Women Who Ship

Sarah Williams

Are you a high-achieving woman in tech who is tired of proving yourself in rooms you’ve already earned a place in? Do you ever walk into a meeting and wonder if everyone can tell you don’t quite believe you belong there? You are not struggling because you aren't capable, you're struggling because no one taught you how to lead with confidence in spaces that weren't built with you in mind. Women Who Ship dives into the real, unspoken challenges of tech leadership. Hosted by Sarah Williams, a leadership coach and former Senior Manager with 15 years of experience navigating the tech industry, this show provides practical tools and honest conversations to help you stop second-guessing yourself. Whether you're dealing with imposter syndrome, trying to make ambitious goals stick without burning out, feeling invisible in a "recognition-rich" culture, or figuring out how to navigate massive industry shifts like the rapid rise of AI, this podcast is for you. Tune in to build grounded self-trust and learn to navigate your career with both strategy and heart. Because you don't have to wait for your brain to magically stop doubting you to start leading boldly.

  1. 1d ago

    11. Why 'Work Speaks for Itself' is a Trap for Women in Tech (Interview with Tanushree Panigrahy)

    “Work doesn't really speak for itself. The people you work with do.” Welcome to a special episode of Women Who Ship! Today, we are sharing a cross-post interview I recently did on Tanushree Panigrahy's podcast, Show What You Know. Tanushree spent 20 years leading high-stakes tech and consulting programs, and together we dive into a myth that quietly sabotages the careers of brilliant women in tech: the belief that hard work speaks for itself. Many high-performing women were raised to believe that doing great work automatically leads to recognition and promotion. But in an industry built around public execution and high visibility, staying quiet about your wins often means staying invisible. In this deep-dive conversation, we cover: Social Conditioning vs. Tech Advancement: Why the behaviors women are taught growing up (don't brag, share credit, play small) are the exact opposite of what tech promotion calibrations reward.Skill Gap vs. Visibility Gap: My personal story at Atlassian when I was told I "wasn't strategic enough," and how getting assignments in front of skip-level leaders changed everything.The "Should" vs. "Proof" Promotion Trap: Why using promotions to prove your worth creates a fleeting fix, and how to build internal self-trust instead.The Recognition Retro: How to spend 30 minutes every Friday overriding your brain's negativity bias and building a private evidence file for performance reviews.Your next steps: Block 30 Minutes This Friday: Put a recurring appointment on your calendar for a Friday Recognition Retro.Document 3 Wins: Write down 3 positive contributions from your week along with their specific impact on your team or business.Practice One Low-Stakes Rep: Share one documented win with your manager or a trusted colleague in your next 1:1.Free Resource Mentioned: Stop doing invisible glue work in silence! Download my free 5-step playbook Get Recognized at Work: 5 Steps to Document and Show Your Impact at go.coachsarahwilliams.com/recognition Resources Mentioned: Guest Podcast: Show What You Know hosted by Tanushree PanigrahyFree Playbook: Get Recognized at Work: 5 Steps to Document and Show Your Impact at go.coachsarahwilliams.com/recognitionSubscribe & Share: If this episode resonated with you, share it with another brilliant woman in tech who is tired of being the industry's best-kept secret. Hit subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify so you never miss an episode! Let's go ship some good stuff together. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this episode are those of the host and guest alone and do not reflect the views of their respective employers. Theme Music: The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/ Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

