You are techY podcast

Ellen (00:00):

You are listening to the You are techY podcast, episode number 128.

Voiceover (00:10):

Welcome to the You are techY podcast where it’s all about growing in your techy-ness. So you can find the tech job of your dreams. And now your host, technology learning coach, Ellen Twomey.

Ellen (00:27):

Hey moms, are you trying to break into tech? Are you wondering what skills you really need to get hired and how those skills can be worth $45 an hour? Not that $25 an hour you thought when you first started thinking about going back to work? If so, then the You Are Techy membership is for you. Our combination of courses, coaching and community, come with a mentor support. You need to keep moving forward into your tech career. It’s like no other membership available. We have the exact skills employers are looking for. You learn how to maximize your income with portfolio ready skills that hiring managers are seeking, not to mention the steps you can skip. So you don’t find yourself down that endless tech learning rabbit hole. Join me as we walk you step-by-step through the getting hired process in tech. Sign up at youaretechy.com. That’s Y O U A R E T E C H Y.com. I can’t wait to see you in our membership.

Ellen (01:15):

Ream Jaghlit is the founder and CEO of Are.Jei providing personalized tech inspired jewelry. She’s got a story. Current technology beginning working as a web designer through her most recent posts before Are.Jei as the head of D E and I, and VP of engineering at active camping Rema has worked as an engineer, senior tech leader, VP of engineering innovation research assistant teacher, and as the founder of sweet Yara prior to founding Are.Jei, she has built an undergraduate degree as well as a master’s degree in computer science from the university of Illinois, Chicago. She lives in Chicago and has successfully raised her son who resides in Texas. Reem, welcome to the podcast.

Reem (02:01):

Thank you, Ellen. Excited to be here.

Ellen (02:03):

I’m excited to have you. I can’t wait for my audience to hear what you do. It it’ll be a lot of fun, but if we could, can we start back just a little bit at Active Campaign, because you were the head of D E and I, before that you were the head of the VP of engineering, and I would just love to hear about your work there and what inspired you, you know, how are those roles similar or different? I think it’s, it’s very passionate. I’m passionate about both of those. So I’d love to hear about those roles and what you, what type of work you did there.

Reem (02:30):

Yeah, that’s great question. And it was definitely an interesting shift in my career, moving from a VP engineering role to a head of DEI. But DEI is something I’m very passionate about. People in general and helping people is something I’m extremely passionate about. And while the roles look completely different, there are some similarities cuz as the, the VP of engineering at Active Campaign, I definitely focused a lot on building a diverse team, diverse organization. Equity was very important to us and it’s not just about equitable salaries, but it’s also about creating equitable opportunities for career growth for everyone in the engineering organization. And then of course inclusion, making sure everyone feels included in the conversations, feel like their voice is heard. So in that aspect, there’s definitely an intersection between the two roles between the VP engineering and head of TEI, but they’re also so different at the same time.

Reem (03:28):

cause just like I focused on that as the VP engineering, but my job was technology. My job was as the VP engineering was building out the platform, modernizing our tech stack, making sure that we have a long term vision for the technology Active Campaign as a SaaS company, which means software as a service. So our product was our software. So making sure that we’re staying on top of innovation, technology, innovation, introducing, whatever we need to introduce to help us scale Active Campaign was and still is going through a hyper growth phase. It’s one of the tech unicorns that’s based in or headquartered in Chicago. So we had to make sure that our platform continues to scale as our customers are scaling. So my big focus was really engineering and that’s how they’re like the two roles were different. And then when I moved on to become the head of DEI, this scope of the DEI work is completely different from the scope of the same work at being an engineering leader, cuz you’re looking at the organization as a whole, you’re doing like so many, so many activities and work and focus that’s different than when I was leading the engineering org and focusing on ERGs employee resource groups, building those out in the company, doing audits to different practices in the company, making sure that we are identifying any unconscious biases and the hiring and the promotion cycle and the salaries and pay.

Reem (04:58):

And then I also say that DEI isn’t just about the organization, even though that’s a big part of the work is focused on people and employees in the organization, but there’s also customers’ DEI. So highlighting diverse customer stories and supporting our customers from diverse backgrounds. There’s also the vendor aspect of it. How do we support diverse vendors? How do you support different companies out there that, that are aligned with our mission with our DEI work and also our outreach programs. So partnerships with different organizations and, and different non-for-profits. So the scope of work as the head of DEI drastically, it’s financially larger than the DEI work that I did as an engineering leader. 

