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    • Oct 6, 2020
    • 11 min read

October 6: Women in Tech Weekly Issue 79

Happy Tuesday! We have so many reasons to celebrate today – keep on killing it, ladies ❤️

If you’d like to submit anything for next week’s issue, please do so using the submission form at the bottom of this post.

Celebrations 🥂🎉

Soundarya completed her Engineering degree 🥳!

In her own words:

“Finally Graduated 🙌🏻 All the hard work and consistency paid off.”




Whoopee!!! I have finally graduated 🎓 This 4 years were incredible 💃🏻 I still remember my first lecture which was Concepts of C Programming. I was scared and excited at the same time. I was teeny-tiny girl who was making her way into the tech world. My First Year started with C, M1, M2, Chem, Physics, Basic Electric-Electronics, Elements of Civil-Mech, to Second Year of M3, M4, Logic Design, Unix Shell, Computer Architecture, Data Structure, Oops, Web Programming, Operating System, Algorithms, Micro processor-controllers, DBMS, JAVA…to Third Year of Formal Lang, Automata Theory, Software Engineering, Computer Networks, Management, Distributed Computing, Compiler Design, Computer Graphics, OOMD, IoT, Software Design to the Final Year where I studied about Cloud Computing, Software Testing, Data Science Embedded Systems, Simulation and Artificial Intelligent followed by plenty of assignments, workshops, small/big projects and Internships… I have come so far and I'm proud of what I have become. Happy Learning 💫 Have a great day 🙌🏻 #womanintech #womaninstem #womanempowerment #engineeringgals #dev_girls #womenengineers #womenintech #womeninstem #engineeringlife #futureisfemale #makespaceforwomen #softwareengineer #shecanstem #cutetechgirls #girlsinstem #computerscience #graduation #computersciencestudent #classof2020 #breakingstereotypes #devlife #steminist #codingisfun #2020graduate🎓 #girl_loves_coding

A post shared by smk (@smk.codes) on Sep 25, 2020 at 3:45am PDT

Maddy started working for Google!

In her own words:

“I started my first (non-internship) job at Google. After passing the coding interviewers, I’m now a software engineer in the Google Health product area.”




𝗠𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗪𝗟𝗕 𝗜𝗻 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗖𝗢𝗩𝗜𝗗⁣ I’m now a software engineer at @google! 💼 Thank you to everyone who has supported me throughout the way; you mean the world to me, and I will forever remain grateful ❤️⁣ ⁣ As this is a recent development and my first ever (non-internship) job, I’m still figuring out how to balance work and life (aka not taking meetings in my PJs in the morning and logging out when the work day ends is hard😂). My coworkers have given me some tips that I thought I would share in case you are in a similar boat.⁣ ⁣ 1. Exercise Regularly: I personally love cardio, and I run 2-4 miles daily. If it makes sense for you space-wise / financially, consider a standing desk! Major shoutout to google’s WFH stipend for funding my standing desk (as well as my AC and basically everything on my desk🙏)⁣ ⁣ 2. Physically Separate Your Work From Your Personal Life: At some point during my remote internship this summer, I was literally lying in bed almost the entire day coding / eating snacks / sleeping – this would make me lethargic and unmotivated for days at a time. Nowadays, I make a point to only put work stuff on my work table, and I have a separate table where I leave my personal effects and use my own laptop.⁣ ⁣ 3. Maintain a Regular Schedule: Even if you don’t need to do something at a specific time / day, schedule a recurring event (e.g. laundry on Sundays, dinners at 6pm) and stick with it! The sense of normality derived from this has really made a difference for me.⁣ ⁣ What tips would you add?👇⁣ ⁣ ⁣ ⁣ ⁣ ⁣ #workfromhome #google #softwareengineering #girlswhocode #googlers #lifeatgoogle #noogler #girlsintech #softwareengineer #womenwhocode #girlsthatcode #remotework #codingdays #productivitytips⁣

A post shared by Maddy (@madeline.m.zhang) on Sep 28, 2020 at 12:57pm PDT

Alina is celebrating 8 months completed at GitLab and 100 merge requests merged!

In her own words:

“I have the opportunity to work for GitLab, it’s a dream to be part of this amazing team.”




A post shared by Alina Mihaila (@alina_vancea89) on Sep 23, 2020 at 1:05am PDT

Zakiya got a promotion!

In her own words:

“I have been promoted to consultant from associate consultant. I work as full stack developer.”

Kirin got an award for the game she built!

In her own words:

“I founded Illumix (an Augmented reality startup) 3 years ago and our first game built on our technology (Five Nights at Freddy’s AR) was released almost a year ago. We were just this week honored by Fast Company for the game being one of the best apps and games in 2020 overall. We were alongside apps like Disney Plus and Adobe Photoshop.”




A post shared by Kirin | Tech startup | AI (@kirinsinha) on Sep 30, 2020 at 1:57pm PDT

Kaylee presented her workshop at GHC!

In her own words:

“Ever since I went to Grace Hopper Celebration for the first time 4 years ago I aspired to one day present at GHC — this became reality for me on Saturday! I presented my workshop Make Your Visions Come True: Creating Your 5-Year Career Virtual Vision Board to 500 attendees!”




A post shared by Kaylee || Software Engineer (@justacoderthing) on Oct 3, 2020 at 10:50am PDT

Dana & Angela are celebrating one year of their career change podcast!

In their own words:

“We had the honor to interview 29 guests so far and a third of them switched from different careers to tech! Masha is our 12th guest 🙂

In the blog post included, we have a list of these episodes for you to check out!”




It’s our one year anniversary! 🎂 🎂 🎂 🎂 🎂 Woohoo! Our podcast turned one year old!! It’s an amazing feeling and we are so grateful. Here is what we are doing for our birthday: 1. Take stock 2. Reflect 3. Plan forward We highly encourage you to swipe right ➡️ to listen to Ann off-tune birthday song! 1️⃣ What did we do last year? We’ve published interviews on 28 amazing humans who switched careers and found more fulfilling careers. The later part of these interviews also took into account their experiences in #covıd. We’ve included a detailed list of three main categories of careers our guests transitioned to. Link is in bio! Fun fact, the blog has actually been going for almost two years at this point! 2️⃣ Our thoughts? Well, there are two things we loved most – one is to connect with our guests and learn about them, and second is the feeling of being creative while putting together content for the audiences. They do take painstakingly long, but are so worth it. What we wish was different is if the writing and editing could be easier… but practice makes perfect! 3️⃣ Let’s talk about what we want to do next Here are some ideas. The podcast can turn into something more informative where we group interviews into mini series focusing on specific careers. We can start doing book reviews or have episodes where we talk more in depths on certain careers. We can also invite more hiring managers to get you the first hand deets on what they look for when hiring someone with nontraditional background. 🥤 🥤 🥤 🥤 🥤 But for now, please join us in celebrating our one-year birthday…with a (caffeinated) beverage of your choice, and ours will be the beloved pumpkin cream cold brew ❤️ #podcastapp #podcastsofinstagram #careerpodcast #celebrateus #womenempowerment #workinprogressblogs #covidpodcast

A post shared by Work In Progress (@work_in_progress_blogs) on Sep 23, 2020 at 11:23am PDT

Sundas is helping create the upcoming Google Data Certificate!

This is so cool, Sundas – you are such a badass 🥰 I bet it’s going to be an awesome experience and one of many to come!




A post shared by Sundas | Breaking Stereotypes (@sundaskhalidd) on Oct 2, 2020 at 8:50am PDT

Pariss has left her 9-5 to go full-time on her business!

Congratulations with this awesome milestone, Pariss! It’s scary but will be so worth it and lead to so much fulfillment ❤️




A post shared by <P A R I S S A T H E N A 🤍/> (@parissathena) on Oct 1, 2020 at 9:29am PDT

Sarah has submitted her PhD!

Ahh yesss! That must be such an amazing feeling, Sarah, congratulations! 🥰




I submitted my PhD🎉!!!! . After 4 years of research, thousands of hours of experiments, days on days of trouble shooting, 4 published first author papers, multiple conference presentations, and so many friendships along the way… I am proud to share I submitted my PhD dissertation yesterday🎉. . Here in Canada, this is the first step in the PhD graduation process. My thesis is submitted to my committee of examiners and now they have the next 7 weeks (to the day) to pick my thesis apart and prepare their questions for my oral defence in November. This is probably why I didn’t feel as much relief as I was hoping after I submitted yesterday👀. . The next 7 weeks will be dedicated to hardcore studying for my oral defence. And as much as I want it to all just be over with, my dad gave me an important reminder yesterday. He told me to enjoy the process, because it’s 4 years of work that went into it, and as much as I want it to be over, it will be bitter sweet in the end✨. . So my goal is to try and enjoy the next 7 weeks, and soak in the feeling of almost being a Dr. Because who knows if I will ever experience this excitement and anticipation every again in my life🤷🏻‍♀️. . Also- today is the first day I have put on nice clothes, and done my makeup and hair since MARCH!! I woke up this morning feeling myself again and excited for the road ahead❤️.

A post shared by SAH🇨🇦 (@science.bae) on Sep 29, 2020 at 8:36am PDT

Kim got a contract to hire!

