Tell me about your early years and where you come from.

I grew up outside D.C in Virginia, a super nerdy kid.

What part of Virginia?

I come from Fairfax County, just south of D.C. It’s a pretty affluent area, but very diverse. I’ve realized in retrospect that it’s really out there in terms of median income, but actually has a lot of diverse immigrant populations. People are drawn towards working in D.C. Not a bad place to grow up, I would say. But it’s way more interesting with context about what the rest of the world is like—realizing how affluent and diverse the area is.

“I went to University of Virginia for undergrad and felt very out of place, and so I buried myself in more and more work. I got a double major and a masters in four years.”

Interesting. So, you were a nerdy kid. Did you feel that you were technically inclined early on?

I would say I was technically inclined. My parents were really supportive of my education. Even in elementary school, I was going to a local high school to take math classes and classes in Computer Science. I drew away from technical work for a while when I didn’t see there was creative work there, but now that I’ve come back to it it feels like a nerdy home for me.

Walk me through those early education years,going to college, and then eventually making your way all the way across the country.

I went to University of Virginia for undergrad and felt very out of place, and so I buried myself in more and more work. I got a double major and a masters in four years. I very much identified with being a great student. So at the end of my undergrad, I went straight into graduate school doing research. I got into MIT for a PHD program.

MIT was great for me in a lot of ways. MIT is such a hot bed of engineering creativity in a way that I hadn’t experienced before. UVA was very focused on business and their law school, so I hadn’t seen that engineering could be for things besides a well paying job. MIT has people programming LED everything for fun, building roller coasters out of plywood: things that I found very inspirational. And at the same time I was seeing creativity in engineering, I found that even though my graduate work was very interesting technically, it wasn’t drawing my attention. It didn’t have an immediate impact on the world.

Over time I realized that maybe I could be happier if I was doing something else. So I tried a software engineering internship. It wasn’t quite the place for me, but I realized I thought I could be happy doing software engineering somewhere else. After that, I ended up finding my current job, dropping out of grad school, and moving to San Francisco.

What were your first impressions of Silicon Valley? What were you expecting? How did it live up to – or not live up to – what you had thought it would be?

I’d had an internship at Berkeley one summer when I was 21. I stayed in a dorm at Berkeley, but was way shyer then. I was like: “Oh my gosh, this is the promised land. There are so many cool people walking around. If only I wasn’t too shy to talk to everyone I would be so happy and feel so at place here.”

“Just to be in a city where I didn’t feel weird was so liberating.”

And my move to San Francisco was just so dominated by becoming way more comfortable with myself. And in particular, at this sense of weirdness that I don’t think is necessarily caused by being queer, but that is very correlated for me. Just to be in a city where I didn’t feel weird was so liberating. So my first year here, I was happy just to party and explore in a way most people felt comfortable enough to do in college. I had fun!

But at that point, I didn’t quite get cultural context on a lot of things. Criticisms of privilege in tech weren’t on my radar at that point, or cultural critiques of privilege in the city. I was just thinking about how it was a fun party, and touching that for the first time. Just trying to find my place at that point.

“I felt very much like even a technical outsider, especially as the first inexperienced coder at my company. And that challenge concentrated me. I focused for eight hours a day in such an intense way I didn’t listen to music, didn’t look at my cell phone at all.”

Workwise, even though I had a technical background and plenty of CS classes, I hadn’t had as much experience coding as many people who work at top jobs here. I was very prepared in some ways and not quite totally prepared in others. I felt very much like even a technical outsider, especially as the first inexperienced coder at my company. And that challenge concentrated me. I focused for eight hours a day in such an intense way I didn’t listen to music, didn’t look at my cell phone at all.

Totally. I can so relate on the weird thing. I’m from North Carolina, like super close to where you’re from. People use the word weird all the time in North Carolina just to denote anything. Like, “Oh, that meal is weird,” or like, “That outfit is weird.” Weird is used all the time. Then I came here and I was like, “Oh my God. Nothing’s weird and everything’s weird at the same time.” That word doesn’t even work here. It was just so cool to suddenly—I was weird in North Carolina because I’m pale and wore black too much, things that are super normal here or in New York or whatever. Being intellectual. All of that was weird. Here it’s like, there is no such thing as weird anymore and that is the most amazing feeling.