Ellen (05:46):

Wow. That’s super interesting. I realize that I’m pretty familiar with Active Campaign and I’ve followed the story a bit, but many of my listeners probably don’t even know really what the product does. Can you speak to that a little bit? 

Reem (05:55):

Sure. Active Campaign is the customer experience automation platform. So they automate the relationship between companies and their customers to build the best customer experience mm-hmm , possible. So they have a marketing offering, CRM offerings, landing pages, it’s basically building personalized experiences for your customers and automating it, but delivering on that unique, personalized customer experience between companies and their customers. So it’s a B2B company, our customers or Active Campaigns, customers are also businesses. They work with small to mid-size businesses, offering them tools to automate that interactions and that customer experience relationship between that opinion, their customers.

Ellen (06:43):

That’s great. I can certainly appreciate all of those different aspects of the need for, for that type of tools that I’ll bulk in this space. All right. So let’s back up even further now and I’d love to hear about your career journey and if you want to take us all the way up into your founding of your newest organization, cuz I mean that is really why we’re here to talk about it. And I gave a little teaser at the beginning, but really, you know, you might be one of those unicorns too, because you started out in computer science and you know, that’s so that in my experience is pretty rare. I, I have a computer science degree, but out in the workforce I found very few people who were intact with that degree. So, you know, take us a little bit through your career journey.

Reem (07:25):

Yeah, sure, absolutely. So I moved to the states back in 1995 and I went to school at the university of Illinois, Chicago and I got my bachelor’s in computer science and then I got my master’s in computer science and I really wanted my dream was to stick to the academic world and become a professor. So I started pursuing a PhD in human computer interaction and I loved it. But one year into the program, I really needed to drop out of school and find a full-time job, mostly for financial stability. I was a single mom and I needed that financial stability. So I dropped out of school and became a software engineer. And that was my kind of pivot from the academic world into the corporate space. I did switch schools. I joined an online PhD program, hoping I can still finish my my degree, but, but being a mom to a toddler, single mom to a toddler full time job, I just couldn’t do school as well.

Reem (08:27):

So I was a software engineer for five years at a real estate company, real estate software company. And then I moved on to the education space. So I was also a software engineer at an education company and that’s where I had the opportunity to help them modernize their technology stack and kind of transform their engineering practices and get more into the engineering excellence space. And that’s where I found my passion, which is transformation work, joining organizations to kind of transform their technology and their engineering practices. And it was my entry point into the leadership space. I became an engineering manager, then a director of engineering. And then from there I switched few places until I finally got into marketing and I became the VP of engineering at Active Campaign. Now I’m an entrepreneur at heart, which I really wanted to build my own business for years. So less than a year ago, I decided to run a business that I started Are.Jei on as a full-time entrepreneur. So back in July of last year, I finally left the corporate world. I don’t know if it’s forever or clearly, but I’ve been focused on Are.Jei since then for the past few months.

Ellen (09:45):

Well, congratulations, cuz that is no small feat. I know. And it could be really challenging as an entrepreneur. So I think that your offering is definitely unique. I have not seen anything like it out there. So can you tell everyone what does Are.Jei do and what do you offer as I’m pretty sure I have the audience that’s gonna really be into it.

Reem (10:03):

So Are.Jei sits at the intersection of technology and jewelry. That’s inspired by technology concepts. I wanted to design a jewelry line that represents something that’s near and dear to my heart, which is technology. And I wanted to kind of create curiosity about different engineering concepts through something fun like jewelry. So like it’s exactly what you said. No one has done it before and I’m still nervous, but excited about doing, about doing what I’m doing at Are.Jei. The first jewelry line that I started that I designed and launched in November of last year is binary jewelry. So you can customize your jewelry piece, your bracelet by giving us a letter or a number and we’ll encode it in binary code and use, I call them binary charms. They’re just charms. That represents the number zeros in one. I mean, I love doing what I’m doing Are.Jei. It’s not just a jewelry store, but it’s also about promoting technology and engineering. Cuz like simple example, all my models are engineers who I’ve worked with or engineers who are willing. 

Ellen (11:08):

I love of that.

