hello and welcome to the ideas exchange by clue each month the ideas exchange will bring together people responsible for shaping the future in their Industries to share their stories and what the future holds for them today we're lucky to have two Tech experts from software and Technical enablement with us because you guessed it we're focused in on technology Jen shorten is in technical enablement from Talent the data Health experts and Kayla Mendoza is a game and software developer for view City and clue thanks for joining us both of you how are you doing today amazing so to get us started um I would love to know um what a bit about your journey into Tech um Jen please after you sure um so I have been in the industry since around 1998 so really when it was quite the internet you know was quite nascent and new um and I had a a fairly untraditional journey in that I graduated from University uh in 1996 with a life sciences degree I studied um uh cognitive behavioral uh animal behavior and things like that and and I thought I was going to go to graduate school and be a professor and a research scientist and I wound up uh I had a job at a biotech company as a project manager and um you know so I'd gotten this really great set of project management skills um and when I realized that I actually didn't that an academic career wasn't really going to be a great fit for me and I started looking around for things to do I wound up in what was then the New Media department at a company called John Wiley and Sons as an assistant project manager and so I got into Tech because my project management skills really transferred into the tech industry and that's that's where I started I've been in Tech ever since there's transferable skills is something that we deeply um and and um how about you what was your journey into technology like um so my journey into technology is I guess the way I always saw technology is that it's it's an enablement for me to be able to do something and so it wasn't I'm interested in the tech for tech sake it's just how can I use Tech to do what I want to do so in high school I actually used to use Microsoft PowerPoint to create like these slideshow games where something pops up and when you click it it will take you to another slide where you know the action has happened so it kind of made it look like it was interactive but that was quite limiting and so um around came the internet I was Googling like how can I how can I um program computer games I had this sort of um this burning desire to sort of create uh recreate one of my favorite childhood games and so I just kind of taught myself I just got online I joined the forums a lot of people were like learn to code first I'm like but I'm trying and so I just stuck with it um I guess uh you know the thing that really drove me was the fact that I had a goal in mind I think if I were to just study coding for the sake of it I'm not sure how well I would have done um the the real journey for me was I know what I want to do and Tech is how I'm going to get there absolutely now that's a quite an unusual um route into technology kale and because uh most people would study a computer science or data Centric degree um in order to start their career so how did you get into Tech without studying a technology-based subject um so I guess I just reached a point where I said okay I'm doing pretty good at this I enjoy this I need to get serious about it and so there came a point in my journey where I'm like I'm gonna actually do some modules online I hopped on I hopped on sites like w3schools to go through the tutorials and just to get get my head around it in a more structured way um and also I guess uh you know by bringing Tech into all of the things I was doing in my jobs which weren't necessarily Tech Centric I kind of ended up creating experience in jobs that weren't about tech using what I'd coded so for example um when I was working um at Apple um I was able to sort of create training modules and like little little apps that we were using just to help with the team nothing to do with my job I just really wanted to do it and by doing that and building up this sort of portfolio of projects um that actually helped me to be able to get a job that you use that specifically so what I'm doing and your city yes I'm there to take care of technical support and account management but I'm actually developing software that helps us with our jobs every day so that that way you know it's yes I have my goals but actually I'm trying to be smarter about it and this is where I think Tech comes in um so yeah it's just building up that portfolio bringing it in where you can because that experience is what got me where I am build up the portfolio and gain experience in developing those skills in every way that you can until you feel ready to take the take the leap into in in into your kind of Entry role um fascinating fascinating um now Jen um you are a woman in technology uh some might say at your level of rare breed um navigating um a career in technology yeah underrepresented community well I it's interesting um because I think because I've been around for so long um you know when I first started out uh I because of the fact that I didn't come from a programming background right because I didn't have a a computer science degree because I wasn't a programmer uh because I was a woman because I was a young woman um you know the early card part of my career I really had to wear a Persona or I felt I had to wear a really hard you know tough Persona because it was all about fighting for recognition and respect um and as I've progressed in my career and I've moved from the non-technical side of it to the very technical side very technical roles um you know I have found that uh establishing credibility and if if you're if you're in a situation where you just have to constantly fight to establish credibility and you're in an environment where you're not being treated very well as somebody