God bless SF.

Seriously. So walk me through your experience working in tech so far. What is exciting to you about your work?

I’d coded before, but hadn’t thought about code as a means of communication. Basically, I was missing an appreciation of software engineering. Software engineering asks questions like “How do you write code that is easily understandable by other people?”, and “How do you write in a way that’s resilient to a bunch of unknown changes in the future?” Good software engineering is thoughtful, compassionate, and thorough.

Unlike most kinds of engineering, changing code means you can change your product every single day – so things can happen very quickly. It’s such a collaborative media, because software engineers are all collaboratively writing a huge document of code together. There’s a lot of coordination there that I find really interesting. And on top of that, I really appreciate making something, a product, that I use everyday and that people use everyday to make their lives better. For me, it’s just the right way to merge technical work with thoughtfulness about other people.

“I’d coded before, but hadn’t thought about code as a means of communication. Basically, I was missing an appreciation of software engineering. Software engineering asks questions like “How do you write code that is easily understandable by other people?”, and “How do you write in a way that’s resilient to a bunch of unknown changes in the future?” Good software engineering is thoughtful, compassionate, and thorough.”

Plus I’m starting now to be a manager, and that’s perfect for me. It’s combining mentorship, and talking people through their feelings in a way that I don’t think they often get to do inside of tech. That’s such a special combination of things that I have. So many of my one-on-ones are long walks up Potrero with cherry trees are magnolia trees, and that’s such a nice balance to writing software.

What have been some struggles for you ? For instance, you mentioned in your preinterview the flipside of being a badass queer woman in tech. Expand on that for me.

Sure. I got feedback from my manager that the way I presented myself didn’t always come across as technical and professional. And in some ways that was definitely true. We have an open bar at the office and I would be sipping scotch at 3 P.M. But, also, hearing that as queer woman, I couldn’t help but react as, “Yeah, of course I don’t look and act like straight white dudes.” Not that I don’t like the white dudes that I work with, but that feedback hit me in a way that made me cry. With work though, I came around to realizing that it’s no one’s job to make anyone feel welcome, and that’s not the purpose of the company. But now I’ve come around to the flipside of that — that there’s a business case for making sure that everyone feels included in the company. I had to go through all those emotional cycles of  — no one has to take care of me, but also I hope there are businesses out there that do recognize me.

“There’s a business case for making sure that everyone feels included in the company.”

And I do feel recognized by my company. I’ve gotten promotions, I’ve gotten to start managing, things like that. But I still often have feelings like, “I don’t look like tech,” or, “Is it cool enough to work in tech?” For myself, I often wonder, am I working with people that most directly bring out my best? I think working inside tech as a queer woman is a beautiful place to enact some kinds of change. I’m one of the most vocal advocate for diversity inside my company. But no one’s encouraging me on to do that, and so I wonder, am I growing the social responsibility parts of myself? In my current job, I’m definitely growing some emotional parts of myself, I’m definitely growing the technical parts of myself, but I don’t have direct role models for social responsibility in a way that I do think is very important in life.

Yeah, for sure. You don’t want to feel that your actions are in a silo.

Yeah. I’m changing my company for the better, but how important is it that any specific tech company gets better? I’m starting to speak at external events, but I don’t know if I’m changing things. Certainly, it makes me feel like more complete of a person if I have a chance to speak what I think is socially righteous. But I have to wonder – is this effective? And who is asking me if this is effective? Who is caring?

“Sometimes, it’s lonely. Other people don’t talk about diversity as much as I do—probably because they don’t have feel the lack of it in their core. So I try to translate my feelings into, ‘What is the business case for us?’ in a way that’s indisputably worth pursuing.”

My company is supportive. I just wrote a piece on diversity that we published on our company blog. And I’m so proud that we’re willing to do that. I do try to put diversity conversations into language that I think is approachable for people of privilege, and appreciate my company’s support as I’ve grown into being able to make that switch of language, from anger to something productive.

