Hello, everyone and welcome to the series of fireside chats but Women Tech Network. We are inviting phenomenal and outstanding women in tech to inspire and empower you to grow professionally.Last week, we spoke about imposter syndrome, limiting beliefs and advocating for yourself with Melanie De Guzman co-founder at Rogers Women and Tech. Today we have a special guest. Her name is Raana Kumar. She's vice president of Engineering at SI, she's an award-winning and accomplished woman and t driven by the intersection of technology, social impact and leadership. She is a speaker, a mom and a true inspiration for many people in tech. Hi, Regana and welcome.

Hi, Anna. Thank you for the very generous intro. I'm very excited to be here.

Super excited to have you with us and everyone who is tuning in, feel free to ask your questions. And whenever you hear something that resonates with you, please do let us know. So let Rahana, you have been working in the nonprofit sector, started a social enterprise and have grown into the role of VP of engineering at S which is like super impressive. I want to go back in time and discuss how you became actually interested in technology and what sparked your interest.

Yeah, thank you. I think, you know, I went to an engineering school for undergrad degree. That's where I learned a lot about computer science and technology in general. But I would say before that II I grew up in India and while I was growing up there, I, I grew up also close to Bangalore. Bangalore is like the tech hub like Silicon Valley equivalent in India. And while I was in high school, that's when also a lot of tech boom started happening in Bangalore. So I would say that it was a combination of a few different things, given all the situation around me, it was not like I grew up with like computers from my engage or anything. They were, we, you know, it was expensive while I was growing up and we just had computers in the school where I could go and you use the computer once a week or something and play some games and learn some super basic things. But uh while while I was finishing high school, I was debating whether um whether to go into engineering or to do law or something else.

And also I would say like my generation in India was also the first generation to see like the benefits of globalization, opening up the economy when there were a lot of jobs uh again, being created in Bangalore in tech space as well. So I had some interest in technology while growing up. But it's not like I grew up with a lot of gadgets or a computer at home. So, but I was really good at math and science and I did, uh well in my 12th grade and people are like, you're really good at math and science and tech is really booming. So maybe you should go to engineering school and that's how I kind of landed it on in an engineering college. That's why I would say like most of the things I learned mostly in terms of logical things. How does technology solve like larger problems? Uh All those things I I picked up while I was in engineering school, Anna. Are you there? Yes. Sorry, I lost you. Absolutely. My real interest in technology actually really peaked. Once I started working, I think the main reason for that is um even in engineering school, there's a lot of like theoretically this is how you can apply technology and solve problems. And we, I did do some internships and some practical projects there.

But once I started working, I started with tech consulting and applying like technology to solve like real humans problems and seeing, seeing their reaction to it and improving their life, making it more, more efficient. I think what gave me the most joy about my job and that's where once I started working is when I really was excited about like new technologies, how can I solve more problems, how can, how can we do this at scale and things like that? Yeah.

Yeah. So, so it's about like solving also important problems, right? And having this like kind of super power to do that and being able to do that and right. But the world of possibilities.

Yeah, I think you really mean that in terms of superpower because I didn't realize that until I started working. It's like, especially like uh even now it's true if you're good at like computer science or any other technology, it can be almost applied to any field. If you use the right way to improve your solve problems, almost any industry in any part of the world. So I truly think it's a superpower, like you said,

right? So you need, you need to know which, where you want to act, which problem you want to solve and you kind of start applying it and it's like um basically coding or like having different tax skills, it could be in different fields, right? Used

any field. And I think also one of the stereotypes of people who are interested in technology is like you have to be like super geeky, you have to sit by yourself in some basement and be like a loan person coding away somewhere in the basement. And I don't think it's like that at all. Like I was a um engineer programmer for a long time and it's one of the most collaborative jobs and especially it's like, like any other job. It's a true team effort. Of course, you can be a sole genius building it in your basement as well. But eventually it has to reach customers. If someone needs to start using it, you need, you need to do more research, you need to do some marketing to sell the product that you have built. And so it's even, it's true, like it's truly a team sport. And I think that's another part of the job. I was initially worried that I enjoy interacting with people and um extra water. But it was, it was a truly collaborative job, which I enjoyed a lot. And that's when I, I would say like I had a little bit of interest. It, it grew more in engineering, but I truly enjoyed like capabilities of technology because I had more access to it as well.

Once I started working

during your studies, were there like many women in tech studying with you or like, how was the situation?

Yeah, I think when, when I went to engineering school, it was uh at that given point in time, very few women, like in my class of I would say about 6070 students, it was like seven or eight women. I think the good news actually, uh when I was looking, I went to RV College of Engineering in Bangalore, I was looking at like the, the numbers are substantially higher. I think it's around 30 40%. So there are a lot more girls entering engineering schools, which is very exciting. So, but even once I, once I started working, I, once I came to us and started working um in, in like software engineering, there were very, very few women on my team. Like it was um predominantly I would say like it, it would be me and another person very rarely another engineer. It could be a project manager or a designer or something like that who were female. It was, uh, this was, I'm talking like 1520 years, 20 years ago. So it was predominantly all, all, um, Allah mail mail.

