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Episode 37 - Anya Rudolph, Senior Staff Engineer at CLARK
37 Plays4 months ago
Back after the summer break 🏝
With many benefits to getting into tech, the financial benefit is one that we do not speak about much, especially amongst women. Anya shares her experience in looking for a job that pays well which ultimately landed her in the tech space and the advice she would give to other women when considering a career with the financials in mind 💸
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Transcript
Anya's Tech Career Journey
00:00:14
Speaker
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to a new episode of Women Talk Tech. Today, I'm joined by Anya, staff engineer at Clark, who shared her motivation and journey behind her tech career so far. At the topic we tend not to like to talk about, Anya shared the positive side of being in tech, the financials. She encourages other women to look at the tech career with financials in mind as well. So, Anya, tell me a little bit more about yourself.
00:00:40
Speaker
Yeah, well, what is there to say? I'm a professional software developer for about, I don't know, I think it's about 15 years. I've been a non-professional software developer before that, during my study times. I've been, that's also how I got into software development. um I've been doing websites for um friends and relatives and colleagues. You say when you have a colleague, but you're at university, I think there's a word for it. I can't think of it right now. Anyway.
00:01:08
Speaker
um And then I started my own, I tried to start my own business in 2011. That failed miserably because I wasn't aware that um starting a business requires you to have a little bit more than what I had in terms of customers that existed before. um And in 2012, I then was recruited by an agency, started on a junior developer path and have been working as a software engineer ever since.
00:01:36
Speaker
um And currently I'm working at a company called Klapp, which is a fintech startup based in Germany. And yeah, that's me. Amazing, amazing. I'm sure we'll kind of dive a bit deeper into your career journey.
Understanding Bias in Tech
00:01:48
Speaker
And what does DNI mean to you? Just very simply and very um on and for your kind of own personal journey. um What does diversity and inclusion mean to you? And and why is it important to you? Well, I would now take the perspective of being an intersectional feminist on this one, to be honest, because um There are probably two aspects that we want to look at. The one is that from an ethical standpoint, we need to realize that the institutions and our society has some institutional biases that favor some people over other people and that actively ah we inhibits certain groups of people from achieving as much or from participating as much. And this is just plainly immoral.
00:02:33
Speaker
and Thankfully, thanks to modern legislation also illegal and of at least largely illegal, there are still a lot of institutional biases that are very much leveraged against minority groups. Now, um the perspective that I would want to take on this is that from this recognizing this as being something we deem immoral, we should aim towards dismantling these systems and we should aim towards actively removing these barriers and putting systems into place that counteract their reemergence, because these kind of biases, they don't just arise from institutions and how they're structured, but they also arise from the individual contributions every one of us. And being maybe uninformed about certain biases that one holds, it is always favorable to be part of a system that tries to counteract these individual biases. The other aspect that I would want to take on this is that as companies,
00:03:31
Speaker
we don't want to fall into the trap of um having only a subset of essentially the human experience in our employee pools. Because these kind of biases and the blind eyes that we turn, because because we only have our own personal experiences, um they project through on the products and services that we offer. And that ends up being a less qualitatively um how do you say, that ends up being a worse product than what we could do if we had a more diverse cast of employees that um support us with all of their differing and varying perspectives on life. Wow, it's really interesting you brought that last point up because I recently went to a um workshop with um UN n Women UK and Kearney and we literally discussed the exact same issue. We discussed how most digital products and most digital solutions are made
00:04:30
Speaker
through not a gender inclusive lens, which means products are being made by men um for women or by men for everyone. And you're right in a sense whereby products are being made or they could be better if they just had a more inclusive developer behind it. But really, gender is only is only the the most obvious thing where diversity and inclusion matters a lot. I think there are other also obvious if you have a heart and have two eyes and look into society and how it works,
00:05:00
Speaker
but then also other very much less obvious things that we have to take into account. And one of those things that um that is also where very near and dear to my heart as a white person is racism, because I am exempt from that. I do not suffer from it. I do not know what it is like. And this is a set of biases that has never affected me in my life personally. But however, I am actively participating in a system that perpetrates these knowingly or unknowingly. And I'm actively benefiting from these kinds of racist systems being in place, right?
