confidence is going to come across as though you're not sure. So how can you share with the team that something isn't quite right or is the defect or this could be better or this is how we can enhance it if we don't show that we're confident and what we found and how we found it and how we repro it? So yeah, in this whole film industry area that it's been my first exposure to this. It's I hired an engineering team, but also to the creators that we have using our platform is being confident in that work, because if you're not confident, then your work is not going to sell on because they're going to see right through it.
Darrel Farris
Great advice, Marjie. I'm wondering, you've been practitioner manager, you've had all these different roles, and I think that gives you a really unique perspective. I'm wondering how do you see the role of testers evolving. Or the quality assurance in general? How do you see that evolving over time?
Marjie Carmen
I can answer by saying how I've seen it evolve. So it used to be, later on, I started out, what I saw most commonly is you didn't need the programming skills, you didn't need the software engineering skills, it wasn't a requirement, because it's mostly manual testing and your job was to test the product as if a user was using it. So that was very different than where we are today. Where we are today, I see QA working hand in hand and partnership, having almost the same skills as a software engineer, and even more. I really see quality assurance as equal and then more, because they have to know the business side of the users who are using it and where the industry is going. So you can make, really good recommendations about how you think the product should go and you have to have the engineering side to say, okay, what's the fastest way I can get this product tested in the hands of the user? So you really have to have that business side and that that engineering mind and that curious mind that says, how can I break this? How can I find holes, and then the user mind that saying, if I was the user, and I didn't know how to use this product, what might I do? If I am a user and I do not know the product? What might I do? So you have to be all these personas in one, in my opinion. I see that pretty much continuing to go that way. I personally don't like the term when people say, are you technical? I just don't like that question are you technical? Like, well, why? Because we work with software, we work with our computers, there's a lot of things we do so I think, for managers their perspective, that's something we need to stop referring to for technical or non-technical because we're all technical. So if they're asking, Are you an engineer, are you a programmer? That's a different question. We're all technical.
LaDeitra Lee
Yeah, like, I have a computer science degree and I wouldn't be if I wasn't technical. I mean, how did I have a computer science degree? Or how did I work at all these different companies all these years? So to me, it feels like it's more of a stereotype. Like we talked about the other day, it seems like you see more women that go into QA. So it's kind of like the whole thing about, the women demand, are women technical enough for this role?
Marjie Carmen
Or if you don't have a computer science degree, well, are you technical, f you're not programming anymore, are you technical, and I just think it's a lingo, we need to just we just stop putting people in technical, non-technical, any field in the SDLC is technical, you have to know the business to be successful, even as a software engineer to be really successful, you have to have the business sense, then you have to know how to meet the business needs with technology in the way they want the problem to be solved. So you have to have it all in QA because you bring in those two agents together.
Maaret Pyhäjärvi
We also still hope that there's also more of this kind of, like openness into moving from one technical role to another, there's always the possibility of learning, the one, you know, small slices of technicality. Like there are so many differences here. One of the things that kind of has made me sad over the years is that I have heard from so many women colleagues in particular that their leaders have encouraged them to stay in QA, a little bit too much when they wanted to move away from QA into the programmer roles. Some of my favorite architects these days, like they are so good at testing, like so good at programming, so good at testing, and can really bring the whole team together. So we need to allow that kind of movement, where people get to try things and the stereotypes of this type of person is strong in this one. But we need to remember that we can be strong in all of those things. Like being strong on one doesn't mean you can't have another one that can be equally strong.
Darrel Farris
I'm wondering if we've kind of had this experience and I think we all would self-identify as curious individuals and when we kind of talked about that before, I'm wondering, and maybe Karine or Susan if you could both comment on this. I'm curious about hiring today for a tester role versus hiring, say 10 years ago? Are there still common skills or common traits that we look for? Or are there new ones that maybe weren't necessarily things that you were looking for 10 years ago,
Karine Sully
I always look for people who are curious, and who have good communication and organizational skills, especially coming in at entry-level or lower level. That's all I need. All you need is to be able to think critically and organize your thoughts and be able to communicate what it is you're doing and you can push beyond, and grow. I don't remember who it said it, but like, being able to see and help foster that development in engineers is, is fantastic and it's one of the things that I really love in doing the work that I do.