Right. Right. So what, what actually brought you to the US? You grew up in India, studied in India. Right. And then you made a move to move to the US.

Yeah. So I, of course, you know, as, as you already said, I grew up and I went to college there and of course, it, it was, like I just said, I was in Bangalore. There were a lot of tech jobs and a lot of opportunities. It was a tech hub. So it was not, certainly lack of opportunity. But, um, my sister had moved to us like three or four years ago. I was like, growing up very close to my sister, still very close to her. And, uh I have a lot of family as well in the USA, lot of cousins and things like that. But my sister was here and that's when, when I was, she was like, maybe you should come too. And that's when I started looking for jobs in the US as well. And I thought it would be also, I think working in different countries in general, it doesn't have to be like U si think us is like fantastic in terms of providing opportunities for people and truly irrespective of who you are and where you came from, you know, giving you the opportunity to be successful and thrive both in your career and life.

Very few countries can offer that. But I've also worked in Cambodia. I worked in South Africa. I and I think it's like exploring a new culture, a different country. I think all of that is really exciting. But the main reason I came here was, you know, my sister was here and there was also a lot more different themes and opportunities as well. Uh So all of that coming together was very, seemed very exciting and New York seems so exciting. It's still exciting when I was 20. I was like, oh yeah, of course, I want to go to New York. It very exciting,

right? Was there some difficulties finding the job or was it like you just search for a job, found the job and just came to the

S yes, I came to the US and uh 2005, 2006 around that time. The economy was also doing very good um in the US and the immigration was not as hard as it is now. Like there are two factors if you come as an immigrant, right? One is the economy good. Uh And are there a lot of jobs where there is shortage for local talent? Right? Like for people to hire other people from another country, there has to be a shortage. It's a it's a supply and demand, like any basic of economics, like any other industry. So there were a lot of tech jobs then and um the economy was very good and immigration was not as hard as it is now. So I started looking and I got in touch with few people, had a few referrals and I found a job while I was in college in India. And then I came here after that. Yeah.

Right now I'm asking because like we have many, we have a huge community worldwide and one of our um like one of the large communities also in India and I'm sure many of them look up to you and you for them like a role model. That's why I'm asking because I think it's um it's important to share our experience. So we and also inspire a new generation of um women in technology.

I think that's what is very exciting about the women tech network, how global it is. Like the first time I uh spoke at your conference like, I was talking to women from all over the world and I was like, oh, this is so exciting. I was like, really, really excited and uh I think there are different paths to come to us. If you are in another country, I would, my suggestion kind of based on the current situation. Even. That's a little shaky. But I would say the universities here, like I went to grad school much later in my career. But the most common path that people choose is um if they have a technology degree or for not even other degrees, I would uh be, they would uh come here for a master's and once they, their masters, then they will find a job because it's not coming to another country. It's not just finding a job, it's like cultural assimilation, understanding how things work here, even if you have years of experience, which I necessarily didn't working in another country that's not always transferable so directly as and there are so many things to learn for like maybe like language is a barrier for some other people.

Like in India, we speak English a lot. But you know, some other country language might be a barrier. So like grad school gives you a good learning opportunity, not just to up your tech skills, but like all kinds of life skills that uh provides, you know, prepares you to go into a real workplace and work. So I think grad school part is is always solid. Yeah,

a really good idea to everyone who is listening to us and maybe also is considering to go to work in the U SI. Think that sounds really reasonable and would get easier and integrated in the society in general since there will be definitely different cultural differences. Absolutely.

As you said, China, um you have been working with a TSC for already more than six years. How did you start your journey there? And how did you grow professionally into the role of VP of engineering? Which is super exciting and how is this role different from the previous role of senior director of engineering that you had?

Yeah. Um All good questions kind of how I uh landed at. It is a little bit of a long story as I was mentioning before I, um I went to grad school after I worked for like 89 years, I went to Columbia University here in New York. And uh my intention while I was going into Colombia was to kind of, I always knew I wanted to do something related to technology. As, as we already discussed, it's like a superpower which can be applied to any industry. So one of the things I was thinking of is like either uh going using technology, like either in the more uh deeply in the nonprofit sector because I worked for a nonprofit couple of years before uh I went to Colombia or uh to go to the, go to United Nations or some other large uh international development organization like that and, but work on like things specific to technology.

And while I was at grad school, I, I did like a couple of consulting projects with the UN. And I also like was exploring different opportunities. As I said, like, that's the good thing about going to grad school, even with your self experience, I found it opens you up to spaces that you have never even thought of before and opportunities you have never even thought of before. So while I was doing that, someone whom I work with current my friend Phoebe, who I work with at Etsy right now, she was uh she was uh working at Columbia University then and she suggested like ET C might be a good fit because I, I was very clear that I wanted to work with something that was very mission driven that way, the social impact is really clear.