00:05:30
Speaker
And so first of all, informing myself about these kinds of things and being developing an awareness is one of those things which is really important. And when we take a look at the second perspective of what happens in teams where these kinds of things don't get looked at by virtue of being essentially teams of young, white um men,
00:05:53
Speaker
um we see things like the curve corrections for gamma contrast and selfie cameras not properly optimizing towards skin tones that are not white. And we may say that this is maybe not the most important thing in the world, but on the other hand, who is to deny a subset of humanity the same right of being represented and being um taken into account when it comes to the kind of technologies that we surround us ourselves with.
00:06:23
Speaker
And as technology increase as technology increases in complexity, these kind of biases can become hidden. And the only way that we expose those biases is by having um the ability to recognize them in our teams before they essentially hit the market and affect real people in the real world. Because um not being able to take a selfie is maybe not the most important thing in the world and don't understand this wrongly. I am very much in favor of everybody being able to take selfies of the same quality, right? Even though this is a trivial thing, it is by no means something that I would want to deny some people. um The point is that this should never have been something that would have ah would have to be discovered by people that are not employees at Google where the specific thing happened, right? This should have been discovered before that. And as long as we are only talking about things that have low impacts,
00:07:17
Speaker
It doesn't really affect people so in a very negative way. But as soon as we are talking about, I don't know, biases in recruitment platforms, biases in even military technology, if we want to go there, then we can easily come through scenarios where these kind of biases end up affecting the lives of humans, of people in an extremely negative way. And that's something that we should very much be aware of as workers in technology.
00:07:44
Speaker
It's not just about assets, it's also about the kind of effects that our work has in the world. Yeah, yeah. and And also like not only the effects, but also the, I guess it's really hard because of course I am, as as ah a woman of color myself, I can really, really relate to what you were saying. And I think a good example, I remember when the skin tone emojis finally came out and that in itself, such a revelation, right? I was like, oh my God, I can now put a thumbs up in my own color. And it's funny you say that because I didn't,
00:08:11
Speaker
I didn't think about it until they made the change. Like I just thought this is how it is because that's how it's always been. But when the change was made, it was like, oh, my this is amazing, right? But there's probably so many other instances like what you mentioned that do come up and do spring to mind, I'm sure for many. And I mean, you problem that place it this emoji, um this emoji color problem was that I never even thought about it because I was comfortable being the default.
Financial Motivations in Tech Careers
00:08:38
Speaker
And speaks to this speaks to our society just having a fundamental problem representing all the structure of society that make part of it, right? Yeah, totally, totally, totally. Oh my gosh, we could go into so much detail there. But you know let's go back to yourself. Take us back to the start of your career. I guess what were your main motivations for joining the tech space? I'm always keen to find out how people got here.
00:09:03
Speaker
the The truth of the matter is it was rather arbitrary. So I was studying medicine at the time and they come from a worker family. So I didn't really have the benefit of a family that was supporting me a lot financially. I mean, they did their best, but didn't really amount to much. And so I was dependent on a German system called Bafferk, which is essentially um you receive so a small allowance as long as you're a student, but you only receive that for a certain amount of time. Studying medicine takes a long time.