I want to get into privilege for a second. What is it like for you kind of straddling multiple worlds, some of which are privileged such as tech, and some of which aren’t as much, like being a woman and being queer?

I think about  privilege so much more than most of tech. I guess that happens anytime there are marginalized groups. Sometimes, it’s lonely. Other people don’t talk about diversity as much as I do– probably because they don’t have feel the lack of it in their core. So I try to translate my feelings into,”What is the business case for us?” in a way that’s indisputably worth pursuing.

“There is a radicalness to being a queer woman in a group of privilege, just being in tech myself. It’s kind of radical that I’m working here, and surviving, and thriving.”

It’s really easy to forget my duality in either context. When I met my girlfriend, she was working with homeless women a few blocks from my office. Dating her, I’ve gotten to feel and learn about both “tech sucks, it has so much privilege and it doesn’t talk about its privilege,” and, “Wait, there’s some surprising positive things in tech.” She’s so political, I don’t think she ever would have guessed that she would date someone in tech. But then also—there is a radicalness to being a queer woman in a group of privilege, just being in tech myself. It’s kind of radical that I’m working here, and surviving, and thriving.

A lot of times in queer communities, I do often feel out of place for working in a field of such privilege, but I do feel proud of that as long as I’m thinking about what social justice means there. So there’s nuance. Yes, I work in tech, but I’m trying to live that authentically and consciously.

Where have you found your support networks here?

My manager at Asana talks to me about everything through the lens of feelings, which is how I like to communicate. I appreciate mentorship from someone who is so multilingual: it’s rare to be able to talk about both feelings and technical work. A lot of my support has been external to work, because I need acknowledgement that it is work to be diverse and there are feelings that go along with that—and that’s not a conversation that happens much inside such a non-diverse field. My biggest support over the last few years, and someone who’s really increased my language around privilege in tech, is my girlfriend—she’s wonderful. And I do have to call out both of my parents as well.

“It’s rare to be able to talk about both feelings and technical work.”

Have there been any specific mentors or people that have been super pivotal in your career?

My manager has been very encouraging, though I haven’t worked with him directly on a team. But a lot of the growth that I’ve done is towards being able to run solo and having confidence in that. I’ve internalized over the last couple of years when you work inside a company, someone is deciding what work you’re doing. And definitely it is very liberating to have your own strong opinions about what I should be working on. I’ve been supported into having my own opinions and helping direct my own work, and also have input into what my team should be working on and how we work together. Inside most tech companies there’s less hierarchy and more making sure that lots of people are empowered. That’s been very positive for me.

What is important to you in a job now versus the beginning?

When I was applying for my first job from the East Coast, it was so hard to tell what companies were looking for, or to evaluate all the promises companies made. And so I just ended up working at the place I felt most emotionally comfortable. I loved that their job posting included not just technical requirements, but also their company values as well. I was really excited at the prospect of a job that was going to appreciate me for more than just my technical skills. Now that I’ve been in Silicon Valley for a few years, I recognize the nuance of how business models influence what you’re actually working on, of how specific engineering practices relate to your day-to-day, and how much time you have to spend fixing old issues as opposed to working on new features.

“I want white dudes to notice when they’re in rooms of all white dudes, and to acknowledge that it’s an issue.I’ve been in meetings that were 17 men and me. And I was so distracted the whole time. I kept going around and counting how many men were in the meeting with me because I just felt it so much. I really appreciated afterwards someone came up to me afterwards and said, ‘Did you notice you were the only woman in that meeting? That was weird.'”

And now I’m even more appreciative of being recognized as a whole person. I can imagine myself stuck at another company just typing code. At my current job, I’m appreciated for my emotional skills through management, I’m appreciated for my opinions about how products should be formed. That’s let me grow into a more well-rounded career, and let me pick my passions. It’s given the space for me to advocate strongly for diversity work and be a part of the process too. I’ve been part of the process as my company recognized diversity and inclusion work is a full time job, and as we hired someone into that roll, and I still feel listened to for my input.

Let’s talk more about your opinions on that—like what do you think tech could be doing better right now to be more accommodating to diversity?

