Speaker Angie Chang is CEO and Founder at Girl Geek X (formerly Bay Area Girl Geek Dinners), a growing community of 40,000+ mid-to-senior level women in technology. Girl Geek X works with mission-aligned companies to help them engage, hire and retain women and non-binary leaders & technologists via custom recruiting events.
Over the past decade, we have partnered with hundreds of the world’s most innovative tech and consumer brands (PayPal, Etsy, Tesla, Adobe, Meta, Microsoft, Netflix and more) to host more than 400 events in the San Francisco Bay Area, and virtual events for over 20,000 attendees — creating opportunities for more than 2,000 women to take the mic and share their thought leadership and expertise as speakers.
Prior to Girl Geek X, Angie was VP of Strategic Partnerships at Hackbright Academy, a women’s engineering school for female software engineers. Angie led partnerships with employers at Hackbright, where she built valuable hiring partnerships (Uber, Slack, GoDaddy, Redfin, Indiegogo and more), launched the mentorship program (enlisting 700+ industry engineers as volunteers in 4 years) and connected countless women to new jobs in tech.
She co-founded Women 2.0 in 2006, a media company which promotes women in high-tech entrepreneurship. She was named in Fast Company’s 2010 “Most Influential Women in Technology” and more recently Business Insider named her one of “30 Most Important Women Under 30 In Tech.”
Angie has been invited by the U.S. State Department to speak on women’s high-tech, high-growth entrepreneurship in the West Bank, Switzerland and Germany. In her early career, Angie held positions in product management and web/UI production at various Silicon Valley startups. She holds a B.A. in English and Social Welfare from UC Berkeley.
Or if you prefer email, contact speakers@girlgeek.io to learn moreabout Angie Chang speaking to your organization or group in 2024!
Select speaking engagements:
** Disney (Asia-Pacific, Virtual) ** Roblox(San Mateo, California) ** Google – Girl Geek Dinner (w/ U.S. Consulate General in Zurich, Switzerland) ** Microsoft – Build Conference (Seattle, Washington) ** PASS Summit – WIT Lunch Keynote (Seattle, Washington) ** Salesforce – Dreamforce Conference (San Francisco, California) ** TEDxUIUC (Chicago, Illinois) ** KPCC Girl Geek Dinner (w/ Southern California Public Radio, The Crawford Family Forum in Los Angeles) ** European Innovation Academy (Nice, France) ** Jumpp & Techettes (w/ U.S. Consulate in Frankfurt, Germany) ** University of Auckland (w/ Centre for Innovation & Entrepreneurship, Auckland, New Zealand) ** Palestinian universities & hubs (w/ U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem & occupied Palestinian territories) ** Private, Corporate Exec/Team Meetings (various)
Many of the world’s biggest brands and companies are helmed by female CTOs you should know.
This year, we welcome some new faces in annual list of 60 inspiring Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) to watch in 2025 – that happen to be incredible women technologists and engineers:
Gülay Stelzmüllner is Chief Technology Officer at Allianz in Germany. With more than 20 years of IT experience, she has led complex and global IT projects, simplifying and automating IT operations, and driving process improvement and innovation. Prior to Alliaz, she worked at Siemens for over 17 years. She earned her diploma in computer science at Munich University.
Anchal Gupta is Chief Technology Officer at American Airlines in the United States. Prior to American Airlines, she led engineering teams at JP Morgan Chase, Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, Barclays, and American Express, to name a few. She earned her degrees in management from Indian Institute of Technology, Calcutta.
Raji Arasu is Chief Technology Officer at Autodesk in California. Autodesk is the leading software for architecture, design, construction, engineering, and manufacturing. Prior to Autodesk, she was Senior Vice President of Platform at Intuit, Chief Technology Officer at StubHub, and spent over a decade at eBay, where she began as a senior manager and worked her way up to Vice President of Technology. She earned her bachelor’s in engineering at Savitribai Phule Pune University.
Dawn Baker is Chief Technology Officer at Back Market in France. Back Market is a global marketplace for premium refurbished electronics. Prior to Back Market, Dawn was a Senior Director of Engineering at Google, Vice President of Engineering at Fitbit, Senior Manager of Site Reliability Engineering at LinkedIn, and more. She earned her bachelor’s at Boston University.
Amanda Blevins is Chief Technology Officer at BMC Americas in Colorado. BMC helps customers run and reinvent businesses with open, scalable, and modular solutions to complex IT problems. Prior to BMC, she was at VMware, Principal Architect at IHS, Senior Consultant for Electronic Data Systems, Technical Lead for ITD Server Solutions at Johns Manville, Network Engineer at DCS, Senior Network Administrator at FrontRange Solutions, and she began her early career as Network Administrator, Lab Administrator, and Helpdesk Technician. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Computer Science at American Sentinel University.
Emily Castles is Chief Technology Officer at Boundless in Ireland. Boundless is an employment platform for compliance and human resources. Prior to starting Boundless, she was head of engineering at Bizimply. She has worked as a software engineer at Red Hills Software, Grontmij, and RPS Consulting Engineers. She earned both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at University College Dublin.
Patricia Hubbard is Chief Technology Officer at Cabot in Massachusetts. Cabot is a leading global specialty chemical and performance materials company. Before Cabot, she was Vice President of R&D at Avery Dennison, Vice President of Corporate Technology at Avient (formerly PolyOne), and CVD Technology Manager at GE, where she worked for over a decade. She earned her Ph.D. in Polymer Science at The University of Akron and her bachelor’s degree in Chemistry at Case Western Reserve University.
Maria Telleria is Chief Technology Officer at Canvas inCalifornia. Canvas is the first robotic drywall finishing company. Before co-founding Canvas, Maria was a company lead at Otherlab. She is the lead author on eight patents and five patent applications related to Canvas systems and is a co-inventor on an additional three patents related to pneumatic robots. Maria earned her a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT.
Urvi Randhar is Chief Technology Officer at Cardinal Health in Texas. Prior to Cardinal Health, she worked at Prime Therapeutics, Healogics, and Medsolis. Prior to that, she was at MEDHOST for 19 years, most recently as a Vice President of product development, where she worked her way up from senior software architect. She earned her bachelor’s in computer software engineering at SGSITS.
Anne Solmssen is Chief Technology Officer at Ethena in New York. Ethena is a compliance training platform. Prior to Ethena, she worked as a Tech Lead at Mark43 and interned at Palantir. She earned her bachelor’s in computer science at Harvard University.
Rachana Kumar is Chief Technology Officer at Etsy in New York. Etsy is a global marketplace for unique and creative goods. She was promoted from Vice President of Engineering, and has been at Etsy for a decade, when she joined as an Engineering Manager. Prior to Etsy, she co-founded ShaadiKarma, was a Graduate Consultant at Columbia University, interned at United Nations Population Fund, worked as Lead Software Architect at Brighter India Foundation, managed Web Development at BET Networks, consulted at Ernst & Young, and began her career as a Programmer Analyst at Cognizant. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Communication at RV College of Engineering and a master’s degree in Public Administration at Columbia University.
Erin DeCesare is Chief Technology Officer at ezCater in Massachusetts. ezCater is the leading marketplace for corporate catering. Prior to ezCater, she was Vice President of Data and Analytics at Bottomline Technologies, Vice President of Data and Analytics at Vistaprint, Director of Program Management at Fidelity Investments, Project Manager at Sovereign Bank, Project Manager at Woodman Design Group, and began her career as an Information Technology Account Manager at Signature. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Biology at Boston University and her MBA at Northeastern University.