Of course, every company believes that, you know, they are serving the good or they have a mission. But for me, it has to be things I care about, right? Like you can be helping the world in so many different ways and what really attracted me to Etsy at that given point in time. And still, that's the reason I'm still there as well as uh we help serve like entrepreneurs all over the world who are like small entrepreneurs, small businesses and entrepreneurs and predominantly most of them, over 85% of them are all women. So for me, the ability to take like women's talents and making skills and help them turn that into a business and provide a global buyer base was like, really, really exciting. And besides that, like from sustainability to diversity, all the different areas that I care about.

Like Etsy was one of the few tech companies that was doing really well, but it was a much smaller company then. And the culture also seemed a lot of fun. It was a small company which was growing rapidly. So that's how I kind of uh ended up at Etsy. I started as an engineering manager there. So yeah, the second part of your question was like, how is my current job different? Right before I answer that. Do you have anything else? For what I just said? Yeah,

absolutely. I mean, it's super interesting that you're sharing about, you know, being mission driven. And I just thought, well, for me, like many things that you said, first thing that it sounds like Etsy is focusing on female empowerment, empower female entrepreneurs, right? Especially in times of crisis.

I think it's super important because many of them like they need to live from something. And that could be one of the most, one of the main, um let's say main chains of the income, this is super, I think this is so needed. That's one thing, another thing that you said that like you, you wanted to work in a mission driven organization. Um Maybe for everyone who is like, uh like on the way to choose the company or who is looking for, for actually changing and working for like impact uh impact driven company organization. How to pick, like, what are the factors? Maybe what are the questions that you need to ask the hiring manager? How to be? How? Yeah, how, how, how can you best ensure that you um ask the right question when, when choosing a company that you want to

work for? Yeah, that's a really good question. I also want to acknowledge that we are all over the world in a really tough economy now. So like the the luxury to choose might not always exist for everyone. Like it's not always necessarily existed for me, but like at that given point in time, there was the, you know, privilege and the luxury to choose. So when you have that, I in general think of interviewing absolutely as a two way process, it's like, I feel like most candidates who come to interview, they think, oh, they're asking me the questions how to prepare as much as possible and go. But uh in general, at least as a hiring manager and I have seen this from a lot of other leaders. They also warn people hopefully on their teams who can ask them hard questions, who are thoughtful because you're mostly only as good as your team is. And the way you can get better is like, you have a team who can think critically, who can ask you hard questions. And so if you're going for an interview, uh a few things I would look for, right. It's, it, it's one is like, as I said, the core of the business, the customers, they're trying, trying to uh serve and the problem they're trying to solve. Does that excite you and does that align with your own values?

Because like what the things I care about and my personal values might be very different from somebody else's. So it's first of all, like introspecting and understanding what are the causes that you care about and what excites you for somebody else. It might be education, it might not be women entrepreneurship and like there are so many education, tech related spaces. So like that's just the example I gave once you have clarity on that a way to know, at least in a tech product of an organization that they really care about. Customers is a few questions you can ask about like, how do they do research? How do they understand their customer needs? How do they bring that both a quantitative and qualitative data that they have? How do they bring that back into their work on a day to day basis? And it's also like kind of um for me, this is important but like, how do they think about diversity? Does the team, the whole group basically look exactly the same. And does that mirror some of the customers? Like the reason I'm saying that is if as a company at Etsy, if uh all of our employees were predominantly male, whereas if our buyer and seller base is predominantly female, it's like, of course, you can do a lot of research and everyone can understand each other.

But are you like, you're serving this customer base? Does your own team look anything like your customer base? Otherwise, how are you going to have any customer empathy or understanding? And do they care about having, as I said, are they open to people who are critical thinking?

Do they care about different people's opinion? And also like I also talked to a lot of people who work there try to, it's a lot of work, right? When you interview of course, in the interview, no one is going to be like, oh, I think the company culture sucks. No one's going to say that but some people like

you can observe, right? And and say like see how the risk. For example, the hiring managers are like checking the company website. I feel like because I mean also like hire people and I feel that very often many people they don't do research well enough right? To ask these good questions, to ask these hard questions and then to make sure that you have a clear understanding what is this company doing? What is their mission no matter big or small, right. And how it aligns with is your, is your own values.

Yeah. And they're a public company, they publish their financial, they publish a lot of numbers and like, you know, there's a lot of public information you can take when I joined Etsy was not a public company. We, at that given point in time, we were still like growing start up, but like we were a big car, big carp in the US or something. It's called like big corporation where you, you know, you would get certified that you are hitting a lot of goals in terms of sustainability, diversity and few other things like that. I read the full report there. Then I also got in touch with my network. I spoke to a couple of people who are working there uh and asked them how their day to day looks like one of the things that's important to me is also like, I some amount of recent amount of like you're not expected to physically be in the office all the time, right? Like if people have a life outside work as well, you know, so those kind of things, asking those hard questions and trying to connect are are some ways you, you can understand what's happening there. Yeah,

you just touched one point that I wanted also to dwell upon is that when when a actually moved from, from being a private company to a public company, how did your life change? What was your role during that time? And how did you uh maybe which techniques you used to, to navigate the change and to make sure to lead the change? And what were some of the challenges that you had during that time?