Reem (11:09):

And once they model the jewelry, I interview them and I share their journey into engineering, how they became engineers. And we highlight those stories on the blogs. I mean it’s still a work in progress. It’s still pretty much so new, like three, four months old company. But I love what it stands for. I love that it’s promoting technology and engineering through something that’s so fun. Usually Jewelry and engineering, don’t intersect outside of wearable tech. Like you’re smart watch. So it’s this one way to kind of, I say to give jewelry an intellectual identity mm-hmm and to give technology a fun identity and that’s what I’m trying to do with Are.Jei.

Ellen (11:50):

I love it so much. And it’s so fun. I hope you guys are, you can hear how cool and different, I think only a woman can come up with this idea. This is exactly what diversity means. Diversity of perspective and ideas like that. I just, I love everything about it. Here’s what else I love that I’ve been wanting to tell you since, since I came across your company a few months ago. So I guess I, I was like right on it. I think that with my students and my audience, one of the things that cannot be overstated or done too much is to create this identity of feeling techy, of feeling that they are someone who is part of the tech field, the tech scene, they belong there. And I think that one of the things that, you know, having beautiful, which it is beautiful jewelry in fashion, you’re just promoting that identity. And I think that at its core, if we shift the identity of more women to say, I do identify as techy. I think that really is going to be a key piece to really moving the needle and closing the gender gap. So I just wanna commend you for that. And I think it’s a beautiful thing that you’re doing. It’s super inspiring and really interesting.

Reem (13:03):

Yeah. I love what you said. Cause representation I say comes in all shapes and forms. I mean we want role models that we look up to and we want to see them in to see, to see them successful and see them in leadership roles and look up to them and wanna be them. But representation could also be jewelry. Like I want to wear this piece of jewelry and make this statement that I am techy. I am passionate about technology. I love technology. I wear this like the pride that comes from sharing your passion for technology. So yeah. Representation can be of all shapes and forms and I thought, why not jewelry too? Yeah,

Ellen (13:43):

I think that is so interesting. So a little bit more about your role as a woman and a mom in technology. How do you view that role? Obviously it’s something that, you know, you’ve represented for your career, but then taking these bold steps as both ahead of D and I, and then with Are.Jei, like how do you view your role as a woman in technology?

Reem (14:03):

I’ll say I love being a woman in tech. I really truly love being a woman in tech. I love technology. I love engineering. And what I love is also mentoring women in tech and watching them grow I for the last few years that I’ve mentored or I’ve focused most of my mentorship on emerging leaders in tech. So women who want to become engineering managers or directors, and I watch zoom emerge as wonderful, amazing, inspiring leaders in technology. So I think that’s a big part of, of what I do is advocating for people who are already in tech and wanna emerge as leaders and for women and girls who are not in tech and they are not sure what a career in tech is. Last year, I did a series of interviews with teenage girls age 12 to 15, and I asked them similar questions. And one of the questions was, what do you wanna be when you grow up?

Reem (15:02):

And of course the most common answers or teachers, a teacher, a lawyer, a doctor, none of them said an engineer or a computer engineer. And I wanna change that. Like I wanna start hearing girls say like, I want to become an engineer. I want them to know what a career in engineering. Yeah. I feel like that’s our responsibility because the media, unfortunately consciously or unconsciously have portrayed the wrong image of what an engineer looks like or what it does. And I love to change that. And I feel like all of us women in tech have the role to show up to the young generation or not even yeah. To all women and say like, this is what it looks like to be someone in technology. This is how fulfilling it is to be a technologist. And this is the real image of, of an engineer. What we do

Ellen (15:57):

That is so beautiful. So I always say, you know, you were describing that image and I’m like, oh, you must mean what I talk about. Oh, the, the guy with the hoodie and the greasy hair in the basement, you know, hunched over computer that he hasn’t showered in days. That’s the image. Right. And I mean, I’m sure guys don’t like that image either, but this was one of the reasons that all over my website, I put my picture all over. I really had to come to this own growth of my myself because I’m that person who hates pictures. I’m like just, no I, but what I realized is no, who I am and what I represent. I’m just a mom of five kids living in the suburbs and you know, this is who I am and I’m techy. That’s what I am. And so I totally resonate with what you’re saying. That just more of us putting ourselves out there and saying like, this is what we look like. I think it breaks down so many barriers because then people are like, oh actually, that’s what it looks like. Oh, I can see myself with that. So I think that’s beautiful. Okay. I really want you to tell our audience cuz I can still hear some of my students who are nervous to wear your jewelry, tell them why they should wear your jewelry.