who there aren't a lot of other people like you in a room then it's not worth it to change yourself you need to be able to show up to your work as your authentic self and really that's a good sign that this isn't a good environment and you need to go and so instead of now in the industry instead of being in a place where I am always gearing up for a fight and whatnot I make sure you know I've got you know I make sure now that the environment that I'm in is a great environment and that I create that same kind of environment for folks who are around me and I think that's really important that's a really important thing is you know you shouldn't have to fight you shouldn't have to um be you shouldn't be in a position where you're feeling marginalized if you're terrible about yourself and there are places where there are more places in the industry I think where you don't where you won't experience that and it and it and it's always a good idea to look for the right environment for you and for you know to really make sure that you can come to work as your authentic self and how you feel and so I think that um you know the industry is still it's still an industry it's still a corporate industry it is still populated the vast majority by people who don't look like me and don't necessarily look like Kalin um uh but you know there are great places in the industry and don't stay in a place that makes you have to fight because there are plenty of jobs out there you know that won't make you do that that's my best advice right is is it's not up to you it's not up to you as as somebody who is um from an underrepresentative minority to have to be so excellent that you prove all these people wrong right it's not your responsibility to fix corporate culture if corporate culture isn't good you know make sure that you look after yourself in your career that's my I think that's my advice that I would give to a younger me it's um it's it's actually the advice that I I give as well Jen I am the number one thing I say that I'm still paying off the debt of now is not recognizing my value soon enough in my career and I'm putting up with bad managers who wanted to basically take a ride um at my expense um and it was only when I realized that I had that um that power I had that control there were lucky to have my talent as opposed to me feeling fortunate for them and that power shift um has really transformed my own trajectory as well so absolutely you're there to you're there to be a developer or an architect or a marketeer or you're not there to be the representative of your community it's not your responsibility and if if the job is making that if the job is making that for you it's the job's fault right and that's not your fault and you shouldn't you know all my career I thought I had to always be the best of the best in the room I had to be the smartest the most experienced the most knowledgeable the sharpest the fastest width you know and and and that held me back because I was angry all the time right um and don't fall into that trap is my advice yeah absolutely this is the psychological role model fatigue uh not every yeah and not everyone is an extrovert um you know it's uh it can be very very draining on your ability to do your job um ultimately why you are there um Caitlyn from from your um side of things um how was it for you as uh someone from an underrepresented Community finding uh your your pathway in Tech foreign I guess my I don't know if I could characterize it as like a plane landing like it was kind of going into the jungle um there wasn't really a Runway um so I think that you know if I were to be talking to my younger self about you know what the challenges of that Journey were and what I would have to say to someone like me um I was I was always thinking about what I couldn't do as opposed to what I could do and so when it comes to like yes I don't have the same background or I don't have the same um skills or I'm not from the same environment or I don't even gel with these people in the same way that everyone else seems to the focus should never have been on the things that I can't do and actually the focus always should have been what I can bring and as I've gotten older and as I've navigated this I've just come to realize that it doesn't matter if I don't look the same it doesn't matter if I haven't done the same thing because I know what my value is and what I can bring and so I I actually reached this fun point where I just decided to flip the pancake because I like to say on my CV and I destroyed it as a CV and turned it into like a magazine with a picture of me in New York and some ridiculous pose and I read like an article interviewing Caitlyn explaining what I'm all about and talking about the projects I've done because I thought you know what if they don't get that I don't want to work for them and so the whole genetic for me was just taking back that power and speaking from a place of this is what I can do as opposed to being insecure about the things that I can't do how did you take um all of these um all of these tools and help it shape the career that you wanted to follow in in in in technology um I think that actually those tools helped me to shape the career that I wanted because I wasn't always sure um I think that like um I never had this idea when I was younger of this is the job that I want um but I've always had this sense of momentum and trajectory and it's like as long as I'm learning and as long as what I'm doing is interesting it's gonna pull me in the direction that I want so I've always just operated it on that basis and that's how I've ended up wherever where I am I if you were to ask me five years ago what I'd be doing now I I don't know if I'd be able to say that I would be um creating a tech platform you know I I and so part of it is actually just that Curiosity and that um that momentum and that desire to kind of learn something new absolutely um now taking a bit of a step um