Yeah. Um those are all discussions, I think as a rapidly growing company, like if, when I joined, just as an example, there were, I think less than 100 engineers at Etsy, we have over 600 engineers now. So every year we have been growing a lot, right? And just with hyper growth, both in terms of business and people like every year ends up looking a little different. So specifically touching on like going public part, it's, of course, I think it's important that some of the things change from a start up, the culture in a start up is a little different. But as uh when once you start taking public money, so you, you're accountable for a lot more things. So for me, like some of the biggest things that I learned, I was like, I was like a senior manager, then became a new director, senior director now VP. So I manage all different shapes and forms of the organization and I have seen it grow. It was uh basically to always be open to change. I think it's the one of one of the most important things I learned in the whole process. And I can, I can an answer more practically how, how to kind of live through that. I think the challenge sometimes people have is like, you know, people out like, you know, as human beings, we allow to be nostalgic.

Like, you know, when it was like this, it was so great. But the reality is like, it's like if you in the middle of a pandemic, if I said, oh, I went and eat in restaurants all the time or like, they don't travel in airplanes all the time. I miss that. But things have changed and a lot of things are outside your control. And like, I, I feel especially in a workplace as long as things are changing for the better, for the new phase and the core value in the mission is the same. Like you need to learn to adapt very quickly. I think it's, it's good fun to be nostalgic, but it's also important to know when to move on and accept the new reality. So one is like having a very open mind to change and as a leader not ever being comfortable with, like this is how I run things, this is how I do things and this is how it will work because when things are changing rapidly, it's uh constantly about looking at your process, looking from your hiring practices to how you run your team meetings to, you know, how you track things.

For example, when we were a much smaller private company, the amount of em, like emphasis we had on our business numbers and goals and KPIS was much lesser because organically we were growing so much once, once you're accountable to public and, uh, you have to, uh, talk about your financial results every quarter, how to track it much more closely.

You have to see if you're hitting your goals on a monthly basis. So a lot of these things change. But I also think that they're all great learning opportunities, right?

So to see these challenges as opportunities and to be open to change because there's no things like everything will be static and same all the time, right? That you have the gross mindset, right?

And also I think one great way to grow in a growing company, irrespective of whether you're in leadership or not, when things change rapidly and you're growing rapidly, there's always like gaps like someone who can identify like patterns and gaps that you know, so nobody else is like kind of noticing and caring for and proactively working on making it better and filling those gaps I think is always like, what helps people be successful?

True. Mm Now, I want to talk a little bit more about the situation caused by COVID because it forced many companies and many teams to work completely remotely and other things to change. So how did your life change during this time and what were some of the important decisions you had to make to lead the change?

Yeah, I think to begin with like everyone literally all over the world were trying to figure out what the hell is happening, right? I think to figure out what's happening. But as someone who lives uh in, in the greater New York City area, we, we were one of the first really hard hit cities. This was like, right in April. And um so a lot was changing very quickly and it was certainly challenging from like I can start from a personal point of view. Uh And um then kind of talk about as a leader, like some of the things I did and Etsy as a company did to help navigate through that situation. So like, first of all, like I, I keep joking like the as with two working parents and no immediate family around us, uh the amount of support that was there for in my personal space from helping childcare to helping like a lot of things to run the house made me like, give me the time and space to also be successful in my career, right?

It's like, I think if, if people say I do everything on my own, I, I think it's almost impossible. Like I had a lot of support and like, overnight, no one could go anywhere but the work was kind of the same and there was no childcare and two working parents at home. So how do we even work to begin with during the day? Was something like it took us some time to figure out and like my husband and I had to figure out, like, should we do schedules? Will you take care of the child for some time? Then I will. But you can't go anywhere and neither can anyone come into the house. So just figuring out the personal situation of like how to work and all like, it's like having three jobs, then, you know, you're like cooking three meals a day or taking care of a child. And um you're like also working full time even though like you're sharing responsibilities with your partner at home, but it's still a lot and you stay

at home on top

of them and as a leader, you're also not responsible for, I think like all leaders should be for like engagement and well being of your team. Like there were, there are over 100 people in my group and it's also important that I'm present for them. And I I'm emotionally also available to those people, right? Because everyone is trying to figure out you have your responsibility both in your personal and professional space and, and in the past when I were at work, I felt like, uh you know, things were going crazy. Um And I needed more help at home. I would ask like my mom or my mother-in-law or my sister, they all literally live in the other part of the globe to either like plan something for me or come here or something like that. None of that even existed because we're kind of, you know, uh are all left on our own. So it took us, it was a struggle to figure out things personally. But on the professional side, I would say, I feel really, really grateful to work for a company that is highly empathetic to working parents. And in general, very flexible for everyone. Right? From the beginning, our executive team, anyone, the leadership team, including me were um very like transparent that, you know, we understand like this is not normal, we don't and there is a lot of flexibility just like communicate that very, very clearly to your team.

