negotiations, career progression, & ensuring fairness w/ ingrid epure

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Hello, hello. Thanks for listening to Guidance Counselor 2.0. Listen, I want to give you a quick rundown of what this podcast is and what you're about to get into as you listen to these episodes. We had Guidance Counselors in middle school. We had Guidance Counselors in high school, but we didn't really have Guidance Counselors in college and now as professionals, we don't really have anybody to turn to to ask a quick question to learn something about the job search or to navigate your career. And so that is what I want this podcast to be for you. I want it to be a tool for you to navigate the job search and your career.

So that being said, I hope you enjoy this episode. And if you need to reach me, Taylor at vaco.com is how to get in touch with me, old fashioned email, social media at tdesint. D E S S E Y N. And finally, please rate and review this in the app store because I want this to be discoverable for others so they can navigate their careers. Hope you enjoy the episode. Ingrid, give the people what they want. Who are you? What do you do? Where do you work? And we'll go from there. Awesome. Thank you so much. Hi everyone. So excited to be here. My name is Ingrid.

I'm opinionated PI on Internet Places. I'm a senior staff engineer at Netlify. Been there for about three years. Usually not on vacation in Italy. I'm based in London in the UK. Outside of my job, I am an expert. and I'm also part of, have been part of the SRE-Khanemia Program Committee for a number of years. And that's a lot of tech, so I can tell you some fun things. I set one goal a year for myself, and this year is focused a lot on hiking and being more in the nature, and now that things are safer, and yoga. So I try to keep a balance of computer time and also nature time for this year.

I love that so much. So Ingrid and I met over Twitter, like most of my guests, again, if you don't know how to use Twitter, I actually have a podcast on how to actually leverage Twitter for networking. But I saw that in Ingrid's DMs. Like I said, I practiced what I preached. And I was like, hey Ingrid, we'd love to have you on the show. We chatted, and here we are. So Ingrid and Ingrid and I are gonna cover three big topics today, and I wanna go and dive in, because it is going to be a lot, but we still got more people tuning in here, some money what's going on, Nikki, John, Barrett, Dually, it's great to see you all this morning.

Everybody wants to hear what Ingrid has to say. All right, so we're gonna talk about three topics, negotiation, career progression, and ensuring fairness and tech around diversity of minorities. And so I wanna go and dive in first and foremost, which is the reason why I hit up Ingrid. Ingrid and I were actually publishing the same article together around negotiations. So, Ingrid, I just want to hear your general take on some negotiation thoughts right now. Should people negotiate? Why should people negotiate and then maybe tell a little bit of your story? Should people negotiate? Absolutely. Always negotiate is my philosophy. And I think there's, I guess when we're talking about negotiations in tech and since you focus a lot on interviewing, I think maybe we should start there because you can, you know, there's like, there's different areas when you say negotiations.

There is the initial job search negotiation and then there's the negotiations you have to do almost like day to day in your role although you don't call them exclusive negotiations like agreeing on a technical roadmap or like discussing some of the details. Those are forms of negotiation and then obviously career progression and getting promoted and growing within your role is also a strategy part strategy part negotiation with your manager and the leadership. So I guess we were talking more in the article about the first, which is around like job search negotiation. And I think the biggest part there that I feel like still has a lot of misconception.

Taboo is money, which I think for me, because I grew up poor. And I said that like many, many times, it's so important to be compensated properly. And it's so important to feel like, yes, you care a lot about your job and you care a lot of bigger company and obviously there's a lot of those factors when joining a company or doing a role. But it's also super fair and super important to be compensated appropriately and care about money because, you know, we live in a society where money is important, where you have to pay mortgage, where you have to be, you know, secure from a health point of view and healthcare can cost money, where you might have, you know, having to to take care of your family or you have dependents, et cetera.

So we can't really live, you know, completely isolated. But I have throughout my career, which has been like more than 10 years, heard a lot about, ah, what money shouldn't be or me, motivator. And I've always said, but like, why not? I can write, why not? I have to have a good life. I have to have a comfortable life, because if I don't, that percentage of worry about money in my head is gonna take away from the percentage of problem solving. So then it has to be like a balance there. And I think we shouldn't jump too quickly on going like, oh, you care about money.