toward the future um Jen what is the most exciting thing about um the future of of your sector for for you so I think I think that for me the you know for me I've had a I've had an interesting Journey I've been a solution architect I've been an analyst I've been a project manager and now my job is enablement so what I do is I take the all of that experience and I help to actually bring you know the future me's and the future kalins along at my at my organization and the thing that is really exciting for me is that the industry pack is not just about the developers it's not just about the people that write the code and I think the industry has is really recognizing more and more that there is a there's a whole ecosystem of incredibly interesting roles that support the development of software and the sales of software and the innovation in software whatnot and I think what most um most successful software companies have realized is it's that diversity of experience and idea and skill set um you know different ways of thinking different mental models those are the things that are really needed to drive Innovation not just a bunch of you know um Superstar rock star developers right that's not enough to have just the best coders you need the best kind of combination of minds and so what I think is the industry is is not just welcoming but it's actually out there really actively looking and seeking for people with different kinds of experiences and who look at problems in slightly different ways you know the the concept of the lateral thinker or you know somebody who's you know really gonna while everybody's looking this way somebody else is going to look at it from this way or look at it from that way and I think that's what's really exciting and so we see this um this this change in the industry where it's it's just improving itself you know it's realized cotton onto the fact that it can improve itself simply by expanding opportunity and that to me is the real this is the real magic you know and if I could say one thing one really great piece of advice of people looking at together in the industry is it's it's not just developers you know code Camp is great and if you're interested in writing code and being a programmer that is awesome like go do a course in wanna but if you're if you what you're really good at is analyzing a problem and breaking it down if you're really good at communicating you know um helping people understand Concepts and communicating things you know you could be an analyst there's so many different ways to get into the industry and you don't have to pigeonhole yourself into one job right there's so many transferable skills for the industry and that that to me is really really exciting it's just such an interesting point you raise because I think myself I've I've spent um my entirety of my career involved with technology and designing and creating and ideating products but I still get confused to get into fights with Siri um you know I I have the least technical person in the entire world but I but you're in Tech but you're in Tech exactly that and it's it's my anal skill that has been uh the foundation of my career um Caitlin how about you um what is it that you uh that excites you most about the uh the the future of technology um I mean if you ask me in a week's time I might say something completely different but something that's really resonating with me right now it's kind of where technology overlaps with um your humanity and I guess you know when you oh you know we have this kind of more more Choice more um options more availability kind of thrown at us every day um and I feel that we're reaching a place as a society where we don't want to have infinite choice where oh look there are 5 000 adapters I can choose on Amazon like which one do it like you know there comes a point where choice is actually too much and it's overwhelming and so a direction that I I'm quite excited about is I guess if I could create a word like boutiqueism you know where people are starting to get things that are a lot more personalized for them you know I feel like the day of the monolith is gone like the you know the one size fits all the platform that does everything the service that does everything I just don't think that it works anymore and I'm really excited to see how people are starting to think outside of the square of how can I do what everyone else is doing and do it better instead they're like how can I do something totally different that's where I'm seeing really exciting stuff yeah I mean the last I mean honestly the last few years of innovation has just been people slightly improving an existing process and that's that's gotten kind of old and kind of stayed right but now you've got people really completely rethinking and integrating you know where technology bleeds into to to into other things right real world problems and whatnot and the solutions we're starting to see are so interesting yeah so interesting things happening not happening in the big VCS but really happening kind of at a Grassroots level and again I think that's the the democratization right we're all in Tech now right I mean everybody you know so many of us are in Tech even though we don't consider ourselves in Tech but that that expanded access and that expanded reach means you get to see really interesting really interesting new things because you've got that very different mindset coming in and starting to work with technology and just you know thinking about it in ways that you know that those of us who've been building software forever would never think about that stuff it's very exciting very exciting there's something also with um gen Zed coming through as digital Natives and understanding the world still going through digital transition um and just walking into situations and and saying well hold up why are you doing it like this why is this is that no not an automated process that happens for me in all of these other