Session: Ride the Roller Coaster Instead of Climbing the Corporate Ladder
Professional growth is not just a linear path. Climbing the corporate ladder may not necessarily lead to happiness and fulfillment. You will learn through the speaker's own personal experiences that there are many different paths and decision points that you can make throughout your career including lateral moves, individual contributor to people manager, and manager to individual contributor. You will hear about taking risks, embracing change, and focusing on what matters to you. This session will provide you tips on how to approach making career decisions, even when the future is uncertain.
Bio
Mary is a tenured professional who has taken many different routes in her career, including lateral moves, moving from an individual contributor to people manager, and back. She is currently a Senior Manager for Solutions Architecture at AWS. She has over 20 years of experience in leading software development teams, consulting, and cloud architecture. She has extensive experience at Amazon as well as outside of Amazon. Mary has taken many risks with her career, not knowing what the outcomes would be, including leaving jobs without a certain next step. She has learned that change is sometimes the best outcome even when the future is uncertain.
Vanitha is currently a Senior Manager for Solutions Architect at AWS. She has more than 15 years of leading software development teams to deliver innovative products. Vanitha has mentored several early to mid career talent, is sought out for career guidance and for scaling one’s impact beyond their team. Throughout her career Vanitha has taken different roles, partnered with teams to drive global initiatives, that helped her understand diverse perspective about career growth. She has learned from her journey that one size may not fit all. You have to find your own way that works for you.