Rebecca Salsbury is Chief Technology Officer at Financial Times in the United Kingdom. Prior to the Financial Times, she worked at the BBC for 11 years, most recently as Deputy Director of the BBC Platform overseeing platforms and digital products. She earned her bachelor’s and master’s in mathematics at University of Maine.
Claire Hough is Chief Technology Officer at Getlabs in California. Prior to Getlabs, she was Chief Technology Officer at Carbon Health, a tech-enabled healthcare company providing primary and urgent care. Prior to Carbon Health, she was Chief Technology Officer at Lyte, Vice President of Engineering at ApolloQL, Senior Vice President of Engineering at Udemy, Senior Vice President of Engineering at Nextag, Senior Vice President of Engineering at Napster, and Vice President at Netscape. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Engineering and master’s degree in Operations Research, both at UC Berkeley.
Hannah Wolfe is Chief Technology Officer at Ghost Foundation in England. Ghost is an open source publishing platform for new-media creators to share and grow a business around their content. Before co-founding Ghost Foundation, she worked as a Senior Developer at Moo.com and began her career as an Interactive Developer at Engine Creative. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Computer Science at University of Nottingham, and her MBA at Nottingham University Business School.
Catherine Michel is Chief Technology Officer at Halma in England. Halma (LON:HLMA)is a global group of life-saving technology companies, from safety to environmental and medical. Before joining Halma, she was Chief Technology Officer at Sigma Systems, Trustee at Skylarks Charity, Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Tribold for a decade. She began her career at Accenture as a Senior Manager. She earned her bachelor’s in Finance at University of Michigan – Stephen M. Ross School of Business.
Danielle Merfeld is Chief Technology Officer at Hanwha Groupin North Carolina. Hanwha is the 7th largest business group in South Korea leading a business portfolio covering energy, ocean, aerospace, finance, and more. Prior to GE Renewable Energy, she was Vice President and General Manager at GE, Solar Business Leader at GE Energy, Solar Platform Leader at GE for over a decade, and began her career as a Wide Bandgap Semiconductor Researcher at GE. She earned her Ph.D. in Electrical and Electronics Engineering at Northwestern University and her bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering at University of Notre Dame.
Gail Frederick is Chief Technology Officer at Heroku in Oregon. Prior to joining Heroku at Salesforce, Gail worked at eBay, most recently as Vice President of mobile and ecosystem. She earned her certificate for management at MIT Sloan, her master’s in computer science at University of Washington, and her bachelor’s in computer science at University of Michigan.
Charity Majors is Chief Technology Officer at Honeycomb.io in California. Honeycomb provides full-stack observability designed for high cardinality data and collaborative problem solving for engineers to understand and debug production software. Prior to co-founding Honeycomb, she was a Production Engineering Manager at Facebook, Infrastructure Tech Lead at Parse for a year, Cloud Systems Engineer at Cloudmark, Systems Engineer at Shopkick for a year, and began her career as a Systems Engineer and Systems Engineering Manager at Linden Lab. She attended University of Idaho. She has published books on database reliability engineering and observability engineering.
Sheila Jordan is Chief Digital Technology Officer at Honeywell in North Virginia. Honeywell helps organizations solve complex global challenges in automation, aviation, and energy. Prior to Honeywell, Sheila led IT at Symantec, Cisco, and Grand Circle. Prior to that, she worked at Walt Disney World for 14 years, most recently as Senior Vice President. She earned her MBA at Florida Institute of Technology and her bachelor’s in accounting at University of Central Florida.
Tracy Mills is Chief Technology Officer of Federal Systems at Hewlett Packard Enterprise(HPE) in Hawaii. HPE strives to be the strategic partner for Department of Defense organizations of all sizes. Prior to HPE, she worked at PACXA for 7 years. She earned her degrees from University of Maryland in international relations and communications.
Liz Nguyen is Chief Technology Officer of Intrado in Colorado. Intrado provides public safety agencies with data to coordinate emergency responses. Prior to Intrado, she was Chief Technology Officer at Vertafone, Senior Vice President at P2 Energy Solutions, and a Senior Director at Ventyx. She earned her bachelor’s at University of Chicago.
Yao Morin is Chief Technology Officer at JLL in California. JLL is a leading professional services firm that specializes in real estate and investment management. Prior to JLL, she worked at StubHub as Chief Data Officer and US Head of Engineering. Prior to StubHub, she worked at Intuit as Head of Data Science. She earned her PhD and master’s in electrical engineering at University of Minnesota, and her bachelor’s in information engineering at Beijing University.
Rowena Yeo is Chief Technology Officer at Johnson & Johnson in Singapore. Johnson & Johnson is the largest and most broadly based healthcare company in the world. Before joining Johnson & Johnson, she was Vice President and Chief Information Officer for Asia Pacific at Janssen Pharmaceutical, and Global Group Chief Information Officer at Cargill for over a decade, and her early career began as a Systems Engineer at IBM. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Engineering at National University of Singapore.
Lili Gangas is Chief Technology Community Officer at Kapor Center in California. The Kapor Center is leveling the playing field and building a future where the tech industry makes a positive impact on culture, society and the economy. Prior to joining Kapor Center, she was Lead Associate at Booz Allen Hamilton, NYU Entrepreneurial Institute Programs MBA Intern for a year, and a Senior Multi-Disciplined Engineer at Raytheon. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering at USC and her MBA at NYU Stern School of Business.
Carlonda Reilly is Chief Technology Officer at Kennametal in Pennsylvania. Kennametal is a global industrial technology leader delivering productivity to customers through materials science, tooling and wear-resistant solutions. Before joining Kennametal, she was at DuPont for over two decades, most recently as Global Technology Director of Nylon, Polyester and Filaments. In her early carer, she joined DuPont as a Senior Research Engineer for Crop Protection and Central Research and Development. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering at MIT, and an MS, Chemical Engineering and PhD, Chemical Engineering at University of Delaware.
Surabhi Gupta is Chief Technology Officer at Klaviyo in Boston. Klaviyo powers smarter digital relationships. Prior to Klaviyo, she worked at Robinhood, most recently as Senior Vice President of Engineering. Prior to Robinhood, she worked at Airbnb, she was Director of Engineering. Prior to that, she was a Staff Software Engineer at Google, and conducted research at Microsoft as an intern. She earned her master’s in computer science at Stanford University and her bachelor’s in computer science at Stony Brook University.
Kristi Cunningham is Chief Technology Officer at Kyndryl in Florida. Kyndryl designs, builds, manages and modernizes mission-critical technology systems that the world depends on every day. Prior to Kyndryl, she worked at Accenture, where she was Managing Director, Global and North American Financial Services Lead. Prior to Accenture, she worked at Capital One for 23 years, most recently as VP of Enterprise Data Management. She earned her master’s in information technology at Virginia Tech and her bachelor’s in computer science at Jacksonville University.