  2. Oct 8

    10. Beyond Pizza Parties: Designing Recognition that Actually Motivates Tech Teams

    "In your brain, genuine social recognition lights up the exact same reward centers as receiving a monetary bonus. When you give someone meaningful, personalized recognition, their brain registers it with the exact same neurological weight as cash." Welcome to a new episode of Women Who Ship, in this episode, we are tackling one of the most common management traps in tech: default, one-size-fits-all recognition. Imagine your team hits a major milestone after months of crunch time. You order a pizza party to celebrate and call out your star engineer, Tom, in front of the whole room. But Tom is notoriously private and looks ready to melt into the wall from embarrassment. Meanwhile, Sandy is fuming in the back because she spent weeks reworking project documentation and mentoring junior engineers, but her critical work was completely ignored. In a single pizza party, uncalculated recognition failed twice: it publicly mortified an introvert who wanted quiet 1:1 appreciation, and ignored the vital glue work of someone who craved public visibility. In this episode, we unpack why pizza parties fail and how to design recognition that actually motivates tech teams: The Neuroscience of Praise: How researchers like Izuma et al. (Neuron, 2008) proved that genuine social recognition activates the exact same reward centers in the striatum as receiving a financial bonus.The Gallup Reality & The Iceberg Metaphor: Why 67% of workers feel overlooked, and why managers must look beneath the surface to celebrate invisible "glue work" like documentation, refactoring legacy code, and mentoring.The Dimensions of Recognition Compass: How to navigate the four key axes of recognition: Where (Public vs. Private), Who (Peers vs. Leadership), When (Day-to-day vs. Milestones), and What (Achievements vs. Behaviors).The Manager's Recognition Toolkit: How to map team preferences, run a Recognition Retro, and practice Precision Recognition ("When you did X, it led to Y").Your next steps: Download the Free Playbook: Grab the step-by-step instructions and team preference templates at go.coachsarahwilliams.com/playbook.Identify Invisible Glue Work: Spot one person on your team whose documentation, maintenance, unblocking, or mentoring went unnoticed this month.Deliver Precision Recognition: Give them personalized praise using the formula: "When you [action], it led to [impact]".Free Resource Mentioned: Download the free Recognition and Appreciation Playbook at go.coachsarahwilliams.com/playbook! Special thanks to co-creators Emily, Aidan, and Kat. Subscribe & Share: If this episode resonated with you, share it with a manager or leader in tech who wants to build a highly motivated team. Hit subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify so you never miss an episode! Connect with Sarah on Instagram or LinkedIn @coachsarahwilliams and let her know what you're shipping this week! Let's go ship some good stuff together. Theme Music: The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/ Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

  3. Sep 24

    9. Thoughts are Optional: How Self-Coaching Changes Everything in Your Career

    "Thoughts are optional. The story you are layering onto your career right now is something you get to choose." Welcome to a new episode of Women Who Ship, the podcast for women in tech who are tired of proving themselves in rooms they have already earned a place in and are ready to lead like they know it. In this episode, I'm opening up about a deeply personal chapter from my career: what I used to call my "Year of Rejection." Five years ago, I was dreaming of landing a Product or Program Management role at a major tech company. I spent years searching, getting deep into interviews, even interviewing with VPs, only to repeatedly hear "no." At the exact same time, I was dealing with a challenging situation at my day job where a colleague was actively trying to alienate me. In my mind, those rejections felt like scientific proof that I wasn't good enough, that I'd never land my dream job, and that people just didn't like me very much. In this episode, we unpack why the sentence running in your head is often the single biggest barrier to your career advancement, and how to break out of the Hopelessness Loop: Clean Disappointment vs. Dirty Suffering: Why a job rejection or a difficult meeting is just clean disappointment, but layering on "I'm not good enough" creates dirty suffering that sabotages your next interview.Rejection as Data, Not Valuation: Why a "no" is simply market data about a role's fit or timing, never a verdict on your capability or human worth.The 3-Step Self-Coaching Toolkit: How to use the self-coaching model to separate facts from stories, spot your blind spots using a coaching mirror, and climb the Thought Ladder.My Real 10% Better Ladder Thought: The exact sentence that allowed my shoulders to drop and helped me land my dream tech job within just a few months.Your next steps: Run a 15-Minute Self-Coaching Audit: Pick one recent disappointment at work and write down the neutral circumstance (what a video camera recorded).Identify the Story: Catch the sentence your brain offered and notice the feeling it’s creating.Find Your 10% Better Thought: Practice a believable ladder thought like "Oh well, that didn't work out, but there are other opportunities out there for me."Free Resource Mentioned: Stop doing invisible glue work in silence! Download my free 5-step playbook Get Recognized at Work: 5 Steps to Document and Show Your Impact at go.coachsarahwilliams.com/recognition. Subscribe & Share: If this episode resonated with you, share it with another brilliant woman in tech who needs a reminder that her worth isn't up for debate. Hit subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify so you never miss an episode! Let's go ship some good stuff together. Theme Music: The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/ Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