And that's a bad thing when you're being interviewed or hired. Yeah. How have you gotten comfortable talking about money? Because I think the one thing that I hear all the time, with feedback on this show when I talk about negotiation strategy is, hey, I don't know what to even say. I feel uncomfortable. I grew up in a house person where you didn't talk about money ever. So how did you get comfortable talking about money? And if there's no set rhyme or reason, I'm still curious. I'm still curious. Yeah, I think my first introduction to thinking about money have been through my friends. I'm very, very lucky to have such a good network of amazing people that inspire me every day.

Simone is actually one of them. I saw she joined the show. So I think I've had from the beginning, like a really strong network of people that inspire me that we can have these open conversations with. And I think having minded people that are interested in the same things is such a good way to grow. And then I started kind of reading things on my own and noticing what other people are talking about and being very deliberate about a certain topic and negotiation-wise, it has become more and more important than it has been maybe 10 years ago when I started Tech. So there's things like really good book resources that you can dive into.

Like for example, never split the difference by Chris Voss is such a good negotiation book that's like an intro to how to negotiate. And there's a lot more free resources around negotiation. Her first 100k also comes to mind, which is a great community of women that have these topics. So I think they are out there. They just need deliberate searching. Well, and I think too, it's fascinating you brought up something about having people around you to bounce ideas and numbers and figures off of, because I have them too at Vaco. Like I have a group of folks that we all know what each other makes.

And we're just, we're very deliberate on sharing just to make sure that everything's fair. And so you're not the first person to bring up community. So I guess, do you have any more thoughts around making sure you have people around you to bounce those ideas off of? Yeah, I think it would be, I'm well, speaking of, I told you, I'm gonna bring the spice to the show. So here's a potential spicy topic. I am such a huge advocate for paid transparency. And I think basically what we do within our communities should be the default for our industry, where we already know, and there's so much research and studies about this that women are paid less, where people of color are paid less, then say the average white male in a certain society.

So then we do know that there are disadvantages there, and it would be so important to increase that transparency. And look at those numbers and look what it means within the company or within the community. It would make us feel so much more comfortable about asking for something. And it would be so much more inclusive. Yes, absolutely. So I guess let me ask you this, what's your biggest, like give me one, like practical advice for the people this morning on negotiations. Like do you have a negotiation like a tactic that you do? Do you have something that you like when you go into negotiations like is there a mindset you have just something applicable that that an individual can take from the show?

So the best advice I've been given negotiation wise would be never underestimate how much the other person will go to battle for you if they like you and they can personally like relate to you. So I would say establishing a personal connection is the number one thing to do in a negotiation because if there is that personal report then the other person starts thinking oh this could be me or you just want to help the other person at a human level. So I would say ask questions, don't jump to solutions and listen. Listen and don't be afraid to go personally. It's actually you know we think of vulnerability as being something bad but actually in negotiations vulnerability is a sign of strength and confidence.

So don't rush and ask questions. I love that. I was just straight heat. I love that so much Justin what's going on James, Yolanda, Juan it's so great. It's so great to see y'all this morning. So let's go into the next topic. Career progression. So we chatted off air a little early about maybe don't always take the dev role first. Can you talk about your career progression? Can you maybe give some encouraging words to people for their career progression? So I would say, okay, let me tell you a little bit how I started. I actually started in testing. I started as a QA. And that was such a good area for me at the time because I've always loved thinking of the big picture, thinking of the big system, and I'm very detail oriented.

I love data. I love understanding things in depth. So it was the perfect combination at a time. As I progressed throughout my career, my interests changed. And I became more interested in distributed systems and back end and eventually I settled into the area that I am now, which is focused a lot on scalability performance distributed systems. And I've been doing that for like the past, how many years. I think looking back and something that I think I internalized, but never set out loud, is that it's okay for your career to look differently throughout the years. I think you might start with one idea or you might wanna choose something because it looks good or it gives you an entry in the door.