Reem (17:06):

I, I usually say like the biggest reason why is to make a statement again, jewelry is often perceived as something that’s superficial or shallow. And I wanna change that. I want people who wear the jewelry to feel the pride, to feel the pride, to share their passion for something as amazing as technology in engineering. It’s like making a statement that I am techy. I am an intellect mm-hmm and I do care about fashion, but I am all of these and I can be all of that. So I mean, I it’s like again, that statement of pride, that statement of, I don’t know how to describe it better than like intellect that there’s more to me. I love technology and engineering and I love what technology has to offer to the world. And I’m excited about tech and I am a techy myself. So this bracelet kinds of make that statement. That there’s more to me and to my jewelry. It’s not just a fashion necessity. It’s a statement that I’m making about who I am and what I’m passionate about.

Ellen (18:13):

Yeah. I love it. Oh, that was so good. That was really good. Okay. So you’ve started this entrepreneurial journey and I wanted to ask a couple questions with it. So obviously I’m an entrepreneur. So like my heart grows and excitement and I understand some of the challenges you’re a solopreneur or you have a co-founder you know, you have solopreneur. Yeah. That’s a own world of challenges. I would like to know. Did you always know you wanted to be in tech cuz I mean you started pretty early and then why do you think you made the leap at this time into entrepreneurs?

Reem (18:46):

I wish I have an exciting story of why I wanted to get into tech, but really I didn’t. I, I mean, growing up, I wanted to become a journalist. I wanted to become an interior designer. I love art. I’ve always enjoyed drawing, painting oil painting. So computer science was never an option. But then when I moved to the states back in 1995, 1 of our friends was in tech and he just introduced me to the idea of exploring an option going for a computer science or computer engineering degree. There was the hype back then, like with personal computers. And I would say I wasn’t intimidated by tech and maybe because I moved and I didn’t inherit any of the misconceptions or the stereotypes. So to me, I wasn’t intimidated by being in technology. And that’s how I got into tech. And when I started taking computer classes, I just loved it.

Reem (19:43):

I mean, I think one thing we don’t talk enough about is the creative aspect of programming and unique. I love art. I mean, as someone who enjoys paint it, you can paint anything you want, you hold your brush and you can build whatever. Or you can transform the image in your head into something on the canvas. But we don’t talk about the similar aspect of programming or engineering because you’re really building something in a virtual world, however way you want. You can be creative. My first project was building a virtual grocery store and we’re talking about 1996 or 97 internet was like was up and coming. Wasn’t a thing back then. So I mean I built a grocery store and I designed it and put the shelves, whatever I want, oh the shelves. Then I colored the walls, whatever paint I wanted to. So we don’t talk enough about that creative aspect of engineering.

Reem (20:40):

Actually, most many, I don’t wanna say most, but many of the people I worked with come from creative backgrounds and decided to become engineers. They come from music background, art philosophy. They didn’t necessarily start their journey going for computer science or computer engineering. Mm-hmm , which is again the beauty of programming, cuz you really, it’s not just that you can build whatever you want it’s that you can build it, however you want. There are different ways. So the creative part of my brain goes like life, whether I’m programming or engineering, it’s not even intentional about getting into engineering, but it’s definitely was intentional about staying in engineering. And I really loved it once I started taking programming classes.

Ellen (21:26):

That’s great. I like your point about the creative aspect of programming. I totally agree with you when I was in college, this would’ve been like the late nineties. I wrote, we had to do a project and I picked doing a random music selector. So actually I had the idea for Spotify. I just didn’t realize that it was such a worthwhile idea. That’s my I’m like, oh, I can look at the different aspects that would make something interesting of music to listen to and you know, the different tone and the balance. And if you like the age, you like this, and remember writing that in Java and just like, I still remember that project, even though it was 20 years ago, but 25, whatever, you know, a while ago it has. And it you’re right though. It took so much creative aspect because I could make it however I wanted it. Just like you said, like I came with the idea and it’s like, okay, there’s a blank canvas, much. Like you’re talking about drawing, where do you wanna go with it? So I love your point about creativity. So what about starting your company now? We didn’t really talk about this. You actually have had a company on the side all along.