Like once you, if you figure out that you can work, you can't work till like 12 o'clock that day, you can work starting after 12 o'clock in the afternoon, like communicate that to your team, add that on your calendar. So even now, we continue to roll out a lot of like different ways of flexibility from like leave to parental leave to like providing more childcare support to, you know, reimbursing some cost for like online classes for kids. So that's where like CS A company is very, very supportive. And one good thing we also did was we, we were, I think one of the first um, big offices in New York to completely go remote and we started testing that fairly early. And we also, I mean, like, some people had their laptop and their full work set up. Of course, everyone has a laptop but a lot of people didn't have a work support, like, from having a chair to a monitor and all this.

Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's not just about laptop and doing something for now. Right. It's, it's about working well and comfortably and having a back support, like different factors, right? Different things

and we immediately started providing support for all those things. And we also as leadership team started doing check ins more often in the first few weeks of COVID. When we didn't know what was happening, our CEO would talk to the company at least once or once in two weeks, address things directly with them trying to figure out things collectively. And it's I, I know as I said, I feel really thankful if I like if I say like, I, you know, I need a mental day off or somebody else says that on my team, we're just very exhausted with whatever is happening because one is like trying to get work done. But also on the world events that are happening, somebody in your family might be sick or your extended family might be sick, like processing everything that's happening. So I think besides like expensing with basic things, like expensing all the office um related work equipment.

It's also forming employee resource groups to support that and managers being available, providing a lot of flexibility. I think these are some of the things that c tried to do. And I'm certainly on my team like II I, I'm hoping like there is a culture like if people need to take time off or they have other responsibilities, they all communicate about it very openly. Yeah,

you're still working

remotely, right? And of course, no kids coming into meetings and talking in between and all those things has become like really accepted norm now because like where are they going to go? So, but it's all kind of fun, you know, like a boring meeting to see a baby. It's kind of fun too. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, that's fun. Yeah, I I like when you're saying like in, in your bio, you stated like um doing the like doing the impactful work and but also still having fun, right? And I think that's one of the important components of enjoying a work, regardless of which stage you are at is actually having fun, right?

If my son interrupts a meeting, we we all do video conferences. So he picks up, I give him a notepad and a paper, he picks a person and he keeps drawing them. So now like my coworkers have their portraits done by my son. So it's like it's kind of after the meeting, I send them pictures, see, look he drew you to it, which I think is fun. Yeah. No, this is cute.

Um Another thing I wanted to talk about as you're a leader um is, is female leadership different from male leadership in your opinion. And what unique maybe women leaders bring to the table. What unique, what unique things?

Yeah, I think that's a really good and interesting question. The way I think about this in general is like based on who you are and like soc societal constructs around it, right? Like society, the minute you are born, whether it's a baby boy or a baby girl starts differentiating. And then there are so many other things where your life experiences might be very different from uh your teammates based on like gender is it's a predominant one, as I said, but it can also be based on many other things because the society judges you differently and it's like based on religion, based on race, based on class and based on geographic location, all these things add to kind of your life experience adds to what you are as the leader.

And uh of course, there is a difference because of that of one predominant one is gender. So that's where I think there's a difference between sometimes male and female leaders and but there's also that's why diversity is so important on things which is not just gender diversity, gender city based on uh diversity, sorry, based on ethnicity, diversity and all these things are really important because like then you have a difference of opinion and sorry, I mean, like diversity of thought is what I was getting through.

Then you have diversity of thought, right? And diversity of like thought, I think makes product so much better and customer experience so much better than you are trying to not only cater to customers. Like you, you're trying to cater to customers at large. So that's how we want leadership differs and to answer your question, like, is it different? I think it is different in some ways like based on again your background in general. But I think traditionally, a lot of like male form of leadership that you're always like poker face, like perfectly put together and nothing can like shake you this all male stereotype of what a leader should be. I think hers company culture at large. I'm not saying that kind of leadership is also great. But what I'm trying to get is like, that shouldn't be the only form of leadership. And II, I think I discussed this when we were talking at the women Tech Network conference last time was also like women are more expressive, they are more vulnerable about like their feelings and thoughts. And I think that kind of leadership is also important. There are different forms of leadership where you can complement each other. For example, if one of my coworker is more always very po very, very like more like, you know, close and they might be an introvert.

