You are techY podcast

Ellen Twomey: You are listening to the You Are Techy podcast, episode number 67.

Voiceover: 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 Twomey: I know you’ve been thinking about it. I know that very techy you is ready to come out and find the tech job of her dreams this year. Who do you turn to for the support you need to move from learning to getting hired in tech? Well, I’ve got some great news for you. I’ve got you covered with the You are techY coaching membership. We listened to our audience and we heard you ask for UX design and full stack developer options in your course content, not to mention the getting hired strategies that have worked for so many women before you. The trifecta of courses, coaching and community with the mentor support you need to keep moving forward into your tech career is like no other membership program out there. We have the exact skills employers are looking for. You’ll 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 dot com. I can’t wait to see you in our membership.

Cadran Cowansage: Thank you so much. It’s wonderful to be here.

Ellen Twomey: Okay. I’m excited to dive in. Tell us a little bit about your career journey, specifically, what you thought you would do and where you actually ended up.

Cadran Cowansage: Yeah. So let me start by saying, I don’t think I ever thought I’d end up here. So I started college as a biology major, thinking I might go pre-med or be a field biologist when I was taking those classes, I ended up having to take an intro computer science course, as part of the major. And I ended up really loving it. You know, I think in hindsight, it wasn’t super surprising because I loved computers as a kid. And I actually did some sort of I’ll call it web programming light, when I was a kid, but at the time it was very surprising. And so I ended up picking up that, computer science double major, and that really sort of changed the trajectory of what I was going to do next.

Ellen Twomey: So when I saw your major biology, computer science is actually not the first time I’ve seen the combo, but it does surprise me because they’re not really related STEM related to once you in computer science, you pretty much were like, yeah, that’s the road I’m going to go. I’m going to enter technology and did it that way.

Cadran Cowansage: Yeah, I’m a builder. So I love creating, I love writing software. I love coding. So, you know, I think it was pretty obvious to me when I started the major that this was something that I really enjoyed, found fun and felt like I was good at. And, you know, I think at first I was really thinking, how do I combine these two? How do I use both? And so bioinformatics, wasn’t a major at my school. I think it was, you know, actually kind of early for that interdisciplinary major.

Ellen Twomey: I think you see that more now, but that was an area that I was exploring initially as well. For sure. So tell us a little bit about what you’re doing now. I mean, that was the main attraction for me to bring you on the podcast. I’m a member of Elpha. I wanted my community to hear about it. I know you’re doing a lot of really cool things and I’d love to hear about what else was all about and what led you there.

Cadran Cowansage: Yeah. Awesome. Well, Elpha is a professional network for women. So it’s a space that really aims to help every woman when it works. And of course that means different things to every woman. And that’s part of the sort of fun of the community is that we get a lot of different perspectives and backgrounds and folks who are coming at it from very different places in their life, moms, students, you know, sort of everyone is coming from a different world and they’re all figuring out their careers and working on how to build that professional community and that professional future that they want and figuring out what that wants is.

Ellen Twomey: So that’s part of the fun too. What led you to be inspired about it?

Cadran Cowansage: Yeah, so I really started Elpha because it was the professional network that I wanted when I started my career as an engineer was very often the only woman in the room. And I was often the only woman on the teams that I was on. And, you know, I discovered pretty quickly that there are all sorts of experiences that you go through navigating your career and navigating workplace that are very specific to the fact that you’re a woman and, you know, the things that you have to deal with, you know, maybe you’re working with all men, maybe there’s no other more senior women you can go to for advice. It’s like all of these pieces that are really important, I felt like were missing and, and I was really looking for, and so I basically created Elpha to solve my own problem and also to help support other women who were feeling like me.

Ellen Twomey: I love it. I mean, definitely near and dear to my heart, my community, you are there to support moms of my undergrads, computer science. So I would be in the classroom, the only female in most of my classrooms, maybe there were two of us. Sometimes I would just go to college and just definitely my professional career. That was my experience. And every time I would come across a woman who had that experience, it was like, yeah, this is really challenging. It’s hard to be the only female and not have those relationships authentically the way that absolutely. And I think, you know, so much of it is about feeling like you can bring all the parts of yourself to work.

Cadran Cowansage: You know, I used to sort of feel like I needed to kind of be one of the guys and, you know, sort of hide the fact that I was a woman in a way at work because it didn’t really fit in with my team and Elpha, you know, our goal is really create a space where we celebrate the fact that we all are, you know, unique and different and, and have personal lives that inform our professional lives and that we have the opportunity to really get to know each other and help each other.