Reem (22:26):

Yeah. That was more of a hobby business. It was never a profitable . Yeah,

Ellen (22:30):

But it was about, is it a gift store?

Reem (22:32):

It was jewelry too, but it wasn usually that I design, I was just a buyer and seller with Are.Jei. The design is mine also. So it’s a little bit different. Right. But yeah, I mean, honestly I think I got interested in the marketing space after starting my business. And when I joined the first marketing company as the VP of innovation engineering, it was very intentional because I was fascinated by marketing and especially like ethical marketing for people at the right time, the right product. And, and I just like, I was fascinated by that aspect of running a business. And that’s why I got into the marketing as an engineering leader. But yeah, from there, I mean, when you have the entrepreneurial itch, like you have to just scratch it and it will never go away. I try today in the corporate space, as long as I can, I share this sometimes, but I actually quit two jobs to leave the corporate world and, and become a full-time entrepreneur.

Reem (23:37):

And every time I quit this great opportunity in the corporate world. Oh my gosh, should I end up going back? But this time it stuck, I guess. Yeah. It was a big, I mean, you said it it’s a leap of faith to leave the stability of having a corporate job health insurance, paid insurance regular paycheck. And also I think I struggled the most with leaving the corporate world because I was that person. I was that role model for so many people I got into as a woman in tech, I was often the only woman. I mean, you know, the only the table and I wasn’t just a woman at the table. I was often at the head of the table. So I struggled with the idea of leaving corporate and us losing another woman in tech by the work that I’m doing with Are.Jei kinds of, in a way, it still keeps me feeling like fulfilled and contributing to and supporting women in tech. And I’m hoping that one day I’ll go back to the corporate world. Just not yet, but yeah. I mean being an entrepreneur, as you know, it, not an easy thing, you’re wearing so many hats and you’re learning so many things and kind of starting, I feel like I’ve invested 25 years to get at the engineering level. And now I’m starting from the very beginning. It’s very humbling, honestly.

Ellen (25:00):

Yeah. yeah.

Reem (25:01):

That’s okay. Well, let’s see what this means. And let’s take this course and like I was tempted. I saw your UX design membership I’m like, yeah, fine take that.

Ellen (25:11):

Yes, you should. You should take it. It’s wonderful. No, but I do think that knowing which courses to take and what education you need is really hard. Cuz there is a lot of great information out there and it is very much about just in time learning. It’s like from the home Depot, you’re talking about all the marketing stuff. Oh yeah. I had to learn all of that. I’m like, oh I need to sell what I have. Oh yeah, let me figure that out. But I agree with you. I went with like a education marketing philosophy and I thought, well, I’ll have a podcast because I know I can talk really easily. And it’s funny. I mean like my family will make fun of me, but it’s true that doing something that there’s some amount of ease with doing it, like you were talking about, you were interviewing like TWS and teens and then interviewing your engineers and your models.

Ellen (25:57):

There’s some element of joy when you were talking about that. And that’s a, an important piece. That’s a piece to your marketing. It shows who you are and what your company is. Right. And so for me, for my company, I talk to, you know, women doing things in technology and honestly, men who are really excited about bringing more women to technology and then success stories too. Those are my favorite. I have to like convince them to come. They’re never ready. They’re never, they’re so nervous. I’m like you think of all the people you’ll help. Okay. I’ll do it. You know? So it is important to kind of find that piece. So what would you say has been, and I would agree with you, humility is my number one, learning outside of humility. What’s like your number one learning from entrepreneurship. And then what’s your number one challenge.

Reem (26:40):

I was kind of preparing to answer this question as the VP of engineering, but I can still can do that. Like what’s my biggest challenge as a VP of engineering and what the most fulfilling thing about that. But I can also talk about it from entrepreneurial perspective, whichever you prefer,

Ellen (26:55):

Whatever works for you.

Reem (26:56):

Let’s talk as a VP of engineering. What was the fulfilling aspects of my job? I would say when you’re successful, when I became successful at transforming a company at getting them to the next level, that was probably the most fulfilling aspect of my career. Like getting in hot solving for their bottleneck challenges when it comes to engineering and platform, transforming the organization, bringing in engineering, excellence practices, building cultures of accountability, cultures of ownership, and then like just kind of showing them the possibilities, not just the limitations. That’s one thing I feel is one of the skill set that I have when I come in or join a company, I don’t look at why we can’t do something. I look at the opportunities of why doing something will transform the way they do things. And then the second thing that’s super exciting about being an engineering leader is watching people grow.

