35: Women in Engineering: Laura

Artsy Engineer Laura Bhayani returns for another episode of Artsy Engineering Radio with host Sarah Haq, to share her inspirational journey into the field and the challenges she faced along the way. Laura and Sarah talk about everything from keyboards to unicorns and being a fricking badass.

Transcript

Sarah Haq  0:10  
Hello, welcome to Artsy Engineering Radio, I'll be your host today. And for today's episode, we're gonna be welcoming back the amazing Laura Bhayani, who recently did a podcast with Stephen Hicks on large changes in code bases. Hello, Laura. 

Laura Bhayani  0:23  
Hi, how's it going, Sarah?

Sarah Haq  0:25  
It's going well! Before we start, I just wanted to break the ice with.... keyboards. Tell me about your relationship with keyboards?

Laura Bhayani  0:33  
I feel like this is now my legacy at Artsy. That was my fun fact  when I got started is that I build and collect keyboards and, you know, it's kind of like a quality of life improvement for anyone who works at their desk all the time. There is definitely a difference between, you know, like a membrane, like a regular keyboard that's just like, 10 bucks or whatever, versus one that you source all the parts for and build yourself. Plus, like, if you really, like go down the rabbit hole of this hobby, like, they're such pretty cases and such pretty key sets, you can just make a keyboard that looks like cotton candy or like, you know, a race car, I mean, not literally, but colour schemes and materials and things like so, so yea.. I mean, I don't know, I just, it's something that is beautiful that I made that I get to see sitting on my desk every day, and I get to use it in a very practical way. So I feel justified and, you know, spending so much time and energy.

Sarah Haq  1:34  
Oh, wow, I feel bad that the audience can't see your homemade keyboard right now. But can I get a sneak peek, please?

Laura Bhayani  1:42  
Yeah.

Sarah Haq  1:44  
I'm sorry, the podcast is going video. Oh my god. It's amazing. It's so colourful. It's amazing. Wow, yeah. Do you sell your keyboards?

Laura Bhayani  1:54  
I don't sell them. No! I just will, I mean, once I'm done using them, after a while I will sell them on the second hand market. But um, no, I don't like build them and sell them because I don't design the cases or the circuit boards or anything like that. 

Sarah Haq  2:11  
I think there's definitely a market for you, Laura. So let's take this offline - women in entrepreneurship. So, I really enjoyed your podcast with Steve, I love the energy between you two. Something I just wanted to follow up from the last podcast, you spoke about attention to detail not being your strength and how you've seen the bigger picture and working top down was? Could you tell us a bit more about your perceived strengths? And how do you use that to your advantage?

Laura Bhayani  2:39  
Well, I mean, I think that just thinking differently than the people around you period is a strength, you know, because then you see things they don't you can point out loopholes in their logic or, you know, look for ways to improve things that maybe they wouldn't have seen, you know, so just having, having people who think about in different ways, or think about things in different ways, rather, can can just be beneficial for teamwork. Yeah, I think that that's really important. And actually, I think that's why Steve and I get along so well is because he does think about things in a very, like, you know, granular detail oriented level, and I'm exactly the opposite. So we meet somewhere in the middle, and we kind of we cover a lot of ground. So I didn't answer the other part of your question, which is what what are my strengths? I'm stubborn and a little obsessive when it comes to solving. So it's like, if something really is is irking me, or there's a there's a problem that I can't figure out how to solve or they're, you know, there's a, there's a new technology that I want to learn how to use, I will spend hours in front of the documentation hours in front of my computer, like I've lost entire weekends to personal projects that like, I got up at, you know, eight o'clock in the morning and didn't stop until, you know, my partner dragged me away from my computer screen and set aside beauty food now like, yeah, so I do I hyper focus on things like that. And I'm really stubborn when it comes to solving a problem. And I'm a little bit addicted to the love hate relationship that I think most developers have with code and their projects, which is that you're so incredibly stumped by a problem. And you're banging your head against it, and it makes you feel really stupid. And then after a little while, you figure it out, and then you feel like a superhero. It's like this, like just this shot of adrenaline or dopamine or whatever, and, and you just feel like the smartest person on the planet. And then you move on to the next problem and you feel like an idiot again, and I don't understand, like, why I enjoy that back and forth so much, but I mean, I get Yeah, that's that's another thing that I think really has drawn me to becoming a developer is that sort of like, problem solving attitude.

