Tell us about your career up to this point. It’s been quite nonlinear. My first job was as a reporter covering arts and theatre for the local edition of a national newspaper in Bangalore, India (where I grew up) at age 19. It was interesting because I knew nothing about arts and theatre. I was studying to be an engineer at the time. My first full-time job after graduating from college was as an engineer at JP Morgan Chase — I worked in a project management team that designed and
What are you doing and how did you get into your current career? I’m working on the Growth Team as a Customer Success Director for Peg, a company that has built a suite of software for marketers to search, message, and collaborate with social influencers. It’s something that I love, and it took a bit of serendipity. Networking with friends (and friends of friends) and being honest with myself about what I needed from my next role was the key. After a grueling interview process, I landed what I would
How would you describe your job to somebody who is outside of the design and tech world? I help guide the brand identity team. We build the standards, rules, and creative brand expression for our team to breathe life and souls into our brands at Vox How long have you been there at Vox? I started August 2016. I was a speaker at one of their company retreats in 2015 where I spoke about work-life balance. I’ve very familiar with the company and their brands; I loved SB Nation and
What made you decide to work in the tech industry? I was initially in an administrative/office management roles. It wasn’t planned. I started a blog, and I became interested in learning how to code and started looking into boot camp programs. A lot of people who I knew had changed their careers and I thought maybe I could do the same since I wasn’t very happy doing what I was doing. I was eventually accepted into a program at a nonprofit called the Coalition for Queens. They were running a
What made you decide to work in the tech industry? Initially, I was pursuing a career in accounting. I declared it my major at college. After an accounting internship, I decided it was not for me, but I had done it for so long I couldn’t see myself doing anything else. So, I decided to do a second internship, with the hope of getting a full-time offer. It didn’t happen. I was devastated at the time and had no idea what I was going to do next. I was counting
What made you decide to work in tech? Problem-solving. Specifically, problem-solving with little costs for exploration. I was really attracted to solving problems with code. I loved that code could be changed to explore new ideas and improve on existing ones with the only real costs being my time and energy. What was an obstacle you faced and how did you overcome that obstacle? Transitioning to management, though I saw and see that as a challenge more than an obstacle. At the time I was a peer of the teammates
What made you decide to work in tech? My two older brothers introduced me to engineering. They’re both engineers and I grew up watching, and eventually joining, them take apart household appliances. When I got to high school, I had a series of amazing teachers who helped a group of us start a FIRST Robotics Competition team and who introduced me to programming. I decided to go into the tech industry because I love putting things together and this was a place where it was possible to create something tangible
Tell us a bit about yourself and what you do? My name is Karla Mickens, and I’m a product designer at Facebook. Originally born and raised in North Carolina, and went to college at Virginia Commonwealth University. After that, I moved to New York where I pretty much started my career in design. I gradually got into more of the tech side of it, and haven’t a looked back since, now for six-seven years I think, maybe more. How would you describe your job to someone who doesn’t know what
What made you decide to work in tech? I think at the base of it, was my brother in law [who is a good deal older than me, maybe like 11 years older]. Growing up I followed in his footsteps, so whatever he was doing I wanted to do (laughs). He studied electrical engineering and so in the summers I would work on tech hardware problems with him, and that got me excited about technology, and when I was in the ninth or tenth grade I took a class in
Tell us a bit about yourself and what you do? My name is Fadumo. I’m going to be a third-year student at NYU, New York University. I study computer science and politics. This past summer I was at Facebook working with a product marketing manager as well as a civic engagement team. What I eventually want to do is work at the intersection of programming and government, making government more efficient. What interested you in technology as a [vehicle] for you wanted to do? I started college two years