Helga Alvarez is Chief Technology Officer at Leaf in the United Kingdom. Leaf combines years of full-funnel marketing expertise with proprietary growth-engine technology to deliver revenue and sustainable growth for clients. Prior to joining Leaf, she was Co-Founder and Creative Technologist at Cometoide for a year, Software Developer at Possible Worldwide, Visiting Research Scientist at Korea Institute of Science and Technology, and Product Management and Marketing at FMWebschool. She earned her bachelor’s in Software Engineering at Universidad Latina de Costa Rica.
Chantal Emmanuel is Chief Technology Officer at LimeLoop in New York. LimeLoop’s smart shipping platform combines reusable packaging and a simple sensor for a real-time lens into the e-commerce experience. Retailers have a powerful platform to effectively understand and communicate with their customers, while providing the insights necessary to inform ESG and supply chain decisions. Before co-founding LimeLoop, she was a Software Engineer at SYPartners, Lead Software Engineer at Red Clay, Community Program Officer at New York Cares, and began her early career in AmeriCorps VISTA. She earned her bachelor’s degree at Binghamton University and studied entrepreneurship at Cornell University.
Farnaz Azmoodeh is Chief Technology Officer at Linktree in California. Linktree enables creators, brands, artists, publishers, agencies, and businesses of all sizes to curate a place where they can share, sell and grow. Prior to Linktree, she worked at Snapchat as VP of Engineering. Prior to Snapchat , Farnaz worked at Google for almost a decade, more recently as an Engineering Manager. She began her career as a Software Engineer at Google. She earned her master’s in computer science at University of Southern California and her bachelor’s in computer science at Sharif University of Technology.
Jenny Gonsalves is Chief Technology Officer at Lyra Health in California. Lyra Health is a leading provider of mental health benefits, transforming mental health care by creating a frictionless experience for members, providers, and employers. Before joining Lyra Health, she was Vice President of Engineering at SugarCRM for a decade, Senior Software Engineer at Epiphany, and began her early career as Programmer Analyst at RBC Dominion Securities. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Computer Science at University of Toronto.
Laila Abudahi is Chief Technology Officer and co-founder at Manara in California. Meaning “lighthouse” in Arabic, Manara is on a mission to untap the full human potential in MENA and diversify the global tech sector. Before Manara, she was a Senior Software Engineer at NVIDIA. a Dataplane Software Engineer at Palo Alto Networks, and founded MOTION in Gaza to develop Kinect-based interactive educational solutions for kids. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering at Al-Azhar University in Gaza, and her master’s degree in Electrical, Electronics, and Communications Engineering at University of Washington, where she was a Fulbright Scholar.
Jona Moore is Chief Technology Officer at MetaLab in Washington. MetaLab helps the world’s top companies design, ship, and build digital products. Prior to MetaLab, she worked at frog, most recently as Global Vice President of Technology and Product Design and Delivery. She earned her bachelor’s in computer science at British Columbia Institute of Technology.
Michal Braverman-Blumenstyk is Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft Security in Israel. Microsoft Security provides comprehensive security solutions. Prior to joining Microsoft a decade ago, she worked as General Manager at RSA (the security division of EMC), Chief Operating Officer at Cyota (acquired by RSA), and Vice President of Product Development at RadView. She earned her master’s in Computer Science at Columbia University.
Heidi Williams is Chief Technology Officer at Murmuration in California. Murmuration amplifies the power of civic engagement with data, tools, and insights for organizations building healthier and more equitable communities. Prior to joining Murmuration, Heidi was Head of Engineering at Grammarly, Chief Technology Officer at teQuitable, Vice President of Platform Engineering at Box, and worked at Adobe Systems for over a decade. She earned her bachelor’s in computer science at Brown University and on the side, founded and organizes WEST D&I Mentorship Programs for women in tech.
Angie Ruan is Chief Technology Officer Capital Access Platforms at NASDAQ in New York. Nasdaq is a global technology company that champions inclusive growth and prosperity, creating opportunity for markets and economies of all sizes. Prior to NASDAQ, Angie was a technology executive at Chime, SVP Technology at NASDAQ, technology executive at American Express, head of engineering at PayPal, and more. She earned her master’s in computer science at UC Santa Barbara and her bachelor’s in computer science at Tsinghua University.
Elizabeth Stone is Chief Technology Officer at Netflix in California. Netflix is a leading entertainment services for enjoying TV series, films and games across a wide variety of genres and languages. Prior to Netflix, she worked at Lyft as Vice President of Science. Prior to Lyft, she worked at Nuna as Chief Operating Officer. She earned her PhD in economics at Stanford University and her bachelor’s in economics at Masschusetts Institute of Technology.
Farnaz Ronaghi is Chief Technology Officer at NovoEd in California. NovoEd provides a collaborative learning platform to empower organizations to design and deliver experiential learning. Before co-founding NovoEd over a decade ago, she was working on a PhD at Stanford University with a dissertation on collaborative learning at scale. The company spun out of Stanford University’s social algorithm laboratory in 2012. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering at Sharif University of Technology and her master’s in Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University.
Adrianne Tipton is Chief Technology Officer at Novolex in Texas. Novolex is a leader in packaging choice, innovation and sustainability. Prior to joining Novolex over a decade ago, she worked at Cenveo as Vice President of new product development, ORC International as Vice President of business, The Clorox Company as Sales R&D Liaison. She began her career as a key accounts manager and senior process engineer at Novellus Systems. She earned her PhD in synthetic bioorganic chemistry at University of Nevada, Reno and her bachelor’s in certified chemistry at Northern Arizona University
Nicole Hu is Chief Technology Officer and co-founder at One Concern in California. One Concern is a Resilience-as-a-Service solution that brings disaster science together with machine learning for better decision making. Prior to One Concern, she worked as a Software Development Engineer on critical projects in the core platform team at Flipkart, the fastest growing e-commerce platform in India. Nicole earned her master’s in Computer Science from Stanford University.
May Wang is Chief Technology Officer Internet of Things Security at Palo Alto Networks in California. Prior to her current role at Palo Alto Networks, May co-founded an AI-powered IoT security company Zingbox, which was acquired by Palo Alto Networks in 2019. Before Zingbox, she was a Principal Architect in the Cisco CTO Office. May earned her Ph.D. in electrical engineering at Stanford University.
Lidia Fonseca is Chief Digital and Technology Officer at Pfizer in New York. Pfizer pursues scientific breakthroughs that change patients’ lives with revolutionary medicines. Prior to Pfizer, she was Chief Information Office at both Quest and Labcorp, Executive Vice President at Synarc, and Vice President of Supply Chain Management and Nuclear Medicine at Philips. She earned her MBA at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, and her bachelor’s in history at University of California at Berkeley.
Meri Williams is Chief Technology Officer at Pleo in England. Pleo offers smart company cards that enable employees to buy the things they need for work, all while keeping a company’s finance team in control of spending. Prior to Pleo, she was Chief Technology Officer at Healx, Chief Technology Officer at Monzo Bank, Chief Technology Officer at Moo.com, Chief Technology Officer at M&S.com, Chief Technology Officer and Founder at Balloon Studios, Head of Operations for North Europe Site Services at Procter & Gamble. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Computer Science at University of Bath.
Theresa Vu is Chief Technology Officer at Praxis Labs in New York. Praxis Labs is making society more equitable by advancing workplace inclusion and belonging. Before joining Praxis Labs, she was Senior Vice President of Engineering at Xandr, where she worked for over decade – starting as a Senior C Developer. She began her early career as an Analyst at Yahoo! and Right Media. She earned her bachelor’s degree at UC Berkeley and her master’s degree in Computer Science at Brown University.
