OK. What I enjoy most about working at split. I think the thing that I enjoy most about working at split is splits, great culture and the people.Um One of the things that uh very early even be, even as I was interviewing with split was uh the connection that I could make to the people um that I was interviewing with. Um And also as I went through that process, I started to realize that, you know, some of the values that I had, but essentially uh what split also had, for example, there was so much of transparency that was there in the whole interview process and transparency is one of the top values that I have.

Um And then uh pretty much uh you know, when I joined split, it essentially beat my expectations that I had uh preinterview um every single day. Uh There's something new that I learned. It's great to be working with the people. Uh You know, we, we have a fairly tight-knit engineering team, uh people who are always open to sharing open to helping each other who are essentially trying to make sure that, you know, we all succeed as a team. And I think um this thing is, is this thing is like very important to me. And also uh the other aspect is the kind of um work and family life balance that I have found that split. Uh I know we are a start up and typically I think there's this whole uh stereotype that's associated with Silicon Valley start ups about, you know, you uh one. I just got a myth. OK. Uh Thank you for confirming we Lakshmi. Um uh I think, yeah, going back, you know, I think split has uh there's a stereotypical there stereotype about Silicon Valley start ups being that place where essentially you really have to work like 1618 hours a day. But for me, split has not been like that at all. Um I've been able to find a perfect balance where, you know, I I can very clearly define my boundaries on. OK. This is going to be my work time.

This is going to be um my family time in the evening and uh people respect that people really respect that. And uh last but not the least. I think I also enjoy working with global teams and that's split. We not only have a team here in uh the US, but we also have teams in Argentina. A lot of my engineering team members are in Argentina. We also have offices in the UK. So that essentially um makes it really nice where I get an opportunity to know about people from other countries, people from other cultures. And these are things that I really value a lot. Uh, a question that I'll pose to the people uh by chat. Can you send me what's important to you uh, at your workplace? What is it that's important as you think about a role or as you think about a career at a specific company? Keep it coming in the comments. All right, I see we relax me saying autonomous. I think that's very important. And uh at split, we also end up uh doing that. Uh We are a pretty bottom up driven organization. Um In fact, in the engineering team, we really like to empower our engineers uh to make the decisions uh to come up with proposals and to be able to essentially uh have uh a w in what we are building.

In fact, one of the values of split is wise and uh we do uh emphasize on that because I think it's very, very important for people to be able to voice their opinion even if it is something that is not the same as the leadership because we do respect the diversity of opinions.

All right. I also see psychological safety totally with you Carmen. Uh it's very, very important to have psychological safety in order to have high performing teams, uh people to be able to speak up no matter what their opinion is, right? And uh I think that's, that's very, very important. And in fact, in Yester yesterday in my, um, talk about authentic leadership, I spoke about this. I think psychological safety is very, very important to build trust with your team members. Uh And trust is like pretty much core to everything that we do. If you want engagement from your employees, if you want them to be motivated, that trust has to be there. All right, I have a question from Emma about a piece of advice working in tech. Um I think uh the best thing I would say to do um working in tech is to never let go of uh learning. Uh tech particularly is a constantly evolving area and uh to be successful, it's a process of continuous learning. Just never let go of that curiosity to learn, curiosity to know. Um If you're an engineer, be on top of what are the technologies, what's the latest thing that is happening? Uh If you're a leader, keep a tab, not only on the technology but also on the culture. How are the companies working? How do other companies work in? Uh how do other companies um you know, uh what kind of culture other companies are having? How do you bring these things?

So to me to be successful in tech, having the mindset of continuous learning is very, very important. Uh Vira Lakshmi says, have you felt imposter syndrome? Yes, I have. Um I have um for me, I think uh a point at which uh I overcame it was when one of my um I was going through a training and then I had to get 360 assessment and I reached out to one of my leaders asking what would be their feedback for me? And what is it that I should be doing differently? And uh the one liner he told me was I have confidence in you. Why don't you have confidence in yourself? I think that was a big turning point for me about uh you know, OK, this, I should be more confident about myself. I should speak up. I should find my voice. Uh That was a big turning point for me to overcome it. Uh I think it's also a practice. Uh It's just like anything else. So uh being conscious of it, uh being able to identify when you feel pretty confident, but you're just not getting that wise to speak up. And at that time having taking, getting yourself out of that comfort zone, I know it's going to be uncomfortable. Just get out of that comfort zone and speak up. Don't uh think too much of, you know, what kind of impression is this creating or not?

Uh Just finding that little voice, I think helps a lot to overcome it. Uh So, uh I started off as a software engineer, Emma. So, uh you know, it was essentially, I started off as an engineer. I was back in India there. Uh a little bit of context. Uh I come from a family where my mom is a doctor and my dad is an engineer. So, um and in India, uh it's pretty much, you know, as you're trying to make your career choices, those are the two career choices that are primarily selected. And for me, it was just like, OK, it's these two and then uh I picked engineering, I decided to go with what my dad was doing. Um So I started off as a software engineer in uh India and then a couple of years into my career, I moved to the US. Um Also I have dealt with, uh you know, uh a break in my work because when I moved to the US, it was after marriage. And uh so I had a two year break, I have gone through, uh you know, getting back to work um where it was a little challenging. Uh Given that I had a one year break in between.