But it doesn't mean that you will be doing that forever. And I think something that I love about this industry is that it offers like lateral opportunities. And if you're in a big enough company or in a company that values learning, you will have opportunities to switch teams. For example, at some point, I was a full stack engineer for a company, and then I became really interested in Infra. So I wanted to do infrastructure for a while and became like really, really curious about that. So discussing it with my manager, there was an opportunity to go do a tour on that team and see how I feel I loved it.

And then eventually I went on to that. And that was the beginning of Ingrid doing like more Infra distributed systems, that type of things. So I think it really depends a lot on your goals and on your vision. If you just need a job and you need something to get you in the door, I think that's such a good goal and that's perfectly acceptable. And I think as an industry, we need to kind of agree that there is no exact recipe on what something should be doing one or what a career looks like. We're all there because we add value differently. And at the end of the day, we're all working towards the same goal.

So it's OK if it looks a little different for you and it's OK if every role adds value and every role is valuable. That's so good. You are just spitting some facts this morning. I think the, yeah, I want to piggyback on two things. One, going back to what Ingrid said, listen, if you're having problems breaking into tech, like when I say breaking it like a developer role, or maybe you just get any role in tech, there's one gentleman, part of my texting community. And he texted me, he goes, hey, I just want to let you know, I took a data entry role, because I talked with the manager, and if I do well in this data entry role, they're gonna potentially move me into it more of a data analyst role.

And so, again, being creative, having humility, be aware of the interview process in your career progression and career path, I think is incredibly important. And I think, anger, what you said too, you need to, you can't compare your stores. Like somebody we're there at in their career that maybe around your age group, like you just can't compare. Like there's guys and gals at Vaco that come over for that are been in it less than me and are doing for like if people look way better than me, right? And there's always gonna be people doing more and better things you have to focus on where you're at in your career.

So I wanna see if you have any more thoughts on that. Yeah, I think, oh man, we're still good in this industry to compare each other. And I guess in this society to compare each other, but I'm doing it for a topical. and I won't do that. I think first off, because you touched on age, I think age is one of those things that is one of the bigger biases in tech. And I would love, and personally, I've always tried to focus more on what I want and where I want to go and learn from people rather than comparing myself. And that's really freaking hard.

It took me years to stop doing that. But I think, you know, kind of looking back, kind of this gift, obviously. I think it's very, very important to set goals for yourself and setting yourself up for success in the situation that you are and prioritizing your mental health and health above comparisons with other people. And I think I've encountered this situation and I think it's quite possible that others might as well. You might think you really like a role and you might think that that's the role of your dreams. And then it's also quite possible that you're gonna go do it and then you're gonna be like, oh actually, nah.

Not quite for now. So, and I think we need to, I love like touching more on this, you know, it's be flexible and keep an open mind because a career is a really long time. It's like years and years and years. And be open-minded. There's so much opportunity in the industry. Well, and I feel like, and also do the comments on self-care priority. I want to talk about self care, kind of what you said at the beginning with yoga and going outside. But I also to want to dive into real quick, you said that you went from looking around and kind of comparing to others to trying to set goals for yourself.

I think there may be some people that struggle with some goal setting. So what are some things people should keep in mind? Like, do you plan a one year plan, a three year plan, a five year like, what is your goal setting look like? just at a super high level for people who may be struggling with that. Oh, that's interesting because I do it. I have to admit that I do it intuitively because speaking of self care, I'm an anxious person. And I think if I give myself two short goals or two frequent goals, I panic and I'll be like, Oh my God, I'm not healing this goal.

What is happening? Yeah. So I think I think for myself more on a year plus basis and I tried to kind of like plant the head. So there's two types of things. There's things that I know I need to learn in my role that would make me more successful in my role, which are a bit shorter. For example, they can be like, in the next three months, I need to get familiar with this particular type of technology because we need to use it at work. So then I'm prioritizing that learning. For my career specifically, myself, it maps a lot with industry trends and areas that I find really exciting.