Tendü Yoğurtçu is Chief Technology Officer at Precisely in Massachusetts. Precisely is a leader in data integrity, providing accuracy, consistency, and context in data. Prior to joining Precisely, she worked at Syncsort, most recently as Chief Technology Officer. She began her early career as an Adjunct Professor at Stevens Institute of Technology in the Computer Science Department. She earned her PhD in Computer Science at Stevens Institute of Technology, and both her master’s in Industrial Engineering, and her bachelor’s in Computer Engineering at Boğaziçi University in Turkey.
Bridget Frey is Chief Technology Officer at Redfin in Washington. Redfin is the modern way to buy or sell a home. Redfin serves 100+ major metros in the U.S. and has saved customers more than $1B in commissions. Before joining Redfin, she was Director of Engineering at Lithium Technologies, Vice President of Development at IntrisiQ, Senior Program Manager at IMlogic, and began her early career as Software Engineering Manager at Plumtree. She earned her bachelor’s in Computer Science at Harvard University.
Dawn Fitzgerald is Chief Technology Officer at SharkNinja in Massachusetts. SharkNinja is a global product design and technology company creating lifestyle solutions through innovative products for consumers. Prior to SharkNinja, she was Vice President of Engineering at American Family Insurance, Head of innovation, Platform and Analytics at Schneider Electric, Director of IT at Invensys, and Vice President of Engineering at Aurora Enterprises. She earned her MBA and master’s in engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and her bachelor’s in electrical and computer systems engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Michelle Grover is Chief Technology Officer at Slalom in California. Slalom is a global business and technology consulting company that is purpose-led. Before joining Slalom, she was Chief Information Officer at Twilio for a year, Consulting CTO at Softcom for a year, and Vice President of Research and Development at Tripit.
Min Wang is Chief Technology Officer at Splunk in California. Splunk is a cybersecurity and observability leader. Prior to Splunk, she was a Director of Engineering at Google, Senior Vice President at Visa Research, Senior Staff Research Scientist at Google, and Distinguished Technologist at HPE. She earned her PhD in Computer Science from Duke University, and her master’s and bachelor’s degrees in Computer Science at Tsinghua University. She has published over 90 research papers and journals.
Ivneet Kaur is Chief Technology Officer at Sterling in Florida. Sterling is a leading provider of background and identity services with background and identity verification for trust and safety. Prior to joining Sterling, she was Chief Technology Officer at Silicon Valley Bank, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Information Officer at Equifax, Technology Leader at Equifax, Product Development Manager at Claritas, and she began her early career as Software Engineer at Microsoft. She earned her master’s degree in Engineering Management at University of Maryland.
Robin Ducot is Chief Technology Officer at SurveyMonkey in California. SurveyMonkey provides enterprise solutions for agile experience management and insights. Before joining SurveyMonkey, she was Senior Vice President of Product Engineering at DocuSign, Vice President of Engineering at Eventbrite, Vice President of Web Development at Linden Lab, Vice President of Web, User Experience and Engineering Group at Adobe Systems, Vice President of Professional Services at Avolent, and began her early career as Senior Software Engineer at BGS Systems. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Art History at UMass Boston.
Wouleta Ayele is Chief Technology Officer at Sweetgreen. Sweetgreen believes that real food should be convenient and accessible to everyone, making salads from scratch at scale. Before joining Sweetgreen, she was Senior Vice President of Technology at Starbucks, Senior Director of Information Systems and Business Intelligence at Attachmate, IT Leader of Corporate Technology at The Coca-Cola Company, Engineering Manager at Hyundai Motor America, and she began her early career as Enterprise Architect and Engineer at CIBA Vision. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Computer Science at Cumberland University and her master’s degree in International Finance at Mercer University.
Tacita Morway is Chief Technology Officer at Textio in Massachusetts. Textio has developed the world’s most advanced workplace language guidance, so you can see where social bias is hiding—and exactly how to fix it. Before joining Textio, she was Executive Vice President of Engineering and Product at ActBlue, Director of Engineering at Salsify, Vice President of Engineering and Product at Ditto Labs, Director of Technology at WGBH, Founder at Tacita Gardens, Founder at Tacita Designs, Software Engineer at Context Integration for a year, IT Consultant at Wellesley College Information Services for a year, and began her early career as an Apprentice Mechanic at Chicago Auto. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science at Wellesley College, and a bachelor’s degree in Painting and Drawing at School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Rachel Laycock is Chief Technology Officer at ThoughtWorks in Delaware. Thoughtworks is a global technology consultancy that integrates strategy, design and engineering to drive digital innovation. From a Girl Geek Dinner in London, Rachel was recruited to join Thoughtworks as a developer. She completed her executive education from Columbia Business School, and earned both her master’s in information technology and bachelor’s in media technology from Teesside University.
Debra Chrapaty is Chief Technology Officer at Toast in Washington. Toast empowers restaurants of all sizes to build great teams, increase revenue, improve operations, and delight guests. Prior to Toast, she worked as Vice President and COO Alexa at Amazon, Chief Technology Officer at Wells Fargo, Chief Operating Officer at Declara, and Corporate Vice President at Microsoft. She earned her MBA at NYU Stern and her bachelor’s in economics at Temple University.
Christine Weber is Chief Technology Officer at Twitch in Colorado. Twitch is where thousands of communities come together for whatever, every day. Prior to Twitch, she was Interim Chief Technology Officer at Liberty Latin America, Senior Vice President of OTT Engineering at Sling TV, and was at EchoStar for 18 years, most recently as Vice President of OTT Engineering. She began her early career as a Software Engineer. She earned her degree in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at University of Wyoming.
Lawana Jones is Chief Technology Officer at United Way in Washington, D.C. United Way strengthens local resilience, advances health, youth opportunity, and financial security by mobilizing communities to action so all can thrive.Prior to joining United Way, Lawana was Chief Operating Officer for United Way of Greater Rochester and the Finger Lakes, Principal, Continuous Improvement Lead – IT, Transformation Office at L3Harris Technologies, and Project Director, Information Security Services at Xerox. Lawana earned her master’s in business at the University of Rochester and a bachelor’s in Business & Accounting from Nazareth College of Rochester.
Kinnera Angadi is Chief Product and Technology Officer at Verizon Connect in Pennsylvania. Verizon Connect is committed to help create a safer tomorrow by empowering our customers with the technology to use data-driven strategies to connect, coach, and champion safe driving behavior. Prior to joining Verizon Connect, she worked at Honeywell as Chief Technology Officer of Smart Energy, Comcast as Senior Director of Engineering, and Comcast as Senior Technical Project Manager. She earned her master’s in computer science at Kansas State University and bachelor’s in Information Technology at Osmania University.
Fiona Tan is Chief Technology Officer at Wayfair in California. Wayfair is the destination for all things home: helping everyone, anywhere create their feeling of home. Prior to joining Wayfair, she worked at Walmart as the Head of Technology, Ariba as Vice President of Engineering, TIBCO as Vice President of Engineering, and Oracle as Senior Member of Technical Staff. She earned her master’s in computer science at Stanford University and her bachelor’s degree in computer science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
We love seeing where women’s careers take them over the years! Technical women leaders of large and small organizations have demonstrated different pathways to moving up. Sometimes they move up over a decade. Sometimes they are recruited and hired to the top.