Susan Marie
So I love the idea of moving away from technical. Are you technical or not? Part of me thinks we're all delivering these custom solutions and what LaDeitra does in her work and Maaret does in her work. There may be equally technical, how do you compare those two levels of technical and so often what I'll do in my interviews is I'll ask, and I'll tell the candidate this too. I don't have a right answer here to this question about that. I just want to know how you're thinking about things. I'll say something like, tell me how you might approach testing the soda machine at most? I don't think it's necessary to have a habit all solves. But I want to hear considerations for well, what's the change? Do we change something on the screen or are we changing the form and function? So when the tester starts asking me those questions, I'm like, yes, this is going to be fun and that it becomes that dialogue around what are we doing? Then I'd like to talk strategies. This is something I think we've grown up in maturing as a Software Quality Assurance industry, we now have some standards and there's truly focus on what software testers do like we all know about test plans and tests. There's some general thinking around test automation and I look for those skills as part of it. But that first question about like, tell me how you approach a problem is definitely reign supreme. So what you write your resume might be specific around my industry and about me, personally, I might look for traits about this person, do they make something on their own, they have a club or focus area that they're highly motivated in? But more specifically, it's about that pattern of approach to testing.
Darrel Farris
I like that. I remember from my own interviews, at Microsoft, there's always the Microsoft logic question, which was something goofy and ridiculous. They were hated by everyone. But the thing that I liked about it is that when you're evaluating the answers to those questions, nobody cares if you get the right answer. They just want to hear how you think through it and can you talk about how you think through it? I think that I always appreciated that of course, the interviewer has a lot of control over how that all plays out. But I think it's important. We're always looking for folks who are thoughtful I think in testing so I think it's interesting I wanted to harken back to some of the things you were saying about being women in this role and sometimes being kept there, I'm struggling for words on this, but I'm wondering what's the best piece of advice that you've received, I would say as a tester, and then does it differ but your best advice as a female in tech, Marjie.
Marjie Carmen
We have books on this. Speak up. Be present in the room as a female in general and enable, make sure that you step into the room and you have presence. Learn how to speak truth to power and to do it appropriately. Study the different temperaments of different people so you understand how to deliver a message and the way they can best receive it be tenacious, but speak up take up space in a room, and I learned years ago, I used to go to this annual really great conference. A lot of what we talked about is how to step into a room and own the room. So, learn how to do that. Just do the things that make you uncomfortable, like Maaret was saying, she was afraid of public speaking. So what did she do more of public speaking, so do the things you're afraid of, because in quality assurance, whether it was in the 80s, or whether it's now you're very oftentimes not delivering great news, you're not saying oh, everything works perfectly your software, it's brilliant. I love the UI, there are no problems here. No, this is not your message. So you have to learn. You have to like grow yourself, read the books from the different temperaments. Learn the different ways you have to communicate, you have to be one of the best communicators. Not that other people do not. But you have to be that's got to be a strength. Yeah.
Darrel Farris
DeDe, I think you were about to say something.
LaDeitra Lee
Yeah, I would say like, the best advice for me was when I always thought about like a mentor-mentee, and I grew up always making sure I had a mentor. I used to make sure I paid for by having mentees. But what I think that helped me the most is having a sponsor. So my advice for anyone like on my team, or anyone that's looking to grow in their career is to make sure you have a sponsor, that's a few levels above you because they will look out for you. So whatever company you end up working with, or if you're starting your own thing, having no sponsors, you need enough people who don't look like you to advocate for you. I think that being a black female in tech helped me a lot. So I would go and look for white men that were a few levels above me that could get to know me, learn me learn how I work, and who could advise me on different things that I would run into, I thought that that was extremely helpful.
Susan Marie
There's an element of positive and negative feedback. I mean, I think we've all gotten a fair amount of both right, and maybe some well-meaning advice a lot alike, don't make waves just be cool those minimizing things are not a piece of advice I would want to receive again, I love what Marjie said, and I would want to echo that and say walk with your power. As a woman in technology, you can't be constantly thinking about what the men in the room are thinking because there are many more of them than there are in that room. So being consumed with that thought process overwhelmed me with actual problem solving that I need to be doing. So putting all of that aside, checking in at the door, and focusing on the positive feedback you get is going to be a better time span.
Darrel Farris
Maaret, what's your favorite piece of advice?
Maaret Pyhäjärvi
I think my favorite piece is one where there's the saying that when one door closes, another one opens. So at some point, you will feel that this is not your place anymore. That's not a bad thing. That's an opportunity. You have only one life and there are a gazillion places that you can spend your life in. So look for those opportunities. So it's always out there.
LaDeitra Lee
Great advice. I love that.
Darrel Farris
Yeah, Karine what about you?
Karine Sully
That's a really hard one and I think everybody's pretty well summarized. There's a level of being yourself and confidence in who you are and knowing that you can do the job that you're there for and be confident in yourself.
Darrel Farris
I know, this is a question that I was hoping to get to that came in from the audience, and I'll read it verbatim. But how do you feel about the range of job titles and descriptions now in quality, quality assurance, quality engineering? Do you feel that this is fragmentation and is maybe a bad thing? Or do you think that this is an effort at specialization and is maybe a good thing? I always say I'm a tester. I can work in various modes, you know, depending on the situation or whatnot, but Maaret, I know you, you write a lot about kinds of perceptions and things of quality engineering testing. I'm wondering, do you have any thoughts on that? Does this differ in Europe? I'm curious about that, too.