Uh But I think it was pretty clear that I would, uh I would continue with software engineering um of, and um a few years down the line, I did have one of my managers who put the idea of moving into people leadership. And though I was hesitant to take it at the beginning, uh I then felt at some point that I should try it out and I moved into people leadership and ever since then, I've, I've, I've loved the role I am in. Uh Are you still hands-on coding? Uh I, I'm not fully hands-on coding at the level that I am. Uh I do uh like to review like tech specs uh When I have time I get into architecture review meetings. Um I do get I, whenever though, you know, the engineer in me is still alive, so I do love, love it when I get a chance where I can essentially go ahead and uh make a code check in. I still do that every once in a while, but I basically stay away from taking any critical coding tasks that can end up becoming a blocker for the team. But I'm still on top of things like architecture and design. Um where I find it interesting, I do talk about some of these when I have one on ones with my engineers. So I still understand what's going on. I do keep up with tech blogs and stuff.

So I know what's going on uh When it comes to the technology. Uh My typical day starts off with a stand up with my manager. Uh And then I have one on ones and uh I do uh have other uh update meetings. Uh And I work through some other things like some of the key things that I look at uh as a director of engineering is uh looking at our process efficiency, looking at our productivity where we can make improvements. Hiring is part of it. I do take part in a lot of interviews uh to hire candidates into the company. Um And then, uh I also look at uh our, our team um has been growing pretty rapidly and uh I'm also looking at, you know, what is it that we can do better in terms of uh our culture, in terms of our uh how we, our processes um as the team grows, how can we enable our team members uh to be able to be productive uh with what they do?

Think also to add to that? I think part of my job is not only looking at where we are as a company right now, but also looking at where we want to be and how we can be there without it being too disruptive for our teams essentially. So planning for that is also part of uh my role. And um I do have quite a few stakeholders that I work with our product managers, our customer success team. Um looking at, you know, what is it that's important um to make our product scalable into the future, resilient, into the future. Uh What is the one thing that I did last year at split? Um which I'm proud of. Um I think the biggest thing that I'm proud of is uh the fact that I have grown my theme in the last year, I think it's almost um doubled in the last year and we still are a fairly uh close knit team. So, the fact that we have grown, but we've been able to maintain our core values and our core culture within my team. I think that is something that I'm very proud of. Uh So uh do you end up working after hours? Uh Once in a while? Yes, but it's after joining split, that has been quite a rarity actually. Uh Before that I have been at other roles where uh I used to have much longer days.

Uh I was mentioning earlier that the family work life balance is something that uh I've, I've really found that at split. Uh most days, I think I might almost say that, you know, about 90% of my days, I don't have to work after the working hours. Uh There is always, it's always going to be burst that come. Uh you know, there are going to be busy days and there are some times uh where I have to do that. But uh no, I don't do that many of the days. Yeah, I have a question about how do you foster and develop a better relationship with cross functional teams? I think it depends with, on the cross functional teams and how often I am working with them. Um One of the best uh ways I end up doing is to actually build uh like, you know, uh personal connection with the cross functional team members that I closely work with. Uh So like, for example, with my product managers, uh even though they work with the managers that report into me or more on a daily basis, I still make it a point to essentially uh connect with them uh every couple of weeks just to get a sense of where they are at. What are they looking at in, into the future? What are the challenges that they are facing even though they may not be directly reporting into me?

I also would like to see, you know, what are the challenges that they have so that as a team together, we can figure out how to balance out things. Uh I think building those connections is, is very, very important uh at the core of it. Uh knowing that even though we are all working in different teams, but at the end of end of the day, we are all working to achieve the same uh company goals is very, very important. And I think having those uh uh touch points at uh a cadence helps uh talk through some of these things. So we are all aligned on what we are trying to achieve. Uh OK. Uh The tech blog. So what I've done viral Lakshmi is uh I basically subscribe to certain topics on places like, you know, reddit or medium. Um I subscribe to specific topics that I'm interested in and I end up getting like a summarized list every week, which I kind of scan through over the weekend. And if I find something interested, I just uh go into that uh for the leadership one I follow. Uh H PR uh that's a, that's been a pretty good resource. I also listen to uh some podcasts, uh uh like, you know, if there's a specific topic that I would want to learn about.

So I just end up going ahead and uh searching for that in a specific podcast or something and listen to that uh from a leadership perspective. There are a few people that uh I continuously follow in terms of podcast. Uh Doctor Brenny Brown is one I do follow a podcast called uh Looks and Sounds of Leadership. I think it's uh and then I do uh look at some of the uh Stanford, there's a Stanford Entrepreneur uh series out there. Um And so these are some of the things that I follow are there. Uh I'm also curious uh about the blocks in leadership. Uh Are there, you know, specific uh tech or leadership blogs that, you know, people out here follow which you would like to recommend. I'm always open to, you know, getting new recommendations. OK. I see an Amazon podcast. Anything else that anybody follows or reads regularly? Oh, yeah, I like, I like Simon Sex uh too. And uh I think one of the things that um I haven't fully taken advantage of, but I should, is uh the education allowance that split gives us. Um So we actually have uh a specific budget that we get annually, which we can spend on, you know, courses or books and stuff. So, yeah, that's a note that I've made to myself for a bit now that I should, I should start using that better.

I love the articles on Harvard Business Review. I think they're so informative and they have such a broad spectrum of posts growing leaders.com. This is something new. I'll definitely check that out. All right, I think uh we were almost uh up to time. Um Are there any closing questions that anybody would like me to answer? All right, everybody. It was, it was really great to be here with all of you. Uh Yeah, I'm available on linkedin if you want to um connect with me. Uh you know, and you can always reach out to me in case you have any questions I'll just post in my linkedin here so you can connect to me. All right. Thank you, everybody. Bye.