Some of our favorite technical women are entrepreneurial and spend time outside of the corporate arena, and instead build their own company. Maybe they join an early-stage startup. There are many more women coming up in the corporate and startup ranks.
Meet, connect, get inspired and hire women in tech!
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Remy Schor (Recruiter at Voxel51), Lanny Wang (Software Engineer at Voxe51) and Josh Leven (VP of Engineering at Voxel51) speak about the company, hiring, open roles, and more.
A fully-remote Series B startup, Voxel51 is building a platform that empowers ML teams to create more accurate, less biased AI across a number of exciting fields, including healthcare, security, and self-driving cars.
Remy Schor: Voxel51 is a 48-person Series B company. We are in growth mode currently. Essentially our tool allows computer-vision engineers to curate their visual datasets in relationship to the models they are building and refining. In 2024, we doubled our revenue and actually doubled our headcount as well.
In 2025, we are looking to double revenue again and we’ll continue to grow responsibly, probably increasing our headcount by 50% – hopefully more… In terms of the responsible and diligent growth model that is really important to us, that really focuses on not over-hiring and intentionally adding people to the team, so when I think about how we do that, I want to address inclusion and equity with respect to recruiting.
How do I as a recruiter focus on inclusion at Voxel51 in spite of some of that noise and the distractions? And the reality is, I think it’s our commitment to the candidate experience and also to the employee experience, so both – as you get noticed and interviewed and hopefully hired, and also once you are an employee here.
What we do really well: we are extremely flexible, and I think we do a really nice job of inclusively allowing people to live their lives.
We ask a lot of ourselves, and we ask a lot of each others, it’s very heavy lifting as is true in most startups, but there is time and space for family and pets – I can’t believe my dogs haven’t barked in the last hour, but they are always around and constantly barking, and nobody at Voxel51 gets upset.
That’s the sort of run down on my recruiting philosophy and a little bit about us, and I will pass it on to Josh…
Josh Leven: Awesome. Thank you Remy. Hi I’m Josh, VP of Engineering here at Voxel51. Some basics about engineering here – first of all, the company is fully remote. Execs on the east coast and the west coast. Everyone is in the US and Canadian time zones, but fully remote. We do a couple of retreats every year but otherwise you are [working] out of your home office.
We currently have 17 engineers, and as Remy said, we are growing. We are hiring now and have plans to do hiring more next year.
Our tech stack: Python and TypeScript. We are primarily an on-prem solution, we are not really a SaaS product, which brings with it its own engineering challenges. But I actually joined the company a few months ago and one of the biggest reasons for me is the huge impact our product has.
We are all very aware – the AI revolution is coming – and what we are doing at Voxel51 enables the teams that are building AI models to build models that are less biased, more safe, more reliable, and helping them to get those models into production more consistently.
We are helping a huge range of industries in doing that – we are working with companies in healthcare, autonomous vehicles, robotics, agriculture, retail, sports, and a bunch more. And even beyond that, we are not just doing that for big companies.
We have a vibrant open source community. Everyone from college students and academic researchers, to professionals in machine learning, in addition to, of course, a growing enterprise community using our enterprise product, Another really unique thing about Voxel51 is that we are making big investments into innovation.
Jason, one of our co-founders, is a research professor at the University of Michigan and he leads our MLE pure research teams. They are doing groundbreaking research that we then get to incorporate in our products, both open source and enterprise.
This is one of the ways we continue to be a part of the conversation and the cutting edge of artificial intelligence. But on top of that, we want everyone at the company to have the opportunity to keep up with that conversation, so amongst a number of other things, every other Tuesday we have an ML paper review where an expert in the field will come and walk us through one of the papers they think is really interesting and valuable.
Alright. So I’d love to also tell you about our culture but better than me, I want to hand it off to Lanny, one of our engineers, to talk about what it’s like working at Voxel51. In fact, she’s one of the engineers on the team that works most closely with the machine learning team.
Lanny Wang: Hi, ELEVATE! My name is Lanny. I’ve worked at Voxel51 for roughly two years, so working primarily on right now the ML workflow panels, so it relates to Python side, and on the frontend with React.
Working at Voxel51, on a daily basis, we work as human beings, even though we write code. I feel all of my coworkers at Voxel51 are very kind and respectful people. The engineers have all kinds of different backgrounds. For instance, our devops – fun fact – used to work for a circus and went to acting school twenty years ago. We truly have backgrounds from everywhere, and people are very passionate about what we do, we are very helpful, and it’s always very pleasant to work with them.
What I enjoy the most about working at Voxel51 is having a good balance of trust, the autonomy and the flexibility to determine what I want to do, and also, when I need something from people, everyone is always approachable and reachable.
We also have weekly syncs where we get to discuss the newest trends in tech, so while we are remote, there are ways to keep up to trend with what we talk about. We have an annual retreat where we gather in teams, discuss bigger topics and ideas together down the road.
With engineering, things are growing so rapidly, there are a lot of opportunities to continue to optimize and improve. I feel there are definitely lots of exciting opportunities and features to work on, especially that tie to the new AI trend.
What I enjoy most is the really tie to customers. As an engineer, I not only care about the code, personally, I care about the future I deliver to, I want to see how it impacts people, do they use it, do they like it.. there’s a way we engage with customers, usually at a conference. Usually engineers can pick one academic conference to go to each year and have face-to-face communication with our customers, it could be students and people from academic, or clients from all the industries, talk to people in agriculture, in food, in retail, not to mention autonomous driving, etc. So being able to have that first-hand feedback not only from sales, but having engagement with customer, that makes me feel very great.
On December 4-5, 2024, Girl Geek X founders Angie Chang and Sukrutha Bhadouria hosted over 1k women & allies globally, with 79% attendees interested in hearing about jobs, and 30+ speakers, and 2 employers actively recruiting!Help a girl geek land her next job in tech!
Thank You To ELEVATE 2024 Supporters – They Are Hiring!
Special thank you to our supporters at Voxel51 and 18C for recruiting from the Girl Geek X community of mid-to-senior level technical women. We can’t wait to help another girl geek get her next job in tech.
Speakers from Airbnb, AWS, Meta, Google, Upwork, Salesforce, Adobe, Microsoft, Workday, Walmart and more startups, spoke and answered questions, sharing career advice with attendees during their sessions, often welcoming connections on Linkedin.
September 4, 2024 – Girl Geek X: ELEVATE Conference and Career Fair for mid-to-senior women in tech hosted over a thousand women & allies globally, with 89% attendees interested in hearing about jobs, over two dozen speakers, 2 resume workshops & recruiting at virtual 18C Booth. Help a girl geek land her next job in tech!
About Our Partner: 18C is a boutique engineering search firm specializing in connecting exceptional technical women leaders with transformational opportunities. By blending strategic executive recruitment with passionate advocacy, we’re creating more equitable environments at the top companies in tech. Watch 18C’s Intro for insights on product, teams, hiring process, open remote & hybrid jobs!
We also partner monthly with companies on Girl Geek Dinners in the greater San Francisco Bay Area, booking now for 2024 and 2025. Please email us sponsors@girlgeek.io and we’ll be in touch!
Volunteer during Back to School Week to set up bulletin boards, organize classrooms, and help Oakland educators create a warm environment to welcome students back to school!