00:09:33
Speaker
I wasn't exactly aware of that there was a cutoff. And when this cutoff hit me, then I was confronted with the situation. So how do I earn money? So I tried to do the thing that I was essentially doing on the side, which is making websites for people. And I tried to make essentially a job out of it. And that's at the end how I got into software development. I just discovered that I was rather good at it and continued doing it and continued doing it more professionally and more professionally and more professionally until at the end of the day at some point there was this question of okay do you actually want to continue earning money or do you want to continue ah picking up your studies but at some point this question didn't really um make any sense to ask anymore because um you I was living in a very precarious situation and um
00:10:21
Speaker
the laws of financial stability was, at the end of the day, a lot stronger than any um like more abstract, more long-term thinking of mine that would have gotten me back to university, which is a pity. And I kind of regret that decision, to be completely honest. But I don't know what I would have done differently if I were in the same situation again today.
00:10:44
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, really interesting then. Why did you not study computer science in the first place? Like, of course, it's great that you studied a, site you know, a STEM subject, or at least a science or math subject. But what prevented you maybe from studying computer science or engineering or it in the very beginning?
Gender Bias and Career Choices
00:11:01
Speaker
Because I'm a woman, right? I mean, right those institutional biases that we have to, or not institution, just a cycle biases that we kind of have to talk about, because um If you grow up a girl, then you are being told at any point, and at any intersection of the way, not to invest into these kinds of careers because a man will take care of you at some point in your life and it's going to be meaningless anyway. And also there's this whole messaging around, oh yeah, math is not for girls and whatever. So um this is the kind of thing that biased me personally against um picking up this subject because I thought it's going to be just, well, an ecosystem of um
00:11:43
Speaker
men that I'm going to have very little in common with, and I'm going to have a harder time to succeed. And then also medicine specifically, this was also driven from me um having a lack of social prestige and thinking that becoming becoming a doctor would fix that.
00:11:59
Speaker
wow wow wow honestly so interesting there because i mean firstly the medicine side of things is really interesting that you kind of went into that to you know some somehow get some sort of social status or you know be recognized for for what you were doing um but then equally right not doing computer science because it was going to be a male dominated space and and that's something which i think everyone thinks about right you spend three years at university, do you want to spend three years of your life being surrounded by just men? And also not even just men, like a certain demographic of men, let's say white German men.
00:12:32
Speaker
yeah okay like okay it's It's a question that you definitely do have to ask yourself, right? Like, is that what you want? And I'm guessing in your side, probably not. No, absolutely not. I mean, at this point, I was already aware that this kind of, let's say, a specific demographic of men was also rampant with misogynists. And the older they got, the more um the more misogyny they're going to have. So the average professor in IT is probably going to be posing me with additional challenges and seeing my own success in this field with more biases than other professors and other subjects would.
00:13:12
Speaker
So this was very much also a strategic decision that I thought yeah like, yeah, I might have an interest in computers and programming and I kind of am good with tinkering with them. But this is just not something that I want to make a career of precisely because I have fear that I will not be able to succeed in it. And um then this pad this this kind of biased me towards the life sciences because I knew that social sciences wouldn't be the right path for me.
00:13:34
Speaker
even though I did have a very passionate interest in linguistics for a while, which I still retain to this day. And I'm kind of sad that I didn't do more of with u with that. But anyway, um and so this kind of made me want to pick up biology. And then I spoke to um a friend of the family that happened to be a doctor. um And what he told me essentially is that, yeah, what if you study biology and then just why don't you just go study medicine?
00:14:02
Speaker
You've got the grade for it, you've got the grades for it, and it's going to offer you better career advancement. Even if you want to go into science, um having a doctorate in medicine is going to open more doors than having a doctorate in biology. I mean, that's true. On the other hand, if I had actually picked up biology.
00:14:22
Speaker
Maybe I would be a just a biologist today, so who knows, right? Yeah, and and to be fair, right, both spaces are equally as male dominated, right? There's still such a bias against medicine and doctors being male dominated. Yeah, I mean, I actually, it's funny enough, I went with the same works where I went to, we were talking about where um young children were asked to describe a doctor and at no point did anyone draw a woman.