You go girl, hard work and persistence always pays off! Very excited to hear where this takes you, rooting for you! ❤️




🍾👩🏽‍💻💼  Twitter saw it first– but I GOT A CONTRACT TO HIRE GIG! (4 month contract with full time hours!) I was unemployed/without an offer for 114 days during the 2020 COVID pandemic. While "manifesting" is not quite a strategy that creates results, it's quite the driver in keeping yourself accountable. After updating my LinkedIn, I took EVERY SINGLE RECRUITER CALL that came my way. No matter how tired I was. I reached out to recruiters I worked with in the past and applied to at least 100+ jobs (Salesforce & non-Salesforce, partime, contract & fulltime too!). 🙌🏼 Had some very strong competition over the past few months as far as getting certain gigs and what I wanted, but I got it and I'm over the moon ☺️ While I wanted a full time gig, I at least know I'm on the right track. Many of the people I've spoken with over the months will know how much of a relief this is for me. On a personal note, I am still working with a client for tiny ad hoc support. My times also will change as far as my consulting and career service commitments, but I am still working with professionals to get them where they want to be! ⚒ 💡 I wanted to share this since many of you didn't even know I was unemployed. Do not get discouraged- there is always a lesson in the things that the universe throws your way! 🎊 If you got a job recently, I want to celebrate you too! Comment on your most recent gig or comment with a "🎉" to celebrate other's wins! 🌱 Ready to work together? Lipstick and Tech offers a variety of career services for cloud computing professionals. Learn more about the full list of services on our Career Services Page (Link in bio) 🌱 . . . . . . . . #newjob #igotthejob #ididit #newgoals #newchallenges #sohappy  #lovewhereiwork #careergoals  #timetocelebrate #recession #recessionproof #covid_19 #coronavirus #economy #recession2020 #unemployment #money #careergrowth #careertalk #businessopportunity #growthmindset #staypositive

A post shared by Salesforce Consulting & Coach (@lipstickandtech) on Sep 29, 2020 at 2:50pm PDT

Free course helping you identify what will make you feel successful in life and what goals your should set for yourself. Because no good journey can happen without a destination in mind!

Take control over your life, priorities and create a clear vision for your path. Don’t live someone else’s life. Enrol here 🙂

Resources 👩‍💻

Alija says:

“Amy Landino is a woman I follow not in tech but inspiring in what she is doing business-related.”

Machine Learning 101 – created and shared by Kirin

Kirin says:

“Simple breakdown of main concepts and algorithms in machine learning for anyone who is interested in the field. Part of a larger AI series that includes posts on AI, and next up will be deep learning, computer vision, and more!”




Part 2 of the "byte sized" series into AI! 🤖 This is an overview of some of the main types of machine learning and how they work using some visuals & examples. ⁠⠀⁣ ⁠⠀⁣ Was this helpful? Let me know if the comments below if you have a real-world example of ML or any questions 🤓⁠⠀⁣ ⁠⠀⁣ ⁠⠀⁣ 👩🏾‍💻 Follow for a dive into deep learning next time! ⁠⠀⁣ ⁠⠀⁣ ⁠⠀⁣ ⁠⠀⁣ ⁠⠀⁣ ⁠⠀⁣ ⁠⠀⁣ #techblogger #womenintech #womeninstem #womenwhocode #steminist #codinglife #girlswhocode #shecanstem #breakingstereotypes #femtrepreneur #entrepreneurlife #mixedreality #augmentedreality #nerdygirls #techstartup #machinelearning #artificialintelligence #ai #ml #deeplearning #robotics #hightech #bigdata #datascience #computerscience #computerengineering #womeninai #algorithm #techstartup #programmer⁠⠀⁣ ⁠⠀⁣

A post shared by Kirin | Tech startup | AI (@kirinsinha) on Sep 17, 2020 at 10:29am PDT

One Year On Podcast – created and shared by Dana & Angela

Dana & Angela say:

“Some of Masha’s followers are probably thinking about switching to tech and we interviewed guests who have done exactly that (through bootcamp or taught themselves to code). Most of our interviewees are women so we provide Masha’s followers with a perspective that they can relate to.”

Samantha says:

“In this video I share the different paths to Data Science and give advice to those wanting to take the self-taught route. I share my semi-self-taught journey to Data Science and give reasons why in the end I took the academic route.”


How to Come up with Programming Projects – created and shared by me 🙂

Projects are awesome because not only do they help us practice our programming and problem-solving skills, but also they allow us to experience this creative process from start to finish. They are also a great way to demonstrate your coding abilities! Let’s talk about the benefits of having projects, how you can come up with projects to build and finally, some examples of programming projects.


Please let me know your thoughts in the comments below and if you’d like to share something for next week’s issue, here’s the submission form!! Bookmark that and add anything you’d like to share in there 🙂

</Coding Blonde>

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