Our goal began with supporting students at our “adopted” school Coliseum College Prep Academy in Oakland, California teaching grades 6-12 with a computer science pathway. We providing access to volunteers and role models from the professional community for students in partnership with the nonprofit Oakland Education Fund, which coordinates volunteer activities with public schools in Oakland and clears volunteers for entry into the schools.
Girl Geek X Community volunteers helped teachers with classroom projects to prepare their rooms and hallways for students return to campus for the new school year. More photos are on Facebook here.
LATINE/X READ-IN AT THORNHILL ELEMENTARY IN OAKLAND
The nonprofit Oakland Education Fund expanded access to students in Oakland elementary schools, starting with volunteering with Latine/x Read-in (Monday, October 2, 2023, 1pm – 2:30pm). Volunteers read books by Latine/x and Hispanic authors to students at Thornhill Elementary.
Girl Geek X volunteers at Latine/x Read-In (pictured from left: Thornhill Elementary School Librarian Marie Fox, Girl Geek X Founder Angie Chang, Customer Success Leader Haana Rafiq, Playground Global Principal People Operations Sylvia Donohoe, Technical Operations Leader Belisa Mandarano, Flexport Software Engineers Bryanna Valdivia and Rachel Colby, and Syntiant Director of HR Jenny Garcia).
Volunteers read aloud books to 2-3 elementary school classes that celebrate Latine/x culture in the 90-minute volunteer shift. Books and sample questions to guide conversations were provided by the Oakland Education Fund.More photos are on Facebook here. ❤️
FIRST-GEN COLLEGE & CAREER PANELAT CCPAIN OAKLAND
TheGirl Geek X CCPA career panel (Wednesday, October 4, 2pm-4pm), moderated by Vanessa Magaña with An Nguyen, Molly Dubow, Bryanna Valdivia, and Elizabeth Orpina shared advice from first-generation students now working in the technology industry.Read about the takeaways from the panel. ❤️
HELPING STUDENTS WITH CSU AND UC APPLICATIONSIN OAKLAND NOVEMBER 3 AND / OR NOVEMBER 17
Volunteers supported seniors’s college applications, providing crucial feedback on grammar, flow, and clarity of writing during “College Crunch Days” – these are dedicated school days for high school seniors to work on their UC admissions applications.
Note: a writing/comms background is NOT required to participate! Any experience writing in an academic/professional setting will be sufficient to participate in this event.
We are looking for TechLink VOLUNTEERS to meet virtually with CCPA sophomores and juniors during the Spring 2024 semester!
Volunteer Mentors will meet on Fridays for ~11 sessions virtually from February thru April 2024.
While TechLink is a virtual mentorship program, Mentors are welcome to volunteer IRL and have lunch with their Mentees at the East Oakland school.
Thank you so much for supporting Oakland public schools and students!
STUDENT PROJECT FEEDBACK (WINTER EXPO NIGHT IS JANUARY 25, 2024)
Girl Geek X volunteers support public school students and educators at Coliseum College Prep Academy (CCPA) in East Oakland. The school entrance is on the corner of 66th Ave and International Blvd. (map)
On Thursday, January 25, 2024 (5:30pm-7pm), CCPA educators and students will be joined by Girl Geek X community volunteers to receive feedback on Senior Capstone Projects.
Bella Vista Elementary is located by Oakland’s Highland Hospital.
On Wednesday, February 14, 2023 (9:30am-11:00am), Girl Geek X Community Volunteers will read books to 2-3 elementary school classes that celebrate African-American culture in the 90-minute volunteer shift. Books and sample questions to guide conversations are provided by the Oakland Education Fund.
Volunteers do not need to identify as African-American to participate, and those who do identify as such are encouraged to participate and share about their culture with students.
Don’t forget to spread the word and invite your coworkers & friends to join you in volunteering! Volunteering together not only strengthens our impact, but also provides a chance to bond.
This event is organized in partnership with the nonprofit Oakland Public Education Fund, which connects groups with schools to make a positive impact on school culture and student achievement through relevant and meaningful volunteer projects.
We want to understand your firsthand experiences, as well as priorities, so everyone can support organizations in shaping a more positive and productive work environments for all.
We seek to understand where disconnections and misaligned priorities exist between business leadership and employees to better facilitate mutual understanding and bring dignity back to the workplace. Survey results will be anonymously grouped, shared, and themes presented to better showcase employees’ experiences.
Girl Geek X is partnering with She+ Geeks Out with a mission to improve the work experience for everyone. (Here’s where you come in.)
We’re conducting this survey to gather real stories and experiences from people. Your insights are crucial to understanding the challenges we all face and advocating for change.
Whether you’re a recent graduate, a seasoned team contributor, or a business owner, sharing your experience (it’s anonymous!) can help build a movement for better work environments. Your story matters.
Imagine a workplace where you:
Feel valued and appreciated
Have opportunities for growth and development
Can maintain a healthy work-life balance
Taking this quick survey can help make that vision a reality.
After completing the survey, you can enter to win a gift card or sticker prize pack. Thank you for your time and contribution. Together, we can create a brighter future for work!
June, 5, 2024 – Girl Geek X: ELEVATE Conference and Career Fair for mid-to-senior women in tech hosted over a thousand women & allies globally, with 85% attendees interested in hearing about jobs, over two dozen speakers, & recruiting at virtual Employer Booths. Help a girl geek land her next job in tech!
Katie Ledoux (Chief Information Security Officer at Attentive), Neha Srivastava (Staff Software Engineer at Attentive) and Margho Dunnahoo-Kirsch (Director of Recruiting at Attentive) speak about the company, hiring, open roles, and more.
Attentive® is the AI marketing platform for leading brands, designed to optimize message performance through 1:1 SMS and email interactions.
Hi everyone. I’m going to introduce myself first. I’m Katie Ledoux. I am the Chief Information Security Officer at Attentive. Neha. You want to go next?
Neha Srivastava:
Yes. Hi, I’m Nehes Srivastava. I’m a Staff Engineer in the Product Engineering org at Attentive.
Margho Dunnahoo-Kirsch:
And I’m Margo. I’m director of recruiting over here at Attentive. Cool. Katie, kick us off.
Katie Ledoux:
Yes. Little bit about who we are, attentive, really pioneered text message marketing, and let’s give you a little bit of the Attentive experience.
I’d love to invite you to text “Hire me” to the number 2 1 7 1 8 and Neha, you’re going to put that in the comments, right? Thank you. You should be getting a message back from us shortly.
You may have interacted with some of our customers on SMS before, maybe you get texted a coupon code from your favorite brands.
We work with companies like H&M, Wayfair, Reebok, Margot just watched me through the companies I was allowed to name yesterday, Urban Outfitters, I’m allowed to name them.
Margho Dunnahoo-Kirsch:
Chanel.
Katie Ledoux:
Yes, and other funny ones that I can’t name, but just trust me, they’re funny in terms of where we are going as a company.
We’re really moving away from a world slowly, but over time we think marketing is going to move away from a world where our customers are sending massive messages to all of their subscribers or to big chunks of their subscribers and really moving towards one-to-one messaging.
I say slowly some of a lot of our customers are already doing this may be some more legacy customers, it’ll take them a little longer to move in that direction.