Reem (27:56):

I watched so many engineers become senior engineers and staff, engineers and principal engineers. I watched many get into the people leadership side of things then become managers and senior managers and directors. And one of my senior directors just became a VP and we were exchanging few messages. A couple of that’s like one of the most joyous moments is watching people grow and which I love. And I miss so much. The challenging thing I think is just being a woman in tech. You often, especially as a woman leader, where as a senior leader, you have to work more than your male counterparts. Often you’re not extended the same respect or credibility or trust that you are the right person for the job. You kind of have to earn it versus, mm it’s like men, when they join organizations as senior leaders, they’re given that from the get go, but right. You have to earn it with time. So that has always been one of the biggest challenges that I had to overcome and you just get better at it and mm-hmm , I think you’ve embraced it.

Ellen (29:05):

I love it. You mind if I ask you, you mentioned the transformation twice and you talked a little bit about the modernization and really bringing like new practices in and by the way you mentioned what’s possible like definitely an abundance mindset that’ll help you in entrepreneurship. I’m curious about, you also mentioned like staff transformational. Can you tell me just like a little bit more about the details when you’re transforming an organization? Like, what are the different components that are going in? Are you choosing? Is it like, oh, we just we’ve gotta rebuild it from a new stack perspective, even though that’s really hard or Hey, we don’t have the talent that we need. We need to bring something else in. Like, what are some of the components that you use

Reem (29:40):

To transform an organization? Well, you’re a natural leader too.

Ellen (29:45):

, I’m super curious what you’re like, what I wonder what she means by that. What, yeah. And I almost glad onto it before. Yeah. What, what do you think about that?

Reem (29:53):

So it depends on the organization. Okay. And I think that’s the beauty of transformation work is it’s not a preset offering. Like, well you offer transformation work, but the way you implement it and the way you prioritize it, it depends big time on the company itself and the stage at which the organization is at. So one of the companies where I joined, like we started with transforming their engineering practices. They had siloed work. So each engineer owned a code base and they would fix it, build new features. And that’s it. And that’s so dangerous for a company cuz we have points of failure. Yeah. And then also your code becomes just unmaintainable cuz if you’re building the same feature on different patients, let’s say you have a search feature, you end up copying and pacing the code cuz engineers, aren’t talking to each other, they aren’t aware of what they’re doing.

Reem (30:45):

So that’s one of the things that I’ve done is transforming the code base fully. So going from like separate code bases, that’s owned by separate engineers, kind of the idea of shared accountability and shared ownership, code review, peer programming. So introducing all these practices, right? And then from a stack perspective, like this was a company that built their technology stack, using a language that no longer had a supported community or even talent in this space. So we struggled a lot. We were hiding so much, but we struggled a lot finding good engineers who a have some experience in that language and B are experts in that space or they wanna learn that language. We even got to the point where we’re willing to hire junior engineers with no experience programming in that specific play language. Right? So we did that. We tried that for a year and then it just wasn’t scalable as the company kept growing and we had to hire more talent, it just wasn’t scalable.

Reem (31:48):

Most junior engineers that we’ve hired as entry level would leave us two, three years later because now they have the experience and they can work in Java or mm-hmm, like a more, a different, a more appealing programming like mm-hmm . So we decided to modernize the stack and shift the programming language to a different one and introduce frameworks and introduce so many things to modernize even within the language itself, which frameworks we were using. But that requires having like a plan. So you can’t right. Say rewrite the whole platform a 15 years old platform, I’m gonna rewrite it in this language, but you come up with a plan to say, well, we have these three new features that we’re building this upcoming year. How can we build them on the new stack? How can we develop a plan cuz you need to build the hardware.

Reem (32:39):

Also it’s not just the language. It’s also the hardware. It’s also hiding infrastructure engineers who are familiar with how to deploy stacks that are built on this new language that we’re gonna pivot to the kind of coming up with these plans, doing internal training, potentially hiding one or two senior folks in this new language that we’re moving to. So kind of help us set things up. So that’s one example for that specific company where engineering excellence, collaboration, frameworks, changing the programming language, took some time to transform like how in different companies we did where I led like DevOps transformation work. Right. So it’s not just about writing code it’s about like programming or building features about shipping code. Yeah. And your QA practices, how you test your code. That was actually one of the most exciting projects I worked on used to take us 14 days to ship code and deploy it to production. And I spent some time coming up with a plan and I offered them a solution to ship their code in 10 minutes. So taking it from 14 days to what?