I think at the moment for me, I've been very interested in like web assembly for a really long time and like vosse as a language. I think it's a beautiful language just as an example. So I'm like, oh, okay, I'd love to, in the decisions that I make, get kind of closer to being in this area where like understanding this area a little bit more. So I think like in terms of like learning goals, I think about that like longer, longer term. If I look over at the last like 2021, I've had two promotions and I grew from being senior to senior staff and of course over year.

The senior staff I want to learn and expand my leadership capabilities, realistically, it took more than a year to grow into that role, et cetera. And in general, before you get promoted or get a certain title goal, whatever ticked off, you have to be operating at that level for a long time. So it's, oh, I'm not answering this question very well. No, you're doing great. So from your question perspective and from you kind of working in your goals, do you, it's more of just picking up on things either technically or interpersonally you wanna improve on? And you set them out for over a year and you more focus on that than necessarily, maybe the race to, do you focus on titles?

like, are you like, I want to get to a senior staff engineer by this year? Yes. I think titles are really important, particularly for minorities in tech, because they can attach credibility to your role. There's a lot of bias in tech having the title helps with that. But I think it's very important. It's like the title means nothing if you're not actually like adding benefits for the company and people at you, like around you at that level. For example, something that one of my managers has said is, as a senior staff or as any of these staff plus, you have to be a force multiplier within your team.

I love that idea. Personally, I focus on the skills and the vision in general rather than thinking of specific things. I think when you're learning in the beginning, it's important to have some areas that are interesting to you and to be deliberate about that. I think looking back, that's probably how I did it in the beginning where it's like, okay, I wanna get really good at at least one web framework. So I picked one and I learned about it, it was zambered at the time. And then I felt like, okay, now I can have probably an intermediate to subject matter expert conversation about this. And what else do I need to learn to grow on my role?

Oh, blah. So it's about identifying the opportunities of what would make you grow from where you are. And then I obviously have like, what I was trying to say earlier that I also have division of I want to grow my leadership skills, which is a bit more abstract. And that's when I like from that I break it off into what steps would it take me there? And when I make a decision, I try to ask myself, will this get me there? Is this on my path? Or is it not on my path? If it's not, do I have time to do it? I will try.

But probably that's not the best thing that I can do or the best use of my time. So I think like learning with the same you know, it's just as important. I love that. So I want to go ahead. There's so much things I want to talk to you about that I popped into my head. But let's definitely go into the next thing with his ensuring fairness in tech. Talk about, I love what you just said about job titles. I haven't even thought about that, right? And I love that so much. I think it develops rapport. It allows individuals to associate themselves something to make them obviously presentable to others, right?

So talk about maybe some other things that companies can do right now or companies should do to be mindful to increase diversity. To increase diversity or to ensure like for an us for like which but increase diversity? Yeah, yeah. I think there's nothing more and I've said this so many times. There's nothing more positive for a thing that like attracts people from underrepresented categories. Obviously, I'm a white woman. I can only speak as white woman, but for myself, there is nothing more like reassuring or like exciting than seeing other minorities at that company kick some serious buts. It means more than any diversity campaign event, anything else that they might do, because actually having results is the real thing.

Like you can talk the talk and pretend to walk the walk but we need to see the results. So I think making sure that the making sure that minorities have a fair and equal chance at getting promoted and being represented at all levels is such an amazing goal that will pay in hiring, it will pay in retention, and it will pay and having just a great work culture. And if you are not seeing that representation at the leadership level, in my experience, there's probably reasons for it. And down the line, they will surface. And I think that stuff, I think when you're in the beginnings of the conversation with a company, I think that's depending on how transparent they also are, I think it's important to ask those questions to get those answers but it might not be like the whole picture.

So I wish they would do more transparency there. Is there any other place that you're seeing right now? Any areas specifically in tech where maybe there isn't that fairness or any advice to hiring managers right now that may watch this now or into the future like hey listen if you want to ensure fairness for unrepresented individuals here's what you need to do is there any other kind of areas or topics you're passionate about right now that companies should implement? I've seen a lot of focus on soft skills for minorities, maybe disproportionately so compared to other other categories. And I think it's important to make sure, in my opinion, for engineering and like STEM areas that you also value the work and like technical skills of your minorities and not just focus disproportionately their own the soft skills.