00:14:45
Speaker
um So even then, right, there's still the same biases or same struggles, I guess, in medicine and in many other science backgrounds or subjects. That was also something that I found very interesting to observe in my studies. We had about 70 percent female students. Wow. Right. um And the more senior you looked into the rant, the more male dominated it could be. Yeah. Right. yeah And I mean, I don't really think we need to go into the details, obviously.
00:15:15
Speaker
child rearing plays a role here, but I think that this also is representative of an institutional bias against women specifically. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That actively deters us from advancing in that space and taking up space. Yeah, that's really interesting as well, right, because we talk about there not being enough women in these spaces, and I think there are, or there are more than what we may assume, but they're just not progressing or advancing to the the top ranks, like you said.
00:15:43
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
Institutional and Cultural Biases
00:15:44
Speaker
There was also um a funny a funny meme that I saw a while ago, which essentially drew diversity and companies where um it was it was heads of people arranged emoji heads of people arranged in a pyramid, where the basis was a lot had a lot of diversity, both in terms of gender and also in terms of like skin colors being represented, etc. And the more you got up, the more it was dominated by white males. Yeah. Well, I think this is one thing that we have in a lot of our institutions and companies still.
00:16:13
Speaker
Yeah and I think that's why I'm so passionate about this subject because I don't just think it's a gender battle it's not just men versus women it's so much more. more you You know you can have you can have a team of of of great women if you've still then just got white blonde women there it's still not diverse so it's such a big thing to unpack and I think a lot of companies and I think maybe gender is quite gender Gender and I think race is easy to differentiate, but even then there's still so much more diversity in those still in those small groups, you know? Yeah, I mean, those are the like the big two ones where everybody can, or maybe saying it the other way around, where nobody can sensibly argue that they're unaware of it. Exactly.
00:16:54
Speaker
Yeah. but But there are a lot of others and I'm very much happy to admit that I certainly don't know all of the struggles of all of the minorities, even though I do try to make an effort. But um being aware of one's own um inability to see all of these kind of struggles of all of these other diverse groups is also an honest thing to do.
00:17:14
Speaker
That's the thing, that's where the issue or where the the progress will be made is that when people are just aware of what's happening and not in denial or or kind of you know somehow naive to the fact that this is an issue, you might not be able to change it and you might not have to change the situation you're in, but as long as you're aware of it, that's the most important thing I think. Absolutely.
00:17:34
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And let's talk about the financials because I think, you know, one thing that stuck out to me when you said you got into tech was because it was either keep studying or make money. um And then of course, right, let's be honest, there are so many careers you could have got into that would have allowed you to make money, but you chose tech. And I think when we last spoke, you spoke about, you know, picking a a job that pays well, right? um It's more than just meaning and purpose. That's all well and good. That's all amazing. But I think the money side is something which we I don't want to say overlook, but we try to hide away from. So tell me a bit about your kind of, I guess, reasoning for getting to get into tech on the financial side. I mean, it's very much a Maslow's hierarchy of needs thing. Yeah. You want to be able to afford shelter, food,
00:18:21
Speaker
information access, electricity, water, et cetera, et cetera. And having lived a large part of my life in rather precarious situations, not all of which were entirely not my fault, which I'm happy to am admit. um I kind of have this idea that um it is more important to satisfy like these more basal needs before one thinks about things such as passion. Now, those are mutually exclusive, you can absolutely find passion in an area that you also earn money in. But in my specific case, I kind of got into tech um half arbitrarily. And I stayed there because I happen to be good at it. And I happen to be able to derive a certain amount of financial stability from being in tech. Yeah. Now,
00:19:08
Speaker
if we were if If we want to be completely honest, we also have to ask this question of all of us. But given the opportunity, of if if all of you if your salary just if your current family just continues to be paid regardless of what you do for the rest of your life, what are you going to do with that life? If I speak about myself, I'm certainly going to do some tacky things. i might um even do more software development that I'm doing at the moment, because right now I'm also kind of caught up in administrative tasks and the kind of management and all of these kinds of things, right? And I might want to do more actual software development again. But the thing is, I would also want to acknowledge that as humans, we have this kind of diversity of passions that we want to indulge in. And these kinds of passions also change over time, right? So kind of collocating this idea of um our passion being captured
00:19:56
Speaker
in our job that also secures our income, that also secures our livelihoods, it's kind of created a double bind. And I also said that there's a fundamental dishonesty in wanting us to elide this like more basal hierarchy of needs um sustenance topic in favor of speaking about our intrinsic motivation to be in a certain job. Because again,
00:20:21
Speaker
Of course I have intrinsic motivation because otherwise I wouldn't have the motivation to excel at this job. But the point is that this intrinsic motivation sits on top of my basicness being matched.