  4. Sep 10

    8. Who Is in Your Corner? Why Tech Careers Fail Without a Mentor, a Sponsor, and a Coach

    A mentor talks to you. A sponsor talks about you. A coach talks with you." Welcome to a new episode of Women Who Ship, the podcast for women in tech who are tired of proving themselves in rooms they have already earned a place in and are ready to lead like they know it. Today, I'm tackling a fundamental misconception that keeps some of the most brilliant, high-performing women in our industry quietly stuck at the middle management level: the difference between mentorship, sponsorship, and coaching. I fell hard into this trap early in my career while leading global teams and AI initiatives at Atlassian. I was working late, quietly writing documentation, and hoping my flawless execution would speak for itself. But behind closed doors, when promotion decisions were made, my name wasn't even in the room. Quiet competence is a career trap. To advance, you need more than advice, you need advocacy. Grounded in the latest data from the 2025 AWS Women in the Workplace Study, we unpack the massive "sponsorship gap" in tech (where entry-level women are half as likely as men to have senior sponsors) and discuss how sponsored employees are promoted at nearly double the rate. We also share highly practical strategies directly from the trenches of leadership: Why you should stop "admiring from afar" and calling it mentorship.How to build relationships with male allies and leverage peer-to-peer networks.How to ask your manager: "What's something my skip-level manager needs to know about our project or metric right now?"A manager reality check: why your manager’s weekly alignment meeting with fellow leaders is not enough to get your wins discussed, and why you must own your own narrative. Sponsors open doors, but if your internal narrative is running a script of self-doubt, you'll hesitate to walk through them. Sponsoring and mentoring only work if you are mentally ready to let your work be seen. That is why coaching is the invisible foundation of your career corner, a topic so vital we are dedicating our entire next episode to the art of self-coaching. Your next steps: Map Your Visibility Circle: Spend 15 minutes writing down your skip-level manager, your manager's peers, and one cross-functional partner.Draft Your Impact Statement: Pick one win from your evidence file and translate it into: "I [action], which resulted in [impact]".Stop the Invisible Glue Work: Pick one person from your visibility circle and share your impact statement directly with them. Subscribe & Share: If this episode resonated with you, share it with another brilliant woman in tech who is tired of being the industry's best-kept secret. Hit subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify so you never miss an episode! Let's go ship some good stuff together. Theme Music: The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/ Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

  5. Aug 27

    7. Proof of Work as Insurance Part 2: Building publicly with AI

    "Putting things out there is scary. That is the honest truth. But when you go ahead and do that first, you realize that nobody here is judging you." Welcome back to Women Who Ship! In Part 2 of my conversation with Tanushree Panigrahy (founder of the Stay Ahead of the Curve Substack), we get practical about how to start building publicly with AI to actively build your courage and career confidence. In this episode, Tanushree shares her journey of stepping off the over-learning treadmill, dusting off a 12-year-old GitHub account, and putting her "half-baked" experiments online, which led to a major tech VP asking to reuse her code. We walk through four of her hands-on AI experiments: Private Desktop Assistant: Analyzing sensitive personal finance data locally with Ollama.School Memo Summarizer: Simplifying massive school documents for working parents.Deal War Room: A multi-agent AI system simulating proposal teams.Procurement Assistant: Spotting diplomatic evasion patterns in vendor RFP responses. Your next steps: Pick one annoying, recurring problem in your life. Build the roughest possible version of a solution using AI. Spend a couple of weeks playing with it, and then share it publicly. Retrain your brain to trust your own execution!Connect with Tanushree:Substack: Stay Ahead of the CurveLinkedIn: Tanushree PanigrahySubscribe: Subscribe to Women Who Ship on Apple Podcasts or Spotify so you never miss an episode. Recommended Reading: Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon (sharing your process over polished output) Let's go ship some good stuff together. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this episode are those of the host and guest alone and do not reflect the views of their respective employers. Theme Music: The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/ Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

  6. Aug 13

    6. Proof of Work as Insurance Part 1: A conversation with Tanushree Panigrahy

    "I think those were the moments when I felt I need to make something real. Something real that I can see and build that confidence in myself." Welcome to a new episode of Women Who Ship, the podcast for women in tech who are tired of proving themselves in rooms they have already earned a place in and are ready to lead like they know it. Today, we are kickstarting an incredibly timely conversation about a concept that might just be your ultimate career safety net: Proof of Work as Insurance. Our special guest is Tanushree Panigrahy, the founder of the Stay Ahead of the Curve Substack and community. Tanushree has spent nearly two decades navigating tech transformations, bridging the gap between global systems integrators (GSIs) and the vendor side of the table. When she recently decided to leap into an entirely unfamiliar vendor ecosystem, she found herself starting completely cold. Nobody knew her, and nobody knew her skills. Instead of waiting for someone to hand her a project or waiting for a formal title to catch up, Tanushree did something revolutionary: she stopped chasing the certification hype and started building. She became her own judge, role-playing customer scenarios to prove her capabilities to herself first. In this episode, we talk about why certifications alone are not enough in the AI era, how to leverage your hard-earned experience as a strategic asset, and why the messiest parts of tech disruption still require human-led change management, empathy, and stakeholder coordination. Your next steps: Start with a small experiment: Do not wait for permission or a perfect role to start experimenting. Your homework this week is to identify one small, everyday problem in your daily life or workflow. Use a free generative AI tool to build a simple solution. Start with a single prompt and focus on making something real, even if it is not perfect. Proving to your own brain that you can ship a solution is where true self-trust begins.Capture your proof of work: If you want help actually documenting what you are shipping, grab my free Get Recognized at Work: 5 Steps to Document and Show Your Impact playbook. It walks you through a simple weekly “Recognition Retro” so you can turn experiments like this into clear impact statements you can use in 1:1s, performance reviews, and promotion packets.Connect with Tanushree:Substack: Stay Ahead of the CurveLinkedIn: Tanushree PanigrahySubscribe: Be sure to subscribe to Women Who Ship on Apple Podcasts or Spotify so you do not miss Part 2 of this deep dive! Let's go ship some good stuff together. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this episode are those of the host and guest alone and do not reflect the views of their respective employers. Theme Music: The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/ Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