The biggest thing is not only acknowledging how un-diverse tech is, but acknowledging in the day to day that that’s an issue, and believing it’s worth fixing. I want white dudes to notice when they’re in rooms of all white dudes, and to acknowledge that it’s an issue. Even though I work at an extremely thoughtful company—our numbers aren’t great. My engineering team is 9% women, let alone queerness, let alone groups I’m not even parts of, that I’m uncomfortable that we’re missing.

“I’m looking for humility from tech, stating that we own and acknowledge the lack of diversity is a problem and it’s our problem, or even just showing more complex understanding of the fact that they’re part of an issue. It makes me so pissed every time I hear someone say it’s a pipeline issue. Especially when you look at how many people are graduating with degrees from college with computer science degrees, and Silicon Valley is nowhere near as diverse as that. So you can talk about a pipeline issue, but that is not acknowledging your own flaws. I think that a first step is at least recognizing and validating the experience of the people that are out there.”

I’ve been in meetings that were 17 men and me. And I was so distracted the whole time. I kept going around and counting how many men were in the meeting with me because I just felt it so much. I really appreciated afterwards someone came up to me afterwards and said, “Did you notice you were the only woman in that meeting? That was weird.”

I’m looking for humility from tech, stating that we own and acknowledge the lack of diversity is a problem and it’s our problem, or even just showing more complex understanding of the fact that they’re part of an issue. It makes me so pissed every time I hear someone say it’s a pipeline issue. Especially when you look at how many people are graduating with degrees from college with computer science degrees, and Silicon Valley is nowhere near as diverse as that. So you can talk about a pipeline issue, but that is not acknowledging your own flaws. I think that a first step is at least recognizing and validating the experience of the people that are out there.

At a high level, how do you feel about the state of tech in 2016. What really excites you and what frustrates you?

There’s lots exciting about tech. I’m personally excited about tech in enterprise, which is creating things quickly as applied to how people do productive things. I appreciate getting to make something of value that’s such a core part of people’s workflows.

“Tech has so much potential, I think it’s worth being frustrated about because I love it and I think we could be doing better.”

What pisses me off the most is lack of acknowledgement of privilege and what that means. And that’s nothing new—there have always been so many industries with money who don’t recognize that. Tech has so much potential, I think it’s worth being frustrated about because I love it and I think we could be doing better.

How do you think your background and life experience impact the way that you approach your work?

My queerness has made me so emotional, and I think there’s so much room for emotional coders. It definitely makes me think about communication way more deeply. And that applies even more clearly to management than technical work. There is lots of room for emotional coaching in encouraging people to grow into responsibility, and I do that.

My best job before software engineering was as a summer camp counselor, and it’s just so funny how parallel some of those experiences are, in trying to find and share joy, and embarking on this huge collaborative journey together, whatever it is.

“My queerness has made me so emotional, and I think there’s so much room for emotional coders. It definitely makes me think about communication way more deeply.”

What are you working on right now, this year, either for work or for yourself?

I’ll say, this year, for myself, I’m working on making a stable, beautiful adult home life, starting to have gardens and making kombucha, trying to figure out long term purposes. I’m growing into a mature person in this city. It’s not brand new for me anymore!

My last question for you would be what advice would you have for folks from similar backgrounds or facing similar struggles, hoping to get into tech?

Work your network or work whatever is closest to your network. I have such a soft spot for people that I connect with emotionally, and talking them through application processes, whether it’s my company or even somewhere else. There are people who resonate with you, and it will bring them joy to help you find a job that’s going to make you happy. Like, if I’m going to be a marginalized person in tech, then part of my purpose is to help my kind, so if it’s not me I’m sure they can find someone.

Especially, traditional networking made me very uncomfortable in lots of ways, like feeling very insincere. And I think a lot of that didn’t seem my type, or my type of small talk even. But there are people out there—there are companies out there that are going to value your full personality. There’s enough jobs in tech that you can find one that is right for you, that accepts you, that is excited by you.

“There are people out there—there are companies out there that are going to value your full personality. There’s enough jobs in tech that you can find one that is right for you, that accepts you, that is excited by you.”