00:20:32
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And I think equally right, it's okay to say what you've just said. I think a lot of women don't even want want to even speak about the money side of things or tend to... But not absolutely, let's be honest here, because this is very much a societal problem, right? Yeah, 100%. I mean, I tend not to want to speak about money to my friends or to family or or anyone, right? It just feels like it's not the right thing to do.
00:20:54
Speaker
look how that that's right i never right strategic from a strategic point of view, who benefits from us not speaking about our salaries, not speaking about money, et cetera, et cetera. It is not us. So who is it?
00:21:07
Speaker
hundred percent But it's really interesting to say that because when I do speak about when I have in all the conversations I've had about why women have got into tech I don't think many have spoken about the finances or the financial side I don't think many have said they got into tech because it pays well or they wanted to make a good amount of money and I think Yes, I'm sure it's ah a benefit from it. um But equally right, it's still such an advantage of being in tech, right? That should be ah a reason as to why people want to get into it. They want to earn a good amount of money to to kind of live a good life. There's nothing wrong with saying that. But I think the issue is we don't, I think maybe women mask their reason for getting into tech by other things and don't say the money.
Self-worth and Financial Independence in Tech
00:21:47
Speaker
Yes, absolutely. And I mean, if we look at women specifically, there's also this other phenomenon that we have to take into account where it is often misconstrued that women just arbitrarily choose jobs of lower income because it just matches their proclivities better. right um And what we see if we look into the data is that um as women enter a field, the salaries and the kind of societal standing of this field declines.
00:22:18
Speaker
right So this isn't just about us being paid less on average because we pick up um jobs that have smaller salaries. It's also because there's a misogynist bias at play that inherently devalues um an entire field if there are women present in it.
00:22:46
Speaker
wow that That, I think, is also one of the strong motivators to get into these male-dominated fields because as long as they are male-dominated, they also um just offer more opportunity, which again is something that I very much would want to deconstruct.
00:23:02
Speaker
Yes, yes, yes. why is that Yeah, you know, why is it that the spaces that men are in pay more? Why is it not the other way round or or? Yeah, you're right. Why should it be that the spaces men are in pay more? Why can't it just be that the ah the other way round? I mean, because men care for their own. Yeah, the truth is behind that the patriarchy is a self sustaining system.
00:23:27
Speaker
Yeah. And I think when we spoke last time, you mentioned a really valid point, you know, men seem to couple their self-worth with a job and the money they own. You know, I don't think women do the same. ah what I would hope they, it's more than just that, right? But I don't, it's such a tricky one to word and how to say it. But yeah, I don't think women tend to couple their self-worth with their job or money because it's life is more than that. But then I think then when saying that we tend to think that it's more important.
00:23:56
Speaker
by not valuing it or putting it first. You know, it's such a tricky one. There is um a feminist theorist and philosopher by the name of Camille Paulier that wrote an interesting book on that subject, but maybe not on that specific subject, but on something that could explain this kind of thing more in detail. And essentially her thesis is that um women live or find their identity more in themselves and in the kind of connections that they make with other people and in the kind of lives that they live. but So for a woman, it is more important to rest in oneself and to foster positive relationships with other humans. Whereas, