Zone’s Fran Haines and Sofia Lara Peyret attended Women of Silicon Roundabout recently which aims to inspire, celebrate and connect women working in technology. They share their thoughts on why it’s so important and what they learned.
Whether you’re a developer, designer or tester, one common ground that we all share is that it can be overwhelming to know what to learn next, to what depth, and how to go about it. So, when we were given the opportunity to head to Women of Silicon Roundabout in June, we jumped at the chance, excited and eager to learn more.
The two-day event, held in ExCeL London, is about meeting disruptive new start-ups and leading tech organisations alike. This was our first time attending an event at this scale targeted specifically at women in technology, with the biggest names in the digital industry in attendance trying to get women’s attention with what they do and to persuade them to join in. Through connecting with fellow female techies, you learn about the latest industry highlights through talks, workshops and demonstrations. With Zone continually working towards promoting diversity and inclusion across the business, we went to witness the women in tech movement ourselves, to add some value and bring back the positivity and empowerment we left feeling.
Some of the talks we attended were from women who started their own companies out of their passions and what they felt would have a positive effect on the world, solving long standing problems or helping people in need. Other talks were about the importance of mentoring and coaching, the power of networking and making meaningful professional connections. There were also workshops about how to progress in your career and how to make inclusive websites.
A personal highlight was ‘The 10 Things You Should Be Doing in 2019 to Advance in Your Tech Career’ by Amy Freelander, Technical Product Manager at Google. In the talk, Amy outlined how to steer yourself through your career, especially in an industry which is changing every day. As developers, our learning is never finished so we found this to be of great benefit. Here’s some of our key takeaways:
1. Understand the industry you’re in
Knowing the industry, the big players and what they’re currently doing is crucial. By finding out what they’re achieving you’ll also discover what excites you and what skills are needed for the market.
2. Know what your current workplace offers
Understanding what’s currently available to you is key. Does your workplace have a mentoring scheme or have experienced colleagues who you can learn from? Do you have access to a catalogue of courses that you might not know about? Are there new projects in the pipeline where you’ll work with new technologies? Telling your manager where you want to go in your career can really help to pave this out. You could also try and push for change if you feel your organisation doesn’t offer this currently.
3. Invest in yourself
Take time to invest in yourself when you can. This is something you can do alone, or even involve your family and friends to help you. If you want to learn how to code for example, you could learn with your children and make it fun — perhaps learn how to make a game or build a remote-controlled car with a Raspberry Pi. Amy mentioned that a healthy approach to learning is to have one hobby that’s creative, one that keeps you fit and one that allows you to earn money. Always remember though, self-care isn’t selfish and that downtime is important. Listen to yourself and understand when you’re starting to burn out.
4. Use/be a mentor or coach
You can always learn from others by talking about real life problems or situations. Being a mentor can give the benefits of your experience to others and being a coach can help you practise active listening. Having a mentor can help you fill gaps in skills, and having a coach can help hone your own solutions.
5. Do something new
Don’t overthink it! Anything could be your new passion. Play around with different technologies or reconnect with previous passions. Maybe try something new every month until you find one that sticks. Amy highlighted the psychology behind the fact that the more uncomfortable something feels at first, the more likely there is something to get from it and the more you’ll improve on it.
Coming back from the event, we came to realise that focussing in on learning areas you not only think will be of value, but enjoy, will be the most beneficial. Having a workplace to support this is also key. Being developers at Zone, we are given ample opportunities to enhance both our hard and soft skills through workshops, conferences and courses. We are also given a platform to have our voices heard both as women and technologists. Being in the spotlight means it is our responsibility now to use our voice wisely to attract more women to this technological world and are helping to close the huge gender gap in the industry bit by bit and set the agenda for a brighter and fairer future for women in tech.