Sarah Haq  4:44  
Could you tell us a little bit more about your journey into tech? Did you start from university, after university?

Laura Bhayani  4:50  
It started way back in the days of MySpace when I wanted when I wanted to customise my my profile page and started writing lines of HTML, to change the background and add a theme song and all of that stuff. And then it ended very abruptly when I was told that computers were a phase and email was going to die out in the next couple of years. These are all quotes from my dad. He just hates technologies so much. And he has told me my whole life that it was, it was never going anywhere. It was a phase, everything should be done on pen and paper. I asked for a computer and he brought me home a word processor that was a typewriter attached to an orange and black monochrome screen. And this was back, like when, when Macintosh computers were still we're, we're like, out there in the world, like I played with them, you know, at my cousin's house and everything like that. So so it was discouraged from, you know, going into technology as a career. Terrible student in high school, decided after being forced to go to community college and finding a really wonderful Religious Studies teacher that I wanted to be a Religious Studies major. So I went and studied Comparative Religions, to Yeah, at a school in Boulder, Colorado called the rope University. It is a experiential, Buddhist, private college. And it was amazing. And it was a wonderful experience, I don't think that I was really ready for that experience at that point in my life, so I ended up not finishing that degree and just hanging out in Boulder for a while and drinking a lot of really good beer and having a lot of fun with all the friends that I made, and then ended up moving back to Charlotte. And I was a worked in food service. When I was in Boulder, I was selling shoes, then I moved back here I got out of retail, I started working in food service, became a bartender for a little while, just that whole industry just exhausted me in ways that only people in food service can really understand. And then I went into, try to become an apprentice to become a veterinarian technician with a family that I knew that owned a vet clinic. And then that wasn't for me either. And I was just, I was just Yeah, I was just searching. And then one day, I had this conversation with a friend of mine, who was also kind of searching for something and he was like, you know, me, you know, just be the best to become like a computer or like a programmer or something like that, you know, you just sit in front of your computer all day don't have to deal with anyone just put your headphones on listen to music and write code. That sounds like the best job ever. And I was like, crap. Right? That's the best, the best job in the world. And I enrolled in a computer science programme, probably maybe like, I don't know, a month later, something like that. And that's how I, I got into my, how I got into my degree programme. And that in itself was a struggle and unearthed some some problems that I was having just kind of like I said, I was a terrible student in high school, I was a terrible student my entire life. And I found out in college after talking to psychiatrists, psychologists like what you know, talking to my teachers wondering why like, I'd got straight A's for the first two months of all of my classes and or month or two months, and then just fell off and everything after that I just could not, I couldn't care less about you know, getting my assignments done, you know, showing up to class, all this stuff. And I knew that this was the thing that I wanted. So after all of this meetings and talking and and all this stuff, I actually was diagnosed with adult ADHD so that saw like, not didn't solve, but kind of clued me into a lot of the things that work that was just causing problems for me, and made me feel like if I wasn't just a terrible student, and I wasn't stupid, I knew I wasn't stupid. But yeah, it just, it just made me feel like, Okay, if I have the right support system, this is the thing that I can actually achieve. So it took me a little while, but I got a really great internship. That was a huge help to me. I made some friends with some of the professors at a UNCC, a shout out to Bruce long, who's like the best person ever. And yeah, they just really helped me through it. And I finally, finally graduated, transferred to full time a full time employee at at my you know, my first company and it's been, I would say smooth sailing from there. But it's you know, that's that's how I got my start.