  7. Jul 30 ·  Bonus

    [Bonus] Beyond Certainty Part 3: What are you building toward?

    "The recognition and the promotion you have earned deserve to mean something real, not a verdict on your worth, and not the next logical step on a ladder going who knows where." Welcome to Part 3, the final episode of our special bonus series of Women Who Ship: Beyond Certainty: Turning great work into the recognition you have earned. If you have been following along, you have already learned how to separate neutral circumstances from your thoughts and how to build a thought ladder to create believable confidence. But a thought ladder without a clear direction is just energy with nowhere to go. In this episode, we tackle a realization that hits almost every high-achieving woman I work with: she has been climbing hard toward a goal that was never really hers to begin with. We explore the danger of the "should promotion" (chasing a title because it is the next logical step) and the "proof promotion" (using a new role to prove your inherent worth). Because the tech industry rewards behaviors that often go against how women are socialized, achieving these goals can feel incredibly hollow. Instead of burning out for an empty title, I will teach you how to identify your true values and assess if your current and future roles actually align with what gets you out of bed in the morning. Your Next Steps: Assess your values: Think about your career in terms of values rather than titles or salary. Identify two or three core values that get you excited to show up to work, like autonomy, collaboration, or innovation. Then, evaluate both your current role and your next target role to see where they align with or fall short of those values.Subscribe: Hit subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify so you never miss an episode. A Special Announcement: I am officially opening three to five founding member spots for my high touch, one on one coaching program, Lead Boldly! If you are ready to turn great work into the promotion you have earned, send me a DM at Coach Sarah Williams on LinkedIn or Instagram and say "I am in" or "tell me more". Let's go ship some good stuff together. Theme Music: The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/ Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

  8. Jul 25 ·  Bonus

    [Bonus] Beyond Certainty Part 2: Why the confidence advice you've been given isn't working

    "Nothing is wrong with you. The advice was wrong. And more specifically, it was built for someone else." Welcome to Part 2 of our special bonus series of Women Who Ship: Beyond Certainty: Turning great work into the recognition you have earned. You know that you are capable and have a great track record, but sometimes in high stakes moments, an old thought shows up that holds you back. You have likely tried traditional affirmations and "fake it until you make it" positive thinking, only to find that it just does not hold up under pressure. This advice fails because it assumes confidence is what is standing between you and your results, which ignores the reality women navigate in tech where you are told to be confident but not too aggressive. In this episode, we explore why you do not need to perform false confidence or leap to a positive thought you cannot believe. Instead, I introduce a tool called the Thought Ladder, which helps you figure out what is actually true right now so you can build grounded self trust from there. Your next steps: Practice the Thought Ladder: Go back to the thought that you wrote down after Part 1. Do not try to replace it with the exact opposite thought. Instead, find one thought that is just 10 percent better and slightly more useful. Write it down to create the next "rung" on your ladder.Subscribe: Hit subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify so you do not miss Part 3, where we discuss the actual goal you are climbing toward! Let's go ship some good stuff together. Theme Music: The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/ Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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Are you a high-achieving woman in tech who is tired of proving yourself in rooms you’ve already earned a place in? Do you ever walk into a meeting and wonder if everyone can tell you don’t quite believe you belong there? You are not struggling because you aren't capable, you're struggling because no one taught you how to lead with confidence in spaces that weren't built with you in mind. Women Who Ship dives into the real, unspoken challenges of tech leadership. Hosted by Sarah Williams, a leadership coach and former Senior Manager with 15 years of experience navigating the tech industry, this show provides practical tools and honest conversations to help you stop second-guessing yourself. Whether you're dealing with imposter syndrome, trying to make ambitious goals stick without burning out, feeling invisible in a "recognition-rich" culture, or figuring out how to navigate massive industry shifts like the rapid rise of AI, this podcast is for you. Tune in to build grounded self-trust and learn to navigate your career with both strategy and heart. Because you don't have to wait for your brain to magically stop doubting you to start leading boldly.

Information

  • Creator
    Sarah Williams
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    15
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Sarah Williams
  • Show Website
    Women Who Ship