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CyberWire Daily
Swati Shekhar: Challenges increase your risk appetite. [Engineering] [Career Notes]
00:11:04
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Hello, my name is Swati Shekhar and I am head of engineering at Crowd Labs. I think I wanted to be so many things, but I think the most vivid recollection I have is wanting to be an astronaut. I think I was like six or seven years old. The astronaut phase went on for a long time and it kind of passed. But that desire to kind of go and do something different or to leverage all the tools available to solve problems, I think it came from that phase of I want to go out there and do that. So I grew up in a really small dusty town in India, went to school in like late 80s and 90s. We were like from a tech perspective, right? We were significantly behind the curve in terms of what kind of technology was available at home or what was taught at school. I had my first real experience with a computer when I was 17 in my first year at engineering college. So it was very, very different. And I was never that very practical child who wanted to break apart a remote control and see how it works inside or something. I was really, really interested in keeping an eye on what's the big picture problem I want to solve and then look at what tools do I have available. So I'm not going to break open a remote control car, but can I put my super heavy book on top of it and kind of get it to carry it to my room. I was always more interested in using all the tools available and solving problems. And I gravitated a lot towards math, towards physics and chemistry because I think they gave me that adrenaline rush, fairly easy early on of just going ahead and solving problems. I come from a very open minded family and my parents have been very supportive. But I come from a part of India where women were stereotyped into certain roles. I remember growing up like my parents always treated my brother and me the same and they had the same wishes and hopes for me as they had for my brother. But I remember people like the so called well wishers coming forward and saying, oh, why are you letting your daughter become an engineer? You know, how will you find a groom for her. And thankfully my parents didn't have to look for a groom for me. Like, my reaction to that was, okay, I'm not going to let this sit in my head. I have to go out there and I have to do my thing. And I think we need limitations or we need challenges that stretch us beyond what we could be, a better version of ourselves. I come from a family of doctors. My brother and my parents are doctors. So I had a choice between do I go ahead and consider becoming a doctor or do I go ahead and continue to kind of chase my math. This is where probably a peer group helps, because I was with a bunch of kids who were all preparing to go to engineering school and I was like, oh, I like both of these options. Let me just try and see if I can get into either medical school or engineering school. And then I got a, like a, a really good engineering college in India and then it just kind of took off from there. Engineering school is a lot of fun, but I must say there were a few things that were slightly intimidating. I mean, first of all, I went to one of the best engineering colleges in India. And it's a very, very competitive entrance exam that you go through and you are surrounded by some of the most brilliant minds in the country. And you are used to kind of being among the best in your little school or your little town. And then you come in and you're surrounded by so many people who are so much, you know, smarter than you or are able to kind of think more creatively than you. You just feel so overwhelmed and you wonder if you can match up. I think that was just the ability to be able to hold your ground surrounded by so many intelligent people and also not to be intimidated. You know, when you talk to someone who's smarter than you, but actually to learn from there or to see how you can leverage their strengths against your strengths to kind of get things done. We were 30 girls and 500 boys and I was coming from an all girls school and it was like, oh my God, how am I going to deal with this? What am I supposed to do? Like, the first day was just sheer panic, you know, like, there are just way too many boys here. So. But that was, that was easier to deal with than some of the other issues. Foreign culture shock. Because anything that takes you out of your comfort zone actually makes you learn and grow. I graduated in 2002, which wasn't a great year to graduate in terms of getting a job. And I was actually able to get a job at Microsoft. In Redmond. So coming from the small town in India, studying at this university in India, which was also in a small town, and then you get a job all the way in the US and I land up in the US with like 200 bucks in my pocket, expecting to get my first salary the day I land, and then being told that you have to wait two weeks before you get paid. And I'm like, oh, my God, how am I going to manage? When I look back at my first job where I was all alone and then I had to fend for myself, I think more about all of these experiences now. I learned a lot as a developer, as an engineer, and as a professional as well. But I think it's the softer aspects of, like, how do you solve this problem of being all alone in a country you don't know all of 21 for 200 bucks and. And go figure out your life? I think that just increases your risk appetite so significantly that all other challenges then kind of just fall in line accordingly. It's been a long and circuitous road to get here. I am an engineer by training. I'm an engineer at heart. I've worked in a number of different companies in a number of different countries. My role itself has evolved. I was an engineer being fully focused 24 hours a day on solving these very interesting problems for many years. And then until I reached a point where I realized now I need to have problems that are a bit broader in scope. From there, I started experimenting. I moved into program management and product management. And now I've kind of come full circle where I lead the engineering team At Ground Labs where I work for, I have a team of developers and testers and product managers and designers and tech writers. So it kind of all comes in together and together still solving problems. Just that now I have a team and we work together to solve problems. And I'm surrounded by really, really bright people. I have had very empathetic managers. I've had mentors whom I've looked up to who have truly helped me because they've listened to me and they've understood me. And that is something that I look to keep emulating in the different leadership roles that I've had. I think it's very important for me that the team feels that we are all moving together. We're all looking at the same goals. There's just a lot of communication that goes back and forth. So that. And even if that means more energy spent or more effort needed on my part, I just want to make sure each and Every member of my team feels like they're all looking in the right direction and they're motivated to go there. Be very certain about what is it about that job that excites you? I think once you have that very clear in your head, there are no right or wrong answers. Whatever it is, be honest to yourself. Because once you know why you're making a job change or why you're kind of gunning for a job, you will have a framework that will just help you kind of decide on what your next steps should be. Always be yourself. Bring yourself to the job. Because each and every person is individual. They have their own uniqueness and they bring their own ways of solving problems. I do think organizations need to cherish that diversity of thought. Ultimately, you need to bring your spark and your uniqueness to the job and that will make your job more fulfilling and it will work really well for whichever organization you choose to work in. Foreign.
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