Sarah Haq  9:22  
Oh, thank you so much. Thank you for sharing your story. And thank you for being so open about your journey. Do you mind me asking what have been some of the surprising challenges that you face in your career doesn't have to be as as a female engineer or being someone who open about having a ADHD? Are you okay, sharing some of your challenges with the audience?

Laura Bhayani  9:42  
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, ADHD was kind of the big one. You know, it was it was just a constant struggle against myself. You know, like all of my bad habits and all of my like, you know, it, it's not even just wandering attention. It's just like, your memory kind of sucks and you know, you can, you can start out with the moat like just so much enthusiasm for a thing, but it just fades so quickly. And you know that this is a long term goal that you want to achieve that is good for you in the long run, but it's just just the execution, you just stall out on the execution. And it's so difficult, without having that, you know, the right kind of support systems or some medication or, you know, something that it, it makes, it makes things just just a little bit harder than they should be all the time. So that was a, that was a big struggle for me. But once I got that validation, and knew that I wasn't just like a waste of space, lazy human being like, I started to push forward a little bit. And then a weird thing that got in my way was my ego.. right? Like my, my, my competitiveness and my wanting to be right all the time and wanting to have all the answers and then also also sort of being tossed into this environment where you have to know everything. If you don't know the answer to a question that that either is directed at you or that you try to answer like, if someone asks it to a crowd or a roomful of developers, and you speak up to try and answer this question, you better have the right answer, and you better have all the details. If you don't know someone's getting....

Sarah Haq  11:12  
Or if it is not on stack overflow.

Laura Bhayani  11:17  
Okay, so yes. I mean, Google, Stack Overflow, I mean, they're every developer's best friend, like 100%, I'm not, you know, not denying that, because half of my job is just googling things and trying to figure out how to translate what I find on Stack Overflow into a real live production codebase. But yeah, I mean, it was just, it was more of a, like, the environment of the company that I first started at was very much like, people were very proud of the knowledge that they had. And they were absolutely willing to tell you when you were wrong, and when your opinions were wrong about, you know, things that they had learned and done or written, you know, it was just a very, like, just very confrontational, it wasn't a very collaborative learning environment, it was more, you needed to know everything before showing up versus we're all here to learn together kind of environment, which was, which sort of breaded me this, like this more competitive spirit that I think was already there in me, but like, made me more competitive, like, gave me this, like, idea that in order to be a good developer, I had to have all the answers, which, which is BS, you know, like, that was, that was the stuff that was getting in my way, that was a challenge for me to, you know, ask questions in a timely manner. Because, you know, it's, it doesn't mean, I'm a bad developer, it makes me a better developer to ask questions early, and often and, you know, communicate what my struggles are. So, you know, just getting my ego and my competitiveness out of the way was a big deal. And then also, it's strange, like growing up, I had, most of my friends were male. And so I was always, like, one of the guys, you know, then coming into it into an office, where it was mostly men, and, you know, still kind of feeling that camaraderie with, you know, most of my male co workers, but then also kind of seeing the ways in which they would shut you down at the same time, the ways in which you were treated like, okay, just, you know, sit there, and we'll have this conversation. And then, you know, you just learn from us, you know, like this, this kind of, like, yeah, you're here, but be there and be quiet. And, you know, it was never, it was never overt it was just some of the behaviour, it was being talked over, or being talked about, in like, I wasn't actually in the room, you know, and like my task or what I was supposed to be doing, being discussed in a conversation that wasn't including me, even though I was sitting right there in the room. You know what I mean, like that? 

Sarah Haq  13:45  
oh! I definitely know what you mean. Can I ask you, you mentioned that you felt yourself that you were hyper competitive, but then you're describing a situation where you know you have is your your your colleagues are not giving you the attention you deserv,e the respect you deserve. Do you not feel that could be driven from that sort of behaviour as well, that we feel so invisible, that we feel like we have to go above and beyond to constantly prove ourselves?

Laura Bhayani  14:14  
Oh, yeah, definitely. Definitely. I mean, I think that that's, that's very much what it was, you know, it's like, you are in a boys club, and you're being kind of sidelined a little bit. So in order to, in order to feel less sidelined, you, you want to absorb all of that culture as much as possible. You want to take everything that they're doing and doing it do it better than they're doing it, you know, and that, that means being more competitive, being more right being more informed, being more you know, being more everything and, and it just it does, it turns into this a very adversarial kind of environment and, and kind of attitude versus something that's more collaborative. And I think it took me a while to a recognise that the way that I was being treated was in fact, because of my gender. Because of the way that I was regarded, right, because I wasn't used to thinking about things in those terms, I was always one of the guys, you know, and you don't realise how you're not until you're really, really confronted with it, you know? So yeah, like, identifying the, you know, the actual fact that this was sexism, identifying why I was embracing sort of some of those attitudes that were making me feel less than, and then, and then trying to figure out, like, how I really felt about it, and who, who I wanted to be after gaining this knowledge and these experiences, and it turns out to be not that person at all. You know, I don't want to I don't want to embrace my ego, I don't think that it makes me better to know something, when I've just had, you know, a five year advantage or a five year leg up on the person that I'm, you know, trying to make feel like you don't know anything? Well, of course you don't you're just starting out. Like, why would you know those things, you know, so I yeah, it's just it, it's kind of given me a shot, just shone a light on who I want to be versus who I was becoming.

Sarah Haq  16:08  
I don't want to play into any sort of gender stereotypes but something that my friend and I we discuss in quite detail is how as we progress in our careers, we lose our femininity, and actually, that's, that's sort of destroying us in the inside because we're not being our true selves. And being a woman is an amazing thing. Like I find myself dressing very differently. Like I don't want it somewhere I don't want to wear a dress, I don't want to be too feminine, I don't perceived as feminine. And that's really unfortunate. Because it's it's, it's um, it's a great thing, being a woman. I guess, doing a little bit of research before our podcast, I stumbled upon this article, which spoke about how fewer women in STEM, so not just the work, but education as well and what that means for our health, mental health. I guess what really resonated with me was and you also touched on this, how these gender imbalances make us feel like an outsider and yet how just daily situations and just the smallest thing can lead to social stresses anxiety. I guess, yeah! could you share some more thoughts on this? I mean, I'd like to kick it off with zoom, for example. I mean, I'm really grateful at Artsy we have this very inclusive culture, especially when it comes Zoom but I used to have panic attacks before talking on Zoom and it still, it still hasn't it still hasn't quite disappeared.

Laura Bhayani  17:33  
Yeah. Well, I'm sorry that you've had that experience, I guess. Yeah,..

Sarah Haq  17:38  
 I'm sorry you've had your experiences. It just sucks. It just sucks. 

Laura Bhayani  17:42  
It does. It can. It can. But you know, like, I I'm just one of these people who's always been like, you're not the boss of me. You know, like I even even sometimes when I'm like cutting off my own nose to spite my face kind of thing like I'll just because someone tells me to do something, I'll just do the opposite, which is not always a great attitude to have. But I think in this case, what you were saying about you know, becoming less feminine of the workplace. So yeah, I've always been a tomboy that's kind of just how I started out but then I realised that like, a lot of the things that I was just it just eschew, I think that's the right word. I'm like, just pushing off like didn't want to have anything to do with it was because of this description of feminine, you know, like, Oh, that's feminine. I don't want it that's girly. It's beautiful. Whatever, you know, and and as I've grown older, I've started to like, really enjoy that stuff so much more you know, and I love cute things. I love stuff with pink. Like the keyboard

Sarah Haq  18:45  
Oh, both of us are wearing all black right now just for reference.