We really want to go to a place where we’re sending you as a subscriber exactly the right message from exactly the right brand that you’re interested in, at exactly the time that you want to make this purchase for an item that you are actually interested in buying instead of a link to a page of a billion different things that are on sale.
That’s the journey, and of course that’s powered by AI and ML and Neha. Maybe you can…
Neha Srivastava:
Yeah, absolutely. A little bit more. Yeah, absolutely. As Katie mentioned, Attentive Engineering’s biggest challenge right now is to deliver extremely personalized experiences to subscribers of our clients.
Now this isn’t very interesting problem if you really think about it because unlike others, we’re evolving from being a marketing tool to an active partner to the marketing departments of various companies.
We are doing lots of exciting things, which range from writing AI ML models to generating product recommendations and figuring out the best time to send a marketing text. And this is all driven out of the personalization. This is using AI and ML for the benefit of marketing to drive higher productivity, but also great experience for the end user.
Instead of getting a generic text that says, “Hey, Neha, come buy shoes,” and all the links that you get are all men’s shoes, which don’t even appear in my size, which leads to a frustrating experience, you would actually be directed to, “Hey Neha, you were checking out this great shoe at your favorite brand the other day. We found some other recommendations that you might like, which are in my size and available” and I can buy right now and potentially even in my budget.
Driving this life of type of personalization is a very complex engineering challenge and I’m very excited to be working on this. By the way, that’s my project, so that’s why I can talk too much about it.
The problems we’re looking to solve are ahead of the game, yet complex and challenging so that if you’re like me, someone who gets excited about solving complex problems for the business, you’d absolutely love it here.
Generally speaking, our product engineering orgs sits in a New York platform, is remote and AI ML teams sit in SF.
However, almost all of the projects are extremely cross-functional, so regardless of which location you’re in, you’ll end up working on the same projects and you’ll get a piece of the pie and problems that you would love to solve.
We’re hiring across the board and Margo will tell you all about that.
Margho Dunnahoo-Kirsch:
Awesome. Thanks Neha. Alright, let’s talk recruiting. Our engineering org is about 230 people spread out across the US.
We do have offices in San Francisco and in New York. Our interview process for a standard software engineer is really consistent across all of our teams and locations.
It’s about a 3-week process starting off with a recruiter screen. Then, you move to a 60 minute interview with one of our senior engineers. That conversation is going to be really digging into past experience. What was your role? What was the complexity of the work?
You’ll do a backend coding challenge and then that will be followed up by a reverse architecture conversation.
Once that is complete, we invite you to meet with about four to five more members of the team. This includes coding challenges and architecture interviews, and then discussions with hiring managers.
Don’t worry, a recruiter will prep you for all of that beforehand, then we also do do team assignments at the debrief stage.
We try to really match you with a team that aligns with your experience and interests, and then we’ll get you set up with a few members of those teams so you can learn more about what your impact would be, what you’d be working on, all that kind of stuff.
We have two offices, so we have New York and San Francisco. New York is our headquarters, but the majority of the employees are remotely. I’m actually coming at you from Denver, so this is where I am, home base. My team is primarily in San Francisco, but I do feel super connected to everyone.
The company has a really good job of driving engagement, which brings me to our culture and talking about our employee engagement team, so we do a full company offsite, annually. We do engineering team offsites every year, but then we also do a lot of virtual engagement activities.
Our employee engagement team just hosted a few virtual events. My favorite was the how to make your spring, how to build your own spring roll. We had a floral arrangement class recently and then we also had a good one around understanding the anatomy of our anxiety to honor mental health awareness month.
Just a little bit about us. I know Katie Ledoux’s team is hiring, Neha’s team is hiring, so we would love to have you guys come stop by our booth and meet with us. And then a few members of our attentive Woman Engineering ERG group. Cool. We crushed it.
Katie Ledoux:
We did. Can we use our three minutes for questions?
Someone asked: If we hire entry level engineers, we do have an engineer two role up right now, but that’s the most junior role we have right now.
I can’t speak for every engineering team at Attentive, but it’s going to be important for us on some of these newer teams to make sure that we have the levels of leadership in place before we bring on brand new entry level people so that they have the mentorship that they need to be successful on those teams.
Margho Dunnahoo-Kirsch:
A hundred percent, yes. We just posted, we have three software engineering roles just posted.
One is on our BI team, led by one of our engineering managers, and then we have two engineering twos, one that just got posted for remote employees, and then one that just got posted for San Francisco.
Hybrid – You’d be coming on site three days a week to our San Francisco office in the financial district. And then, Neha has teams mainly looking for some senior level engineers.
Katie Ledoux:
I saw one question. You definitely do not need a background in AI machine learning to apply. If you go on the career site, there’s a breadth of roles across infrastructure security. it it’s definitely not exclusively AI ML roles especially.
Neha Srivastava:
I have no experience in AI. I’m not an AI expert. Just to be clear, I am leading AI ML project and I have no experience on it because the way we think about this is it’s a product, right? A model is developed and then we pipeline it all the way to make it into a product.
I am a backend focused product engineer, so my job is to make sure that the model is delivering value as a product. I’m overseeing the whole thing and helping with the design and the architecture of it, but I’m not doing the modeling myself.
Margho Dunnahoo-Kirsch:
Answering a few questions interested in non-engineering roles. Would you be able to hold a conversation with me? Yes, a hundred percent. We are hiring and go to market g and a, and I also oversee those teams, so a hundred percent can talk to you about that.
We are only hiring in the US for engineering roles. Yes, for a few of our sales positions, we do hire in London as well as Australia. But just for engineering for now, we are primarily just us. We do support visas.
In this ELEVATEsession, Soumya Lakshmi(Director of Engineering at Adobe) speaks about developer experience (DevX): productivity, impact, and satisfaction as keys to quality and collaboration.
Like what you see here? Our mission-aligned Girl Geek X partners are hiring!
Thank you Sukrutha. Hi everyone. Happy Women’s Day and thank you Sukrutha Angie and the ELEVATE team for giving me this opportunity on Women’s Day. I’m here today to talk about DevX. DevX is called developer experience. This is going to be a little geeky talk, so bear with me. It’s purely from the engineering side, but I promise I have a story to say, which is what I’m going to start with.
I grew up in India and reflecting on my childhood in India, we did a lot of train journeys. Train journey was sort of the internal part of our family outing. These adventures began long before the train even arrived. It sort of marked the anticipation and the flurry of preparation. And each journey meant packing our bags with care, ensuring that we have everything needed for the trip. Upon reaching the station, our next step would be to find a porter or a coolie, is what we call locally in the Indian language.
Now, watching these skilled porters effortlessly balance their entire family, our entire family luggage, where I’ll show you a picture, I hope it’s pretty clear. I try to get a picture where a porter is carrying a lot of luggages. There’s one couple on his head and there’s two, one on his right shoulder, one on his left shoulder, and then he just carries around. Now it’s a real skill to carry the entire family’s luggage on their heads and arms, and there was nothing short of remarkable. Now they carried our burdens, allowing us to navigate the crowded station with ease, transforming our potential strenuous part of our journey with this seamless experience.
Now, why am I saying this? What has this got to do with the developer experience? Now, this memory serves as a powerful metaphor for a challenge faced by our developers and the engineers today. In many ways, they are like the coolies or the porters of the digital world, just as the porter prepares the physical journey. Let me go to the next slide. There we go.