Maaret Pyhäjärvi
I don't know actually if it differs in Europe, maybe the other panelists in the call can tell that. But at least around here, the title you use for recruiting is not the title, you end up having your company, the one you choose for recruiting a reference for kind of what type of a person you're primarily looking for. So we use the software development engineering tests type of titles when we want to emphasize the programming aspect of things. Yet, when those people start their jobs, depending on the level duration in the company, at that point, they might find themselves no automation whatsoever in their first six months. So it's setting the expectation of where the future should take, that's more of what we use. The different titles, they reference this team will need these competencies. So when we want to see someone who is really strong at test design and creative ideas on how things might break, because we don't have those skills, then we use more of the tested type of titles. Then we have the conversation in the company on like, what are we actually going to call all of you and there's a huge argument, kind of like, can it be anything or are we all going to be called one? That's just how it works?
Darrel Farris
Marjie, what about you?
Marjie Carmen
These titles evolve, and I ever feel a really strong position. Oh, no, I don't think quality should be in the equation. I heard that from a very famous pioneer in the engineering industry, I used to go to a conference every single year with this guy, Gerald Weinberg, and you all should look him up if you don't know who he is already and read his books because it's timeless information. But we can't assure quality that comes from the manufacturing term, many years ago, we don't commit, we don't have a magic wand, we can't test quality into your product, we could test your product, but we cannot test quality into it. So the whole concept of QA engineer, QA quality assurance, I think gives people the illusion that we can do something that is not possible to be done. We can only show light to the areas of the product that need work, but we can't infuse quality into the product. So I try to talk to HR departments and be like, what are you trying to hire for? What do you need this person to do? So I'm much for this, I'm a software tester, I test software. But I can't just create quality. I can't just be like, here you go, quality, we talked its quality now. So I think we need to really work with our HR departments and just take that term completely out, because it came from manufacturing, where you have quality in line and that is important and you must have that otherwise, your wheels on your car will fall off or whatever. But it's very different from what we do software testing is very different. So I think this shouldn't be on any job descriptions at all.
Susan Marie
I love the quality, the capital Q quality, because it gives me leverage to do well, that's just an area of quality. It's such a soft thing that it gives you the latitude to do a whole lot more than you and I need to write tests and run tests. So actually, I don't object to it that extreme. But I do think we're in this pendulum of embedded quality to the coffers, we'll test it, there are no testers or dev testing. We keep swinging back and forth as we do in other areas. I like to use the analyst versus the automation, focusing on the titles. I think the title I hate the idea that the title is the one thing that you're allowed to do but be giving guidance to what's expected of you and what other people can expect from you. But outside of that, I think all of those things like if you see any of those titles in there, I would imagine applying for that role as me. So I identify with all of them. I don't know that it's as important.
Darrel Farris
Makes sense. We are getting near to the end and I have two more questions that I want to ask and this other one is from the audience too. If anybody wants to answer this one, please feel free to speak up. Thinking on topics of diversity and inclusion, how do we make sure that we're getting good diversity in our teams? I think you know, some of that is you know how the company recruits. As individuals how do you make sure that you have diverse perspectives on your team?
LaDeitra Lee
Diversity and inclusion are definitely very dear to my heart because it's usually just me. But I feel like you have to go where people don't look like you. So if you want to hire more black engineers, or Mexican or Latino engineers, you have to go to areas where you see more of them. So I'm a big advocate of going to HBCUs. If it's engineering if it's that you're looking for whatever that specialty is, like, do your research and find out those schools that specialize in that particular area. Then like if you want to get more Hispanic individuals, go to schools that the ratio is larger in that area. Also, if it's not new college hires that you're looking for, go to different groups we all have so many different organizations that specialize in particular areas like I'm a part of the National Society of Black Engineers. So I tap into the National Society of Black Engineers if I'm trying to help in leveraging get more of a diverse team, but a lot of times I see if this a team of all males, I'd say more women are mostly women, and you look at the leadership, if the leadership is Indian, most of the team is all Indian. If there's a black leader, then you find you may have a few more black people in there. So all of us naturally gravitate to those that are like us and we just need to be honest about that and make sure we hire a diverse team. So then now you have your Asians going and bringing in more Asians or Indians, bringing more Indian, your white bringing more white or male, so just be honest about that. A lot of people are just using that word, but they're not really putting any action to it. That's why you're finding a lot of turnover in a lot of companies that have a diversity and inclusion team. Because the hiring managers are not partnering with them to actually improve diversity and inclusion. They're just still going through their same network, nothing is changing.