But that's what I said, like, it might, it can be a different personality and they, they don't open up as much. I might be a person who talks more about my feelings and very transparent about my thoughts. I think we can complement each other and work very well together. So women are more empathetic and vulne vulnerable. And I think that adds, adds a great dimension to leadership and especially at times of crisis, like if you look at a lot of uh countries which I think have done quite well during COVID Taiwan to New Zealand and a few other countries, I feel like they have women leaders and as like the head of country and their leadership style is very different.

And during times of crisis, sometimes that kind of leadership also might be better. So which is again my personal opinion, I might be wrong.

Yeah. Yeah. Do you think the situation is in general changing? Like from, you know, from what was before we had like fewer women leaders? And now the situation is getting better also like in technology? And do you, do you see many VP of engineering in different companies or how, how is it? Yeah,

I don't see as many as I would like to that. That's the honest answer. I feel like every then and now it's like two steps forward, one step backwards is what keeps happening in diversity and technology space. Um I could be in my own. Bubba, let's is executive team. It's like there are more women than men and it's one of the very few tech companies where there is equality, gender equality on the board. And there are more women on the o on the executive team. But having said that I'm, I'm the only female VP of engineering at Etsy, right? So even in a company like this, it's, it's still like there, there's not much as much representation at the uh especially in engineering and there's a lot of work to do. But uh I think honestly, when I entered the industry, which was like a while ago, no one even talked about lack of gender diversity. Like my first five years, I saw that and even if I felt really bad about it, I felt like no one was talking about it and that in turn made, made it not OK for me to talk about it, even if I felt that way that, you know, we, we need to do something to improve the situation. And because you didn't want to be the person, I think you shouldn't be on the underrepresented person to improve it. I feel like the more like leaders talk about it.

For example, my peers who are all men and my boss, they're al they're always talking, thinking and talking about diversity and I think they should do that more because as the under presented person, it shouldn't be my sole responsibility, right? So I feel like there's so much consciousness and talk about it. So I feel hopeful about it. But are we doing great? The answer is absolutely not. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like what you're sharing about the hope. And I truly believe that the more we share about it, the more we organize different events where we raise awareness and more, the more we invite role models like you, because I believe you are really a good role model for a great role model. For many women who want to reach the the basic, many women, actually, they are being stuck, you know, in the middle of their career and like they're not reaching this leadership position. So I was thinking of asking an advice from you, maybe you can share some, some, some things that helped you to grow into the role where you are now. And did you have any bloggers in general or did you get like promoted frequently? How, how was your path? Yeah,

I think I, I think it's an interesting question. I have, I have talked about it as well. It's a combination of few things, right? It's um as, as I said, like I think Etsy was a place where I really truly enjoyed like my work and the team and I did get from like it was also a hypergrowth company. And if you're a top performer in a hyper growth company, you can get more and more responsibilities and grow fairly quickly. There doesn't, it's also a combination of, are you at the right place at the right time? But I would say, I would say a few, few things are what is to begin with. Like, you need to have, at least, at least if you choose to have kids, if you choose to have family. It's again, absolutely a choice. You know, you can have a great life without any of that also. But, um, if you choose to do, do those things to begin with, to have a support to your partner and to have a support to your family, because how much you think those two things are separate, it's very hard to make it separate.

And, uh, I really think a lot of like my, my, from my parents, even my in-laws, my sister, my husband, my husband is a true partner in terms of taking care of the child and those things. So, having a supportive space at home where, you know, like they are there to cover a lot of things in your personal space. I think it's really helpful just for like a decent amount of peace of mind. But also, as I said, like I don't shy from saying, like I, I hire a lot of help so that when I have free time, I'm just spending it with my family and I don't have to. And again, that's again, a luxury in the beginning of your career, you might not have that luxury as well. And so they kind of doing the trade off of, I, I'm come here as an immigrant with absolutely no financial backing. So it was a lot of trade off of like, if I spend so much money right now, will it be a, you know, are I positive in the long term for my career is a question you kind of need to ask and everybody's situation is different and even to be able to afford help is like a privilege.

So after that, in the professional space, I would say seeking having people at work, I, I don't mean just like work friendships to hang out, but like people who are genuinely both within your workspace and larger in the industry, who could be your mentors and who you could have honest conversations, but you have to be yourself driven.

Like it's not like the path is always like going to be like, you know, once you're driven, it will work out on your own, they will be blockers, right? And they will be like big life changes or changes, even within the organization, it won't always be like straight and small or just like up like this either. So I think um at, at Etsy, like I've had like long term friends slash mentors whom whom I feel like I can go to with any career questions or if I have a dilemma. And I have like a solid group of women, both friends, mom, friends whom I can talk about parenting to like the same can also get mixed up with like friends from grad school, other women, little friends who, who I feel like whenever, oh my God, I can't do this. Uh I have a group to rent and they can, they can solid advice as well. So, and then be the last suggestion I would have is like, if, if you are ambitious and you want to grow, I think if you're happy doing, not even like doing like certain level for a few years after having a child or something, I think that's completely fine too.