Ellen Twomey: I love it. That’s great. Well, let’s go back a little bit and walk me through your first job out of college, because I think that this is, you know, you’ve had a very technical career path, but it has been an interesting path. So what was that like?

Cadran Cowansage: Yeah, so I sort of took, sharp left out of college and got a job at a bank. In hindsight, I had very little business doing that. I am not much of a corporate suit wearing person and finance isn’t something I’m particularly passionate about. Um, but at the time when I was, you know, graduating from school, I was just really curious about finance. I was curious about using my engineering skills for something different than biology and what that might look like. And I think the other thing worth noting is that I didn’t really have any idea about startups or, you know, starting my own business or working at a startup. And so one of the things that folks at my school really did was going to finance. And so that was something that I decided to explore too. So it’s definitely an interesting experience and it was also 2008 during the financial crisis. So I’ll call it more interesting Lynch.

Ellen Twomey: Right. And so you were in the derivatives trading desk.

Cadran Cowansage: Yep. So I worked on the trading floor, which was, you know, similarly to engineering teams. It was an environment with very few women. It was hundreds of men and just a handful of women. And so I only have had the experience of having that that’s somewhat isolating experience in tech and in finance.

Ellen Twomey: Interesting. Interesting. So I’d love to hear about kind of some of your more pure engineering roles because you have had this technical career path. What did you like best about being a software engineer and specifically engineering leadership?

Cadran Cowansage: Yeah, so I, I’m an introvert, which is funny because I run a community, but I love coding. I love spending quiet hours working on a problem, really problem solving with code in that very logical structured way. I love the puzzle of it and I also love creating and building. And so I’d say those two pieces are really perfect mix for building products on the internet. And I think that the sort of creative product aspect is something that, you know, some engineers don’t love, but I do really enjoy. And I think when you have a team where you’re all sort of creatively approaching, building a new product, thinking through exactly what it should do, the edge cases, you know, how the software should be designed, it’s both fun from a sort of mental place where you’re, you know, learning and getting to the sort of exercise, all those skills you’ve learned and also just fun from a creative place.

Ellen Twomey: So it’s cool that you get to reflect both of those, both of those areas. And was your move to engineering lead? Was it seamless? Was there any trepidation on your part? Were you ready for that? Any insights on that transition?

Cadran Cowansage: Yeah, I think for me, I was ready. I was excited for that. That’s what I wanted. And then, so it was an exciting opportunity at Y Combinator. You know, I had a lot of fun on the team that I was building products for. It was, a team called the continuity team that does later stage investments where it was a really fun opportunity to sort of expand my skillset and work with the business side as well. So it was all fun.

Ellen Twomey: So I would actually love for you to expand upon Y Combinator. I know there’s a lot of my audience who don’t, like you said, you were familiar with startup when you kind of came out. Can you just educate everyone on what some of those more technical roles were for you?

Cadran Cowansage: Yeah, sure. So Y Combinator is a startup accelerator. It’s, it’s almost like a startup university and how it works is they accept startups into a program and, when they accept you, you basically apply with either an idea or a product that you built, or you could even have a startup that you’re already running. And when you’re accepted, you are given funding and you also have the opportunity to participate in what they call the YC batch. And so what that means is you, you work alongside other founders of other startups, a sort of very concentrated three months period, to really focus on accelerating the growth of your startup, figuring out what your product is really just this very sort of intense, focused, very fun period of building. And so YC runs this program twice a year, and there is a software team there that supports this program. And so what I did was build software for our founders. So we actually had a social network for our founders and our alumni. Thus, the application process itself is software. At the end of the three months, there’s a demo day where you pitch your software or whatever, you’re building to an audience of thousands of investors. So a software there, they also have something called startup school, which is an online, it’s an educational program that runs year round. And that’s all also custom software. So there’s a ton of custom software, very small team that supports tens of thousands of founders.

Ellen Twomey: Wow. That sounds like a really big challenge and super interesting. I didn’t realize there was so much custom software. What kind of stacks were you working in then? And were those new or experienced.

Cadran Cowansage: Yeah, so mostly Ruby on Rails, JavaScript react. Post-grads those were actually new to me when I joined, I was more Java focused engineer. And so it was very fun learning, Ruby on Rails, you know, really digging into that kind of web development.

Ellen Twomey: I love that you were in a leadership role and transition stacks, and that was just part of the process because you have proven yourself as a Java developer, and that’s a great lesson learned. So as an engineering lead and now as a founder, and I’m sure you’ve had some experience interviewing people, what would you say are two of your favorite secret weapon questions or insights that you have so that my audience can be prepared? And so, you know, how you look at interviewing really high quality?

Cadran Cowansage: Yeah, it’s a great question. So I don’t have a secret weapon question. I think my focus is really on asking the same questions to every candidate I’m interviewing for a particular role. And I actually usually try to keep it consistent, between engineering hires as well, because I think the more data you have about a particular question and how people answer it, the more you can do a sort of apples to apples comparison of candidates.

For me, when I interview, I do a mix of technical questions, like sort of more programming, algorithmic questions. I try to focus on ones that are applicable to real life, but I do have one that I liked that is more just seeing sort of what your programming chops are, how comfortable you are, um, you know, thinking through an algorithm, things like that. And it’s sort of hard. You never read in real life. So that’s one piece. And then the next piece is I really enjoy. And I think it’s really valuable asking candidates, more product focused engineering questions. I think it’s really interesting to see whether a candidate enjoys thinking about the what’s and the why’s of what they’re building different engineers feel different ways about that. And I think that’s an important part of how they think, you know, what the experience will be like for them on the team specifically, because we’re very product focused company, and, and then, the last piece is I like to ask candidates what they want to avoid and the next role. I think that that one is super illuminating. Yeah. That’s a moment where I hear really interesting information that’s really useful and helping one, you know, alleviate any concerns they might have about the company or the role. And then, you know, to making sure the the role is a good fit for them. And so it’s like an opportunity to really talk about concerns and people usually don’t expect that question. So I think, you know, you get slightly more candid answers, right. And candid I think is great.

Ellen Twomey: I love your systematic approach. I think that definitely a takeaway for me. I definitely I’ve had my ups and downs in that, but I know that when I’ve been consistent, it’s better. I tend to have to be shorter with it. I’m more of an extrovert. So I mean, basically you’re learning, you’re putting together data for you so that you can learn and decide like what’s a good fit for, you know, the team that you’re hiring for and what you need.

Cadran Cowansage: Exactly.

Ellen Twomey: So, and I love what you want to avoid that again, very authentic, Elpha.

Cadran Cowansage: So our business model is that we partner with companies that are hiring and so our members can ask us for help in their job searches. And one of the questions we actually ask all of our members, when they ask help in their job search is what do you want to avoid in your next role, super helpful in helping us figure out exactly which companies they may be interested in working for. And, you know, also if there’s anything that we think it’s important for the company to know about, like what the candidate does or doesn’t want, it’s, it’s very valuable to people to share that information with the companies when we make the introductions. So I think it’s a really important question. I can see my community loving that one too, because a lot of times what’s preventing them from getting into tech or either stereotypes from what they think, and also their previous job experience. It really is. The next job really is partly avoiding something that was, and that wasn’t a great experience. I can think of every job I’ve ever had

Ellen Twomey: Definitely been a driver. So I’m glad you brought Elpha back up because I would, I mean, it’s a free community. So the sales pitch is short, but you know, for someone who’s listening to the hearing about it for the first time, and it’s just elpha.com, E L P H A.

What are the benefits that a woman coming in, let them, my community, their mom, what are some of the benefits they get by being in the community? And I’m going to start off by saying, I’m assuming you want people to give to the community that’s part of community. Right. But what are some of the benefits that you receive too?

Cadran Cowansage: Yeah, exactly. So the whole community’s free for our members. It’s a little bit ready as a product. So there’s a feed that only logged in members have access to that includes really candid conversations among our members on all kinds of topics related to tech and not. So, you know, lots of conversations about interviewing while pregnant benefits, parental leave, how to manage, you know, your work schedule and also having kids at home during COVID. All of these kinds of conversations are part of what’s happening on Elpha. We also have a way for our members to ask questions and contribute anonymously. So every member is vetted when they apply, but you can, once you’re a member also contribute without attaching your name, if you want to talk about something private or controversial. And so it creates a really sort of open, authentic place. You know, I’m always really proud of the fact that I don’t think these conversations are happening other places on the internet. And so it’s sort of like this opportunity to sort of breathe the sigh of relief that you’re sort of with your people. And, and you can really talk about these things that are important to you. So that’s one piece.

The other piece is we do lots of community building with the goal of helping members really get to know each other in smaller groups and one-on-one, and that’s something that we constantly experiment with. So we do virtual chats every month. We have a new matchmaking, a bit of our software where you can choose to talk about different topics and we’ll match you up with other people based on the topics you want to chat about. We also have this jobs component. So that is, you know, our revenue model is that we partner with these companies that are hiring. And so part of what we do is that we have an in-house recruiter on our side and she’s super experienced. She’s, you know, comes from a big tech company where she was doing recruiting, and she really works with our members to help them find companies that are a great fit. So if a member really cares about having a great parental leave policy or a flexible schedule or something like that, she’ll work with them to find companies that we work with, that she thinks are fit. Sometimes we end up introducing candidates to companies where there’s not even like necessarily a role listed, but it’s just such a perfect fit in terms of skills or interests and what the candidate is looking for. And very often companies are sort of flexible and can create a role for the right candidate. So we do a lot of that, helping candidates with their resumes, making recommendations, things like that as well. So those are a few of the benefits, but it’s something that’s sort of always expanding.

You know, the more women that are in the network, the more powerful the network becomes because they share resources and connections and opportunities. And so it’s constantly growing and changing and evolving and getting more rich.

Ellen Twomey: That was fantastic. Thank you. That was a lot of information. I’m going to just chime in with my own personal favorite, which is the office hours. Oh, you have such high quality candidates who are so generous with their time and responses. I mean, I have posted some really in-depth questions and gotten just resources of information from, you know, from VCs, from Andreessen Horowitz and just really cool people that personally, I wouldn’t, I don’t think I’d have access to otherwise really sharing their wisdom and wanting their own experiences to be shared throughout. And so that, for me personally, is one of my favorite places to go. I watch the office hours to see if I’m interested.

Cadran Cowansage: I’m so happy to hear it. Yes. I forgot to mention that. There’s probably some other things. I forgot that one is a lot of fun just to give a little more color. We, every week we highlight one to two guests who are sort of experts super senior in their field, and they have questions from the community throughout the week. And then we’ll sort of dive in and really give thoughtful responses to members. So it’s an opportunity to access folks who might not otherwise access, or you can even ask questions anonymously. So ask things that you might not want to put your name behind.

Ellen Twomey: Right. Love it. You know, we’re all about women in tech. I really I’m on a mission to help more moms and women understand that tech is an option for them. So I would love to know what advice do you have for a woman? She might be a mom. She might not, but she doesn’t know if it’s right for her. She doesn’t know if she’s cut out for it. And what advice do you have for her in whether or not to pursue occurrence? I think Elpha is actually a great place to explore the, is this right?

Cadran Cowansage: For me, you can sort of bring that conversation to the community and get thoughts from women who are working in tech, or you can, you know, connect with women one-on-one from the community. So I think doing some research and chatting with women who are doing it, who have sort of a similar experience or a life sort of life background to yours and learning about their experiences, I think is a great first step. I do think it’s also, you know, more and more possible. And I think it’s something really born to do is to find companies that are culturally aligned with you and to think about, you know, the mission and values of those companies and, and align them with, with you. I think it makes it a lot easier to have a positive first experience.

Ellen Twomey: And, you know, that’s something that is becoming more possible. I think something that I’ve really noticed in the last few years is that companies are thinking a lot more about their culture is a lot more about what makes them unique. What makes them a place that’s inclusive and a place that might want to work? I think some cues you can look for if you’re job searching or things like does the company have a generous parental leave policy? Does it include time off for men? Is my schedule going to be flexible? Are they being potful about the fact that there are moms who have kids at home and making an environment where they, they have the capacity to do great work on the times that make the most sense for them looking at whether remote in something that they’re flexible about as well, I think is another piece. So I think there’s all of these sort of cues you can use to sort of back into whether you think the company is really welcoming women.

Cadran Cowansage: Yeah. I definitely recommend checking those out. Those are things that we ask of all the companies we’ve we profile on Elpha and we share with the community as well. So, definitely recommend checking, checking that kind of stuff out when you’re job searching.

Ellen Twomey: Great. Any final thoughts that you want to share with our listeners?

Cadran Cowansage: Just, I think it’s absolutely a good idea to explore tech. There’s tons of opportunity. I would say I’ve, I’ve had a lot of friends enter tech, especially recently, and there’s definitely a lot of skills and expertise from other industries that really translates into tech. And in fact, that’s something that our, on our hiring team often helps our members figure out is like, how do these skills that I’ve developed in this other industry? How do they, you know, translate into a role in tech? And so I think just figuring that out and then going for it is something everyone I think should do, because I think tech is a great place to have a sustainable career. It’s a great place to, you know, make some money and it’s a great place to get to work on really meaningful projects.

Ellen Twomey: Thank you so much for being with me here today. This is a lot of fun and listeners are going to appreciate everything.

Cadran Cowansage: Thank you so much for having me. This was really fun and I hope everyone comes in and works in tech.

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