instances and so the rate of innovation that gen Zed is is uh directly responsible for um you know kind of coming up and uh and completely disrupting our ways of thinking is it's palpable it's it's it's incredible to see um I also think that there's you know to your point around everyone being in technology um Ai and machine learning are having such a significant role in um centralizing subject expertise um so that a lot of traditional learning um styles and methods around kind of information retention in people are becoming more and more redundant and so a lot of the skills that were originally really important technology are almost becoming self-sufficient and it's the creative developers it's the innovators it's the analysts it's the strategists that are really kind of coming to the forest the ones that are going to be driving through the next evolution of Technology um and and for me you know this is one of the most exciting things to seeing always seeing shifts in power and evolution kind of the power and the value that we see in the different skills are intrinsic to the future of of a profession yeah I love that um I want to try to not get muddled in all of the things that that's made me think of um but the thing around subject matter expertise and the role of AI like I I really think that you're on to something there when it comes to um you know you don't need to memorize everything uh and this is where technology will be able to support us um and actually it then becomes a bit clearer as to what our human skills are and what we need to do and what we need to um you know like how can you know I I'm thinking of the example where I was saying that I'm talking about what I can do not about what I can't do like I remember I was in a job interview it was for a technical role supported in um I.T and the the guy asked me this question about like you know what the difference between these two hard drive raid configurations were and I said well one of them does this one of them does that and it's like so which one I'm like well I don't know off the top of my head but the point is I know how to find out and I wouldn't guess and so this isn't a question of me memorizing something this is a question of me problem solving and knowing where to find it and so where AI I think really comes into um comes into its own is when it's it's kind of like that assistant that's supporting us it's not doing everything for us it's there to make us do it better and quicker and easier absolutely I think the thing that you and I if we probably looked and see we had such different routes into our careers we've had such different careers but I think the one you and I share that's really common is we're lifelong Learners right we're curious and we're always really and and the skill that we do have is the ability to think ah you know what I'm gonna go learn about this new thing this is interesting or I think this might be important I'm gonna go do some research and I'm going to learn the thing and I would think that that's probably the single most important skill to have and to demonstrate in you know because if because if you said that to be in an interview I'd be super impressed if you said to me I'm not going to guess I don't know but I know I know where I can go get that information I would have been like yes this is yes exactly right because because this is that skill that's a true skill set you know and I think that's a really interesting point to folks is you know that's the thing that employers really one of the things that employers are really looking for in the industry is that you know that kind of hunger to be learning to be growing to be finding new things that interest in new information and whatnot and I think yeah absolutely absolutely and that's a really a really great point there's um just as a a bit of a closing remark on that we um a clue you know we we see about 60 of the jobs that go through our system uh are technology centered not necessarily developers but have a large part to play in in technology LED organizations um and we've just pulled data over the last year uh to understand which um which skills are in the highest demand across all of the people that engage with clue um and in the top 10 there is not a single technical skill that doesn't surprise me this does not surprise me um you know python SQL data analysis they're all in the top 20. um but the top four every single one of the top four is a relationship-centric skill um communication LED and another the other two are um sorry the other three no yeah the other three there we go uh mathematics again so in technology but not good at maths um entirely curiosity based problem solving based so yeah people how to work with people how to communicate well with people and solve problems are the highest in demand um in technology sectors at the moment it's um but I think that shows I think that shows a maturity in the industry you know that we didn't have certainly 20 something years ago when I started right that was not that was you know that was not how it was but it's it's it's it's comforting to see that that's where we've gotten to as an industry because that bodes well for the future health of the industry right it's not it's not going to you know cannibalize itself and fight after the same four Dudes right it's gonna it's gonna be do a lot more people unfortunately absolutely well look thank you both so much for for joining us today um so much amazing advice and and and wisdom that you've shared so really thank you for your time um if uh anyone listening today wants to discover if they have the foundation skills for a career in technology you can jump on over to get a clue dot IO and take our skills-based career quiz to find out whether you're ready or whether you've got some gaps that you need to start focused on filling um and don't forget to join us on the first Thursday of every month for the ideas exchange by clue see you then foreign [Music]
2022-10-18