It's like whatever personally makes you happy. So I would say the last one would be open to taking risks. Like if there's a challenge at work where no one wants to touch it because they think it's not going to work. Like I feel like I always feel attracted to those things because like people will think like this is not going to work. So it's not, no one wants to kind of try it. I always think it's something new but why, why do we think it's not going to work? Let's at least give our best. So I think I have a decent amount of appetite for risk and, and I'm ok with scar. So I think combination of these things. Mhm.

Yeah, that sounds like you touch different fields like family, like having a decent network professionally and personally and being actually like being not a failure. I think that's, that's one of the most important ingredients to the success, right? Try, fail, try again, fail again, try better, do better next time. That sounds really cool. Um We have a couple of questions that people asked us. Um One of the questions is like um from Paris, she's asking how many years of your life you spent in India?

Yeah, sure. Uh I came here when I was 2122 so I was in India before that. Yeah, probably

bar is also thinking of relocating and starting her career. Another question from Alison is Etsy planning to stay remote if you know, if Etsy is planning to stay remote or remote, optional or return to the offices when it's safe to do.

So, yeah, I think it will be a combination of all the things is what I'm guessing we are still trying to figure it out like everybody else. Uh But I think um it will be, we've always been a very remote friendly company to be clear. My team even before the pandemic, even last year, had over 20% of engineers who were remote across the US. So we've always been a very remote friendly culture and we've had remote engineers. So I would say it would be a combination of remote, like some people in office, some people who are partially remote. I'm guessing, like most companies, especially the ones who can afford to work remotely up to a certain extent have to be open to all the, all the different options. Yeah.

Right. Right. Yeah, we'll leave and we'll see because I'd say many companies. Um, well, it's still not clear. Right. Some people predict there is going to be a second wave. Some people, like, say it probably will be comfortable. So I think that in the future we will see and adapt on the goal. Um I wanted also to ask you regarding the things since we talked, we talked about family and responsibilities, having supportive partner. So my question is, do you believe there is such thing as a work life balance? And if yes, how we can achieve, achieve it and if no, no.

Yeah. II I always keep thinking like I feel like more we should ask more of this question to male leaders as well. Like I'm curious to think like what male leaders think about work life balance, right? I'm sorry, I I will, I will ask

a male leader this question. So yeah, I think it's a good point. I understand why you're telling this.

Yeah. Yeah. So I think, I don't know like what a perfect like work life balance looks like. I think it's kind of like month to month day today. It looks differently, right? It's uh some days are great days where you feel like you accomplished a lot at work. You had really quality time with family. Some days are like, you have like a 14 hour work day and some days it's like you're finding it very challenging to focus and work. So I would say like, it's hard to say, it also really depends on what age kids are, what phase you are in. So I would say currently, I feel like I've figured out over time what I decent, at least personally for me work, life balance looks like, like what I mean by that was like when my son was born, like, I, he's like, I, we had no idea what we were doing and it's like so hard to figure out what like new ones.

So it was in general. Very challenging, of course, uh my mom was there. So that was helpful. But like my husband and I like it took us a while to even figure out how to divide like chores and childcare work. And it was not even like super smooth. Like one day we woke up and we knew everything, there was a lot of arguing and eventually figuring it out. And now that my son's older, he's almost like he's 4.5, 5. And so it's like a much easier age like where you can have a conversation, even though they're not always rational, like you can still have a conversation and, and a lot, and I have one, a lot of people have many kids. So I'm, like, fully impressed with them. I don't even know how they do that. But one of the things I have figured out is like, um, when people used to work in physical offices now we get to spend a lot more time with them on weekdays. I would like, if there was something to, you know, a networking event or a public speaking event like this, I would try to only keep everything Monday to Thursday and anything I do, like from Friday evening onwards till Monday morning. Like I was very sure, like I had to take my son everywhere I go.

It's like meeting a friend or traveling or, you know, it's one of the things I love, it's like, what, what are you willing to give up is kind of what I think and that applies to different times in life. Right. Like, I almost very rarely do, like, socializing, which doesn't involve other kids on weekends. And, um, but like, I really enjoyed traveling. So one of the things I kind of started growing from early on was like getting my son used to traveling sometimes. Even if my husband couldn't join. I was like, once I met my, when my son was like, one year old, I met my sister in Italy and it was hard to travel alone from us to Italy with a child. Yeah. The good thing was my sister had arranged everything there. I didn't have to go and figure out anything. So that's the good thing about having, like, that's what I meant by support network. Like, it's not, yeah, just like, even, like, they know, you enjoy traveling so they'll arrange everything for you. You don't have to figure of, I just take, but, like, my son was jet lagged and it was not the normal, usual vacation mode, but it was like a different way of traveling which you get used to very quickly and, you know, you, you can't do some other things that you used to do before.