Susan Marie
Yeah, as a leader in the company, we have to be making strides to make it level. So when I came into my organization, and I looked at my staffing, I was like, hmm, is this equitable pay for equitable work, and being responsible to that as a leader of that group and making sure that it's fair and making sure that you're not comparing. Like we said, technical, the technical, it's, they're doing different work. But really the appreciation of the value shouldn't be so dramatic between a black, white, and male, female breakdown, it should be equitable, and paying attention to that.
Marjie Carmen
Is what we really did in the 80s, because we had a really diverse group? So I've been doing this, and I learned from some of my friends who are no longer with us, sadly, but really intentionally we were targeting colleges, historically black colleges and universities, where you have to go to where the diverse people are, that you have to make an intentional effort to go exactly what she said If you're going to recruit, there is definitely a bias, a like-me bias, but you have to get beyond that and you have to go and make an effort to find people that are very different and come from different backgrounds, different nationalities, has to be completely intentional, doesn't just happen.
Darrel Farris
That's true. Thinking about our final, final question, where the topic is about career opportunities. So oftentimes, we're in a junior role, and we're looking for that next level up, or we're in a mid-level senior role, and we're looking to maybe become a manager or lead or something like that. I'm wondering if we could just kind of go around and if you have a piece of advice, for how do you grow from that junior to that intermediate role? Then how do you take the next step from the intermediate on to wherever else you might be? So, would anybody like to go first?
LaDeitra Lee
I feel like number one, to advocate for yourself and to speak up. I think that we look to our manager to just make that opportunity for us and understand where we want to grow. But a lot of times, maybe you've said it, and maybe you've explained it to them, but they didn't hear you. So just make sure in your performance reviews that you're actually open and honest about, hey, I want to grow and become a manager or my next level, I want to be a director. These are the reasons why and asking for that piece of advice, asking for what do I need to improve on, what do I need to do more of to get to that next level. So being vocal about it, I don't think we're vocal enough about really what we want to do, we're just assuming that other people are going to figure it out and just make the next opportunity happen for us.
Maaret Pyhäjärvi
I think my words are similar in the sentiment, set your own goals, write them down and show them to your manager so that you can agree on things that you drive and remember that your career is too important to be left on random manager that you get assigned. It's your career, so drive it.
Darrel Farris
Great advice.
Susan Marie
Mine is to keep your head in the game, I have it written up on the board for myself because it's so easy to get. I need the reminder, stay engaged, stay engaged, I think the people who excel and move forward are the ones who are curious, keep their mindset present, are listening and responding. I agree with what both of these ladies have said, more specifically, I mean, not to the extent of like wearing yourself out and working 7am to 8pm, but to the level of like I'm in a meeting, I can stay focused on the goal and have the discussion and get to the end of it and that presence of mind and represents your ability to move forward in any project. All right, Karine.
Karine Sully
I feel like, really, it's been said, your career is your responsibility. So you can use your manager to help figure out where you want to go. But you need to have the drive, you need to take classes to pick up things on the others outside of work, which is hard to do in the high pressure that we work in. But pick up classes, learn new things, partner with your manager, and show your manager that you're driving and you have the interest and they're just there to help you on that path. They're your navigator.
Marjie Carmen
I got into management by looking at gaps and filling them. Also watching what my managers did or what they didn't like to do. But it was always to find a gap and fill it to see what they're doing and say, hey, I can take that off your hands if you want and just take on really acting in the role. So it's a natural evolution to get the different roles that I got by just taking on more and more different responsibilities. Because you just all you need to do is really just keep your eyes open and see what everybody's doing, see what isn't getting done, find problems and solve them just be a problem solver. I guarantee they're things your manager is doing today that they don't want to be doing. So take on a little bit at a time, and eventually, they'll be like, why are you doing this, you know, really own it. You can say what you want to do, but you have to start doing what you want to do. They're not just going to say, oh, here's an opportunity for you necessarily you got to be doing what it is you say you want to do be about it, don't just talk about it. Then it will be natural. If where you're at if they won't promote you, then there are 100s of 1000s of jobs in this country and across the world in software that are going unfilled today. So just take it, it's your career, take it.
Karine Sully
I often say live the life you want. Just start stepping into that role and start living it.
Marjie Carmen
Just start doing it. You don’t need any more education general, you don't need any more information. If you've been around for a little bit in a particular role. Start doing yourself and they'll be like, thank you. One last thing for me, usually, not always.
Darrel Farris
Sometimes it's about having the right conversation and having that right conversation often involves putting yourself out there a little bit and being a little vulnerable, taking a risk and I think sometimes when you do that sure door slams on your face, but wherever a door closes, sometimes a window opens up. I think we got some great advice from all of you today and I hope the audience is inspired. I hope this is actionable for them. I would encourage anybody who's watching this panel, find these wonderful women on LinkedIn or somewhere and take a look at their careers. Maybe there's some inspiration that you can derive from that. Thank you all so much for joining us and I feel like I'm a better person now. Thank you.