Just as the porter prepares for the physical journey by strategically balancing the load to carry our developers and engineering teams and engineers geared up to the journey of innovation, excited about the possibilities of deploying really exciting features, but they also weigh into the inefficiencies that accompanies with the role and these inefficiencies being slow build processes, inadequate infrastructure, sparse test automation, nebulous documentation, and ever looming shadow of the tech debt, which never gets over are the suitcases of the software development industry that exists today.
Now, these are necessary parts of the journey containing assets and tools along the road. Yet this is a cumbersome process, slowing the pace down, clouding the excitement, and at the end of it, it seems really tiring.
Why then should our digital porters or coolies, the developers and engineers whose innovation propels us forward, accept the struggle as given, just as an introduction of wheeled luggages, revolutionized travel for many of the load or managing the load because adding wheels to suitcase? It really did not change the functionality of the suitcase, but what it did is made a hard task easier, and that’s really what DevX is. That’s exactly what the crux of the developer experience is.
Let me talk a little bit about the recipe of what I think, and GitHub completely agrees with this, is of what a DevX is.
DevX can be viewed in many different lenses, and this has become a common buzzword in the industry, but a lot of companies have started to put as this is an org and this is a team and we are investing in it, but what exactly is this? And it can be viewed in many different lenses. I think that the formula for DevX incorporates few key eight things.
First, it takes into account how efficiently and productively a developer can do their best work on any given project. The second one, how simple is it to make a code change and how easy is it to move from idea to putting it into production? Today, if I have an idea in mind, how long does it take for me for that idea to be delivered in the hands of our users?
DevX also examines how positively or negatively the work environment, the workflows, the tools, the technologies that affect the engineering satisfaction. By eliminating some of these friction and inefficiencies, we can multiply our operational impact. Now, if we want to move fast, it is easy, but if we want to move fast with quality is when the tricky part comes.
Collaboration and quality is also the integral piece of what a DevX is. If our engineers are productive and if they love what they’re doing, and if collaboration is smooth and quality is the integral part of it, then we have a good DevX and DevX is great. Yes, we want everything. I mean, who doesn’t, right?
Let’s see. Okay, why is this important Now, why are we talking about this? This seems pretty obvious to some extent, but why is it becoming even more important now? Because of the macroeconomic climate in the industry, the economic uncertainty is shaking up the tech industry with increased pressure on infrastructure and engineering teams to optimize cost. At the same time, we also realized that the progress and innovation must be accelerated as it is the key lever to create business value and success for digital initiatives and boost revenue of organizations and with restricted budgets.
That’s the key point. There was a survey or a snapshot that was done February of 2023. It’s called the Forrester Opportunity Snapshot, and what they did is they looked across 500 enterprise companies across United States and they did a survey of what the companies think that they should be focusing on to innovate.
Now, this company who does this survey is their focus is digital transformation, and organizations are recognizing and making sure that the operational excellence is on par with a restricted budget. These were some of the results of the survey. I won’t go into a lot of details because it is a lot of numbers. I’ll still talk about the top four key findings that came out of the survey.
The first key finding is the need to increase efficiency as a key focus. Yes, there is no headcount. There’s no incremental headcount. The companies are not hiring as much as they were and the climate, the microeconomic climate is extremely challenging, but we still need to innovate. To keep up with the pace of the digital transformation, organizations are recognizing that the need for developers to build, deliver software with greater efficiencies before.
Me as an engineer, it’s been a while I wrote code, but as an engineer, if I’m able to write one pull request in one day, then how is my company, how is my company providing the tools and technologies for me to merge two or three per request? That’s where the industry is going, and that’s where the crux of DevX is. Now, according to this research, 87% of the leaders agree that increasing the developer productivity is a priority for the next 12 months, while 85% say that better meeting customer demand will be their focus, and 85% say that shortening the release cycles, but would be the key factors involved.
The second key finding is several obstacles will hinder developer productivity. Now, developer productivity is not as simple as, Hey, you give me a tool and a framework and I can make things happen. There are a lot of different things that go into the combination of uncertain economic outlook, increased competition, shifting, customer demand, and the hybrid work as well as the DevOps methodology. This is all highlighted in the report. If you take a look at these numbers, 41% of the respondents say that developer productivity and experience building difficult to improve because of pandemic related issues like onboarding, training, mentoring. The face value is gone, and I’m sure things are improving eventually, but we need to strike a balance and focus more on not just the user experience but also the engineering or developer experience. The key finding three is having an internal developer platform, or an IDP, to boost developer productivity.
What’s the solution? You just give an IDP and then that’s the solution. Well, according to the snapshot or according to the survey, they said that IDP enabled a self-service for developers, helping them to become less reliant on operations and reducing bottlenecks that caused by ticket ops and whatnot.
This is one of the biggest pain points caused by increasing complexity of cloud architecture. Not only do platforms help alleviate this challenge, but they also have a potential huge impact on developer velocity and satisfaction by optimizing developer workloads and freeing up teams to focus on value adding work.
And the last one is the developer experience impacts overall business. It’s not just that we make strides and we make improvements to the developer experience and only engineering teams is benefited. Let me go forward a little bit. There we go. This talks about the survey also took into account teams who already invested in an org like DevX, and this is what they found. They found that it not just improved the engineering productivity, but it improved app development, time to market, customer attraction and retention. On the delivery side, there was brand recognition reputation, and on the operations side we had revenue growth and developer recruitment, retention and profitability.
Alright, so I think there was a lot of numbers. What is the crux of this conversation and where are we headed? In conclusion, what I do, I have about five minutes and I can take questions after this. In conclusion, what I would really like to add is think about it like adding wheels to your suitcase. 20, 30 years we all traveled, lugging our baggage or somebody else carried it for us instead.
The simple solution of adding wheels really made all our jobs easier. We could just go anywhere in the world lugging our luggage right behind us because the wheels take care of it. The wheels don’t necessarily improve the functionality of the suitcase, but it does do a lot of heavy lifting.
Think of DevX as the heavy lifting of the software development, a thing of the past. And we are not just enhancing the developer experience, but we are also enhancing the growth and innovation in the coming years. Thank you.
Sukrutha Bhadouria:
There are some questions here. There’s one question. How do I get started with using DevX for my company?
Soumya Lakshmi:
That’s a great question. Depending on which stage your company is and at what point there is readiness, there might be a few different things. I can speak from Adobe’s perspective. Adobe, I don’t think a year ago DevX was even a thing we started talking about, like I said in the presentation, we were not there.
We were not hiring and headcount was crucial, but we still had to make improvements. But there were different teams and members of the team who were already doing this kind of work.
One of the things you could do is create a working group across different products within the organization to see what needs to happen and how you can share and reproduce to share and sort of reuse some of the frameworks and toolings that you’re doing. That could be the first step.
Then, meeting often online of course, I mean, and setting up a roadmap of what is important and what are the gaps, and at least starting this conversation in the devs direction might be the first step towards it.
I’ll also add that there are a lot of resources available online because again, all the companies, many companies are realizing that our user experience and customer experience is crucial, but so is our engineering and developer experience. That might be a good starting point.
I’m available and you’re welcome to reach out to me personally and I’m happy to provide guidance on that front as well.
Like what you see here? Our mission-aligned Girl Geek X partners are hiring!