And I think that's totally fine because like you're doing so many new things, seeing the world through the eyes of a child and learning so many things with them and through them, which I think is also very exciting. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. My daughter is 1010 months old. So I know what you're talking about. I also been traveling when she was younger and when the situation was better. So, yeah, and, and you know, we are coming to this point when you said also about being open to change in the job and I think it's the same in your, in your life, right? Being open to change and figure out things in the go. Here is one more question as if you know, Etsy uh hire for entry level developer such as career changers coming from boot camps. If so, what advice do you have for those hoping to apply like myself.

Yeah, that's a, that's a good question. We do hire entry level developers and um we do hire people from boot camps. We have actually a lot of people from boot camps and very successful engineers from boot camps. I I honestly think very good talent come can come from either of those places. Like I went to like four like four year engineering school, but I have seen very, very smart, very successful developers who have come from good camp. So the best way to apply is go to etsy.com/careers page and and usually we have I I can double check if you still have it. I think this is the September October is also the season. We start hiring new grads. So we we usually have a job posting for a new grad there and that that's the one like new college graduate and that's the one you would apply for.

Alright. Thank you one final message for everyone who is listening to us. So we'll watch this later. Maybe one thing that you would advise your younger self or one message that you would like to share with our global audience different, like for those who are starting their career in the middle of the career, like seniors, one final message from you several messages, maybe three messages.

OK. Let's start with if you're beginning your career. Um I would say um if you're beginning your career, like there is no perfect such thing as a perfect first job. Like I speak to a lot of people who are graduating from college, graduating from grad school and they, they are like, should I like f, take a job? That's only, that's focused on data science because that's tough in coming field. I'm like, yeah, that would be great if that's what your interest is. But, uh, are some people? It's like, people will be like, if I enter finance, can I then switch to something else? Or like, I feel like you can get so obsessed about like what your first job has to be like, perfect. I I would kind of think of as like choose a first job which will give you the best learning opportunity. And also given that we are in a tough economic situation, I would say as long as like you feel like you will be happy and the culture is good and there is a learning opportunity, any job you're going to learn either ways that that is open to a le learning culture. You know, one thing is to have the learning opportunity. But some of the office companies I I have seen, it's like they don't create structures for new people to learn. So that's something I would look for. And then there is nothing called the perfect job.

Like I saw you can switch industries, you can switch programming languages, you can switch job profiles, you can do so many things later on in life. So don't be too obsessed about like finding the perfect thing. If you're somewhere middle of the career, I would say I go back to the risk taking part of things. You know, if there is an assignment in another country or if there's a new business line which seems challenging. Uh And also if you have um a another geographic location, if you have the opportunity to like, have a traveling job or even like kind of do something completely outside your comfort zone, I wish the like middle of the career is in general. Great uh uh to kind of switch things up if you're interested in management, that's a good time to start thinking about it as well. You want to switch to management. And um from that experience, I feel like they already know it and it's, they can give me advice. Maybe if they're further along in their career, I would say, like, always having a learning mindset. There's, I never feel like I've learned everything that's there for my job and, and I can just be successful this way. I'm, I always feel nervous about this, so many new technologies and so many new things happening and like a little bit of like, I don't know how to do XYZ part of my job too well.

And I think that's having that learning mindset, irrespective of even if you're like successful in your career and pretty senior, I think it's helpful.

Yeah, regardless of how many years of experience you have. It's good to have this growth, growth mindset, and this learning, learning mindset where you will be open to change and will be open to, to grow professionally as you said. So, thank you very much Riana. It was super interesting and uh thanks for, for your time. Lots of very useful insights. Thanks for sharing your experience. You made it sound like so easy, but I can believe it was like really hard at different stages of your life because to grow to the role where you are at. So thanks a lot for sharing some really cool tips, some some techniques that you personally use. People are thanking you also in the chat and um we are looking forward to having you at our other events. It would be great to talk to you again. Have a great day and uh everyone who is joining us at hoping and Rahana also you can do it too to go to the networking area and uh benefit from one on one networking. So thank you.

Thank you. Have a great time chatting with you. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Bye bye. So thank you, everyone for joining us today and I hope you had a great time. Thank you, everyone who is uh writing us in the chat. Uh Very helpful. Thank you very much. Thanks for your feedback. Uh for me personally, it was super interesting to have a conversation with Regana today. Thanks for your questions. Thanks for being active and sharing when, when something resonated with you. Um And I wanted to um let you know that uh you can find also lots of inspiration on our blog on women tech network. We have a youtube channel where you can watch also other inspiring talks and we will be seeing each other in two weeks. We are going to have another interesting fireside chat with Jelly Eva Soo. She was one of our keynote speakers at UT Global Conference 2020. We will be talking about global citizenship and what it actually means and how you can be part of it. So join us same time, same place. Um Wishing you a great day, evening, morning, wherever you are and um join everyone as I said, who is on, on hoping can join for one on one networking. Thank you for your time and see you online.