Laura Bhayani  18:50  
Okay, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna say I paint myself with pink every day. But if it was on my desk, like my desk mat that I have right here is a nice pastel blue fades into fades into pink the keyboard that I showed Sarah at the top of the episode is actually pink with like, Rainbow keys across it looks like it's like you can eat it. It's It looks like a little piece of cotton. You know? So I just like I've actually started to kind of throw those things in, in people's faces. And now obviously, that I'm working remote like it's kinda it's kind of not the same thing. But yeah, I like eventually just started bringing in like my, my pink keyboards and having those on my desk and like walking around with shirts that had like, unicorns on them and stuff like that. And I was just like, you know what, I'm, I'm a woman. I like girly stuff. And I'm going to come in here and I'm going to wear my girly stuff and have my girly things and you know, click around and some loud shoes sometimes. And I'm going to do my job like a frickin badass. Like, I'm going to, you know, write the best code I possibly can. I'm going to get involved in everything I possibly can. I'm going to be here and I'm going to be in your face. And you're eventually just going to get used to it because honestly exposure is the best way to get people comfortable with things that they're unfamiliar with. So, yeah, I mean, that's, that's my, that's my sort of my take on things just be there and be irritating. And eventually folks will just, you know, they'll get used to you.

Sarah Haq  20:15  
I definitely needed to hear that. Thank you very much.

I've never I've never liked think but I feel like I need to embrace it more and get some cute unicorns and have them this in my background.

Laura Bhayani  20:31  
Do it! Do you know what I, I think that being a feminist is definitely like, sure pink. But if you don't, like, that's cool, and I'm going to support you and not liking pink, and then whatever kind of woman you want to be, you know what I mean? I don't like that doesn't dictate whether or not you know, you're doing something right or wrong. But yeah, that's, that actually leads me to my second point is just like, you know, if there's, if there's a woman that's new to, you know, the industry, or just the place that you're working at, or whatever it is, like, just make it make the whole experience as welcoming as, as welcoming as possible, you know, just support each other, like, be there for each other. Like if, if, if you're in a meeting, and there's a woman who's supposed to be running the meeting, and she's getting talked over and asked to take notes by the men in the room, like, be like, Hey, guys, that's not cool. You're setting our people back by like 50 years, I'm going to need for you to be the one to take notes, and I'm going to need you to not, you know, run over her while she's trying to run this meeting, can we please just calm down, you know, like, and I know that that's really difficult. It's, it's a very, very difficult thing to do in a roomful of men, some who may outrank you at your job, or whatever it is, but I've had to do it once or twice. And, you know, I felt a little like, I was gonna vomit before I started, started, like, you know, really like trying to get the guys on my team to just, you know, calm down. But, you know, I had to, I think that i think that that those those moments of kindness, and those moments of, you know, women supporting each other, they stick with you in ways that just, I mean, that it motivates you. And it motivates you to do the same thing for the next woman who you see having a terrible experience like that, you know, like it? Yeah, we just, we have to be there for each other. And we can't do that thing, where it's like, oh, I worked so hard to get into this boys club, that I'm going to make it just as hard for you to get in kind of thing, you know, don't gate keep let other women in and help them like support them.

Sarah Haq  22:35  
I like that, actually, I guess just for people who don't know that you and I, we joined the same time. And I'm based in the Berlin office, and you're based in New York office. And we bonded over I think nothing I think we bonded over the sheer fact that we were two female engineers. And remember, we were in this breakout room. And there was just one male he and he's like, What's going on here? I'm with two female engineers. When How's that possible? What are the chances and he was so excited? Shout out to George. He was just like asking so many questions. But also something that I remember you said to me, you said to me like, oh, every time that I talk in a meeting, you feel like you can talk in a meeting. And I found that really helpful, because I like we're all setting examples for each other as well. And when we see a woman not being interrupted in a meeting, we know, okay, this is a safe space. This is a safe space. And but I don't think the onus just need to lie on on women in the industry. I think that has to lie on everybody to stop these progress cultures, and we have to just stamp it out. And every time I hear people bonding over sports, I'm like, No, this isn't Okay, this isn't Okay, let's pray. Let's talk about unicorns. And yeah, let's try to be as agender as possible. Like, if that's even possible.

Laura Bhayani  23:54  
Yeah. Yeah, you know, actually, it's really funny because I have some notes sitting over here. And I feel like I skipped over them at a certain point. But the last bullet point is, you know, how to make STEM fields more inclusive. And my first reply to that is stop putting the onus on women and push men to fix their bullshit. And I feel like this, this, this comes up so often in so many different areas of like, you know, oh, well, how do we stop emotional violence against women, sexual violence against women, you know, all this stuff. And granted, these are much more extreme cases than, you know, just like, you know, making us safe workspace that those are terrible, terrible issues that, you know, require different kinds of addressing but but maybe, in some sense, a similar addressing in that, like, it's not up on us to figure it out. Like what what is what's going on, in, in culture as a whole that women are not people you know, and that, you know, men can just behave in whatever way they want and kind of get away with it and this whole Oh, man, I don't know if you've read about it, but the the the case that's going on with Blizzard, the gaming company, recently, where there, there's a country, a culture of God, I don't want to misquote anything, but like, like, guys would go around making jokes about rape and like terrible fit, like in the office within hearing, not like you should, you should ever joke about that period. But that, you know, to women like they would go they would you know, drink in the office and go around to cubicles and like, like, systematically harass the women in the office. And there was there was one woman who was working for the company who ended up committing suicide while she was on a business trip because it was just such it's just so horrible. And, and this was going on until just very, very recently, until this case was I guess, filed, maybe I want to say a month or two ago, something like that. Maybe not even that long ago. But yeah, just like how does that become normalised? How does that become okay? Like I would never, I would never discuss with anyone ever my co workers like doing violence to someone like just because of their their sex or their age, or their gender, or their lack of sex or their you know, whatever, like it doesn't, I just, I can't even wrap my head around it. So the fact that that this is going on in any kind of a corporate setting that this is that this is what people find funny that people laugh off jokes like this and find some way to normalise them like that... I don't know how to fix that, because I can't comprehend it. So what what is going on in the world, in popular culture, behind closed doors, that this is that this happens. And is is covered up basically until you know, people die! Because they're suffering so badly. That you know, I don't know, I just, that's just me ranting because honestly, I have no conclusion there, I really don't like there's no way to bring that back around. It's just this is the world that we live in. And I don't think that the victims should be the one to solve the problem.

Sarah Haq  27:11  
I think something I wanted to add... I mean, this example that you shared as, as you were describing before, usually in work situations, you know, being interrupted in a meeting is very different to like some of these macro problems that women face. And I think that's it like we can't even fix a micro problem, if we cannot even be a little bit respectful and mindful of the people around us and create a harmonious, inclusive, actual environment there is there exactly, there is no hope. And that's why like, we can only fix what's around us. And that's why these episodes are so important because they inspire so many other women as well, who cannot, who take some time, at least from my perspective, I was always taking the blame as well during my career thinking like, Oh, I'm not good enough, or it must be me. But actually, it's also environment driven. And I think these conversations are really important to have to inspire people to remind women to be the best badass you can possibly be.. to embrace who you are to, to stamp out any sort of toxic behaviour that you witness, and also to ask everyone to be allies to this as well to.. ultimately we all have the same goals. We want to we just want to be left alone in code, as you described in the start. We don't have time for this. We don't have time for all these social issues. But yeah, we want to code but also we want to have the same platform we so No, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you for sharing all of that. So I guess I always ask this to people after having such a heavy conversation. So we described a world, which seems awful for women. So why do we encourage women, what advice should we give women and why should they pursue a career in tech?