Ellen (33:48):

And that’s crazy. I thought 14 days was pretty good.

Reem (33:53):

Yeah. So 10 minutes was revolutionary. I mean everyone who worked with me on that project, I’m still in touch with and they still say that you taught me to think outside the box. Yeah. To think nothing is impossible because the problem when you’re like, let’s say in this case, when you’re doing 14 days code delivery or releases that no matter how you optimize, you’re just brushing off like 10 minutes here, half an hour here. So you’ll stay within the 14 days. You might shorten it to 10 days after four.

Ellen (34:25):

All right.

Reem (34:26):

But with transformation with some time who takes is just to look at things completely D from a different lens and say, well, why do we need to do things this way? Why? Right. Do everything in parallel, everything running at the same time, give it as much hardware as possible and just watch what could happen. So that’s why I said showing the possibilities, not the limitations and thinking outside the box, that’s what I take with me. Like every organization I join, I spend some time learning about their challenges and pain points and then prioritizing what is the most important thing that will get you the biggest return on your investment at first? And then we start tackling these projects.

Ellen (35:07):

Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing it. That’s really interesting. And I’m glad I asked the question because it’s a much more comprehensive picture that you painted than what I was originally thinking. And I think that’s really helpful. All right. I think we should wrap it up. And I wanna ask you this final question for advice to a woman who’s listening. Maybe she’s a mom, she’s considering a career in tech and she is struggling to see herself as techy. She’s not sure that like it really fits her mold. What advice do you have

Reem (35:36):

For her to pursue a career in tech? Even if she’s doubting herself? My advice would be, if you are struggling to see yourself in tech, because you don’t have all the information that you need to make that decision, mm-hmm then take a step back. Unfortunately, media, social media culture, society, like we’ve been fed so many misconceptions and wrong information. I mean the media portrays anyone in tech as either a hacker or right. Like every show that we see an engineer in. I mean, we’re starting to see more women engineers, but we’re often seeing them hacking into the police structure or that. So that’s not, I mean, really engineering is about building solutions. Look at how we’re communicating now we’re using zoom, right? So many engineers contributed to building this wonder story that solves so many problems. So back to my advice is find the right sources that will give you all the information that you need to make your decision.

Reem (36:38):

I mean, what you’re doing, Ellen is amazing. Like through You are techY. Thank you. So like that’s one way. Talk to you, talk to people that you’re interviewing, reach out to people on LinkedIn. There are so many wonderful organizations promoting women in tech, women who code so many where you can really get the full picture and then decide. I mean, it’s completely okay if engineering isn’t the right path for someone, we all have different passions, different hobbies, different. Yeah. But the problem is that we’re eliminating 10 yes career options because we don’t have all the information that we need. And that’s when I found out, when I talked to the girls last year, I said, what do you think an engineer does? And they said, computer. I’m like, well, what do you think they do? And every single girl said, they are solving math problems all day.

Reem (37:32):

And I’m like, no, that’s not it. So like, let’s get the right information. I mean, I love all the different offerings that you have on your website, cuz engineering isn’t just the one thing, a one track there’s front and backend infrastructure, data science, UX design. And I mean, if you talk to the right people, then it shouldn’t be as overwhelming. And just my advice is get the right answers, get all the information that you need. Shadow. People ask to shadow a woman in tech and just attend a couple of meetings, reach out to people on LinkedIn and organizations such as You are techY and other organizations out there, but just make your decision informative based on credible resources, not media and not social media. 

Ellen:
That was, that is advice. That is great advice. Ream. Thank you so much for coming on the show today. I had a great time talking with you

Reem:
The same here, Ellen. Thank you for hosting me. Thanks.

Ellen (38:36):

Hey if you enjoyed listening to this podcast you have to sign up for the You are techY email list. Imagine being in the tech job of your dreams. Join me to get the strategies training and never ending support to get hired. Sign up at youaretechy.com. That’s Y O U A R E T E C H Y.com. I’ll see you next time.