And then something else is the type of work and opportunities that you create on the team. There's such a great talk about that called Being Glue and about how minorities in general get to do a lot of glue work instead of of, you know, promoteable, like shiny work, and who works should be profitable, but that doesn't happen. So I think the way the work is allocated, like hiring managers out there, make your minorities kick-ass and challenge them and give them opportunities to grow and challenge. And I think partnering with communities that support people from underrepresented categories is super, super important. and trying to support community organizers and people that do that type of work.

I think it can only be a positive thing. I love that. I love that. So as we wrap up here, and I knew this would happen, time flies when we're having fun, 30 minutes just isn't enough for all my guests. I want to talk about going back to what you said briefly about hiking, committing to yoga, committing to more self-care. I think I'm here in MeToo, 2022, Like I made a decision in January like 2022 for me is going to be your self care. Um, and so all that being said from a self care perspective, what, why is this you're so important for that? Uh, cause I was really bad at it during the pandemic and I think pandemic made it so hard for all of us.

And, um, I think I, um, I think when you feel good, like in your, like your body, you also perform good. So I'm trying to support my brain too. I like my brain. It sounds some interesting problem. So like a joke aside, I'm just trying to like be in the best physical, give myself time and some care so that I can use a lot of energy to solve problems. We're talking about fairness and tech or our jobs are stressful. There is stress that comes with all the good stuff and in tech. And I think that balance is really, really important. And we are not machines.

We do need downtime computers, maybe downtime too. And we definitely do. And I think I've always been nature oriented person. So it's nice to go back to doing that now that there's a a bit more freedom and safety to do so. So, and let me ask you this. Did you take on more work during the pandemic? Because I know I did. Did you take on like, did you overwork yourself during this time last few years? So I was remote before the pandemic and I think that helped because I had the at-home culture already kind of set up. Personally, I've had a really big health problem at the end of 2020.

So I guess the silver lining was that I actually wasn't able to do more work because my health pandas helped me and put this big break of like, you have to be deliberate and look after yourself. But in general, I try not to. I do have days when I have a more, I have like many, maybe like a different schedule than some other days. overall, I try to be very mindful about what I need. And luckily, I also have a team that is mindful of that as well. So because the culture is also set up in that way, it personally, for me, makes it a little easier to have that balance.

And I think to that point, it's so important for your team and your manager to support that culture, where you don't feel like you have to overwork. And if you do, then they're asking you like, Are you okay? You should probably take a break soon. Well, and I'll wrap up on this question because I asked this question a lot and I'm always curious is can you build, can you build good culture remotely? I hope so. I hope so. I think we have a long way to go in terms of good culture in general. But I think for more specifically, I think so. I think setting good expectations around when your human should be online and when your humans should be resting.

And the level of communication that we expect from each other is probably some good first steps, because it's very easy to go into micromanaging type of scenarios or over communicating externalize, which can be really exhausting. So I think those, in my opinion, those are good points to start and keep building on. I love that, I love that. Well, Ingrid, thank you for hanging out. I appreciate it. Stay online as we end it. I want to say bye to you when we go off there. But y'all, thank you again for hanging out with us this morning. We appreciate it. Listen, connect with Ingrid on Twitter. She's a great follow, can confirm.

That's how we met. Connect with her on LinkedIn. And again, so tomorrow morning, 930 AM Central. I'll be live with my guys at unicorn finders because Ingrid a guy can't have too many podcasts, it's my other one. So I will be live with them tomorrow. And then Friday I actually have a job seeker. He's in Nashville, I worked with him on his resume and we made some edits and his resume completely transformed his job search. And so I'm bringing him on just to kind of recap it and just the importance of having a good resume LinkedIn. So Ingrid, thank you again for hanging out with us.

Thank you all so much for hanging out and we'll see you all tomorrow. y'all have a good one. Peace. Thank you again if you need to reach out to me, Taylor at Vaco.com or at Tdastin on all social media handles And I hope you have a fantastic day