Laura Bhayani  28:52  
Oh, wow. Yeah, no, that's crazy. It's hard to bring it back around after that, isn't it? I love what I do. I've loved what I what I do. Ever since you know, my first coding class in college. It was Yeah, it was just an immediate, an immediate, feeling for me, like, this is what I'm supposed to be doing. And yeah, I mean, I don't know, I know that there were a lot of women in my programme who ended up not staying and I think that they were all smart enough to do it. But maybe they just didn't love it. And maybe there was some of that element of they didn't feel like they belonged there. I don't really know. But the reason to get into it is because it is.. every day there's a new challenge, you will never get bored. There's always something to learn. There's always a new challenge to to surmount, there's always a new project to work on. You can open up your computer and with no, no cash, no investment in the front end other than your time and your you know, your brainpower you can build almost anything that you want. And some people would say anything you want. But obviously, you can't build something in physical space. But you could build any programme any, you know, website, any anything to start a business to help out a friend start a business, you know, I mean, you can, it is it's a huge, it's a huge amount of power, and people will always be looking for someone with your skill set. You know, I don't know, I think the only people that I graduated with who did not end up getting jobs, either before they graduated or directly after were the people who really just didn't have the self confidence to go out and interview. So provided that you can work up that, that belief in yourself to go out and interview for the job, you'll have one you'll always have one, you'll get paid well. And yeah, I mean, it's it's just, it's, it's a career, like, I don't know, like I've I've had jobs and jobs and jobs and jobs. And I told myself that they were all temporary, because really, anyone could do them. You know, it was a plug and play kind of thing. But this I feel like my perspective is important. My, you know, my ideas are important. And yeah, I'm just really glad to be working for a company where I really believe in the product now. So that's, that's the reason.

Sarah Haq  31:15  
Thank you so much. And there's strength in numbers. And the more women we get into STEM roles, the more we can change. And I think people are listening to us. Artsy gives us a platform to talk about these issues. And I feel really inspired and I hope other women and listeners also feel really inspired listening to you. But thank you, thank you so much. Thank you for being so open about your journey as not only just a woman in tech, but also having ADHD. And I would love to continue this conversation and talk more about what it's like dealing with mental health issues at work. I'd love to have another conversation about this. 

Laura Bhayani  31:52  
But yeah, have you ever? Have you ever heard of girl, I think it's Girls Who Code. Good. But okay. So there is a talk by the founder of that programme called teach girls bravery, not perfection. And it's one of the most amazing TED talks that I've ever listened to. And it really just speaks to the fact that young boys are taught to climb trees and fall down and skin, their knees and all of this stuff, and girls are taught that we just have to be perfect all the time. Don't ever make a mistake, you know. And that is the worst thing that you can possibly learn. And I think that, yeah, I think that teaching young girls to be brave, to make mistakes, to blow things up to. Yeah, to just go out there and try is so very important. And I think that this career, and being here has kind of taught me that a lot more than anything else. Because Yeah, we can we can make mistakes, and we can, you know, blow things up, and we can break the code base and then revert a couple of hours later, when we realise that production is exploding. And it's, it teaches it taught me to be brave. And I think that that is really is really has been wonderful for me. And I think that that's a reason that women should get into this career. But I also think that it's something that's a reason why we should teach younger girls to code. I think that it'd be really, really valuable to get to get at young women at at a younger age. And then that would, I guess, equal, you know, more women in the workforce and more women in tech. Yeah, I just I think it's great that we're, we get the opportunity to be brave together.

Sarah Haq  33:34  
Thank you so much. Thank you for ending this wonderful, wonderful podcast on such a inspirational note. Thanks for your time. Thank you for your story. Thank you for your your honesty. We'll call it a wrap .. on to part two. Thank you so much. Bye. 

Laura Bhayani  33:50  
Perfect! Thanks for your energy, Sarah. Bye

Unknown Speaker  33:55  
Thanks for listening. You can follow us on Twitter at Artsy open source. Keep up with our blog@artsy.github.io This episode was produced by Asia Simpson. Thank you Eve Essex for our theme music. You can find her on all major streaming platforms. Until next time, this is Artsy Engineering Radio

Transcribed by https://otter.ai