Engineer Your Career WEST Diversity & Inclusion, LLC

Pinar Ozlen is an Engineering Manager at Airbnb based in Paris, France. Before Airbnb, she served as an Engineering Manager at Whatsapp, and worked on Google Maps and Search as an engineer with Google.



In this episode, we discuss:


How she gained visibility in large organizations
Her transition from "What am I building" to "Who am I working with"
Defining a leadership style that's complementary to your personality
Tips for overcoming imposter syndrome
The importance of setting boundaries and saying "No"



Where to find Pinar Ozlen:


LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pinar-ozlen-25980a95/



Where to find Heidi Williams:


LinkedIn:⁠⁠ ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidiwilliams1/⁠⁠⁠
Website:⁠⁠ ⁠https://www.joinwest.org/⁠⁠



Where to find Karen Ko:


LinkedIn: ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/karenko26/⁠⁠

Smita Ojha is the Senior Vice President of Engineering at Mindtickle, a market leader in enterprise sales software. Over the last two decades, Smita has led engineering teams at some of the largest tech companies - Microsoft, Meta, and Google.



In this episode, we discuss:


How to say yes to new opportunities outside of your comfort zone
The importance of developing a diverse skillset to become a well-rounded leader
Adopting a fearless approach by identifying the excitement in challenges
The key differences between leading engineering at a large company vs. a startup
Leveraging sponsorship from unexpected places: team members, peers, and leadership
How to build psychological safety on teams



Where to find Smita Ojha:


LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/smitao/



Where to find Heidi Williams:


LinkedIn:⁠ ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidiwilliams1/⁠⁠
Website:⁠ ⁠https://www.joinwest.org/⁠



Where to find Karen Ko:


LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/karenko26/⁠

Tamar Bercovici is the VP of Engineering at Box where she leads the Core Platform team in scaling the foundational platform for the Box Content Cloud. In her 13 years at Box, she scaled the cloud content management and file-sharing service to handle millions of queries per second searching hundreds of billions of records. Named one of Forbes Top 50 Women in Tech 2018, Tamar also ranked #1 on Okta and Business Insider's Tech Up and Comers list 2019. She holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Technion Israel Institute of Technology and a technology patent for updating data in cloud computing systems. 



In this episode we discuss:


The scope and responsibilities expected from a manager to a vice president 




The pros & cons of having a long history at one company


How to create space for new voices on a team and influence team culture 


The parallels between managing and parenting 




Leading ambiguous, complex projects and managing risk 


How to be ready for opportunities when they arise 





Additional Resources:


The Five Dysfunctions of a Team By Patrick Lencioni





Where to find Tamar Bercovici:


LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamarbercovici/ 





Where to find Heidi Williams:


LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidiwilliams1/⁠
Website: ⁠https://www.joinwest.org/



Where to find Karen Ko:


LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karenko26/

A. J. Oxendine is the Tech Lead and Staff Software Engineer for the Home Feed product at Pinterest. She enjoys the creative process of building new things, figuring out how they work, and how she can make them better. This passion has led her to study music composition, art, graphic design. and now, software engineering.



In this episode, we discuss:


AJ's nontraditional path from design to engineering 
Thoughts on IC vs management 
Skills and mindset shifts from Senior to Staff Engineer 
Tips on gaining visibility for your work
Expanding and refining your brand as your role evolves
Thoughts on navigating diversity, intersectionality, and tech
Maintaining mentoring relationships 



Additional Resources:


Pinterest Apprenticeship Programs



Where to find A.J. Oxendine:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amirahoxendine/



Where to find Karen Ko:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karenko26/

Joy Ebertz is a Principal Software Engineer, prolific blogger, avid ultrarunner, and an advocate for increasing the number of women and minorities in Computer Science. At Split, Joy establishes technical direction for their backend team. Prior to Split, she worked at Box. At both Split and Box, Joy lead efforts around splitting monoliths into microservices, revamping authentication and authorization frameworks, creating REST API standards, audit logging and more. In addition to designing software and writing code, Joy shares her learnings through her blog (which has 2.7k followers on Medium), and is often invited to speak at conferences such as LeadDev and WWCode. In her free time, she does a lot of traveling, reading, and running ridiculously long distances (mostly on trails).



In this episode, we discuss:


How different size companies played a factor in Joy's career journey
The value of understanding your workstyle and motivations
Why she left people management
The power of written and spoken communication
What most people get wrong about influencing others
Networking tips for introverts



Additional Resources:


There and Back Again: Why I Entered & Left Management - Presentation by Joy Ebertz
Why It's So Hard to Become a Staff Engineer - Medium blog post by Joy Ebertz



Where to find Joy Ebertz:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joyebertz/

Medium: https://jkebertz.medium.com/



Where to find Heidi Williams:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidiwilliams1/

Website: https://www.joinwest.org/

Welcome to the trailer episode of Engineer Your Career, brought to you by WEST, a learning community that empowers women technologists through mentorship. Through this podcast, we’ll explore the different paths leaders have taken to grow their tech leadership, develop their influence, and gain insights from top women leaders  in the field. Hosted by Karen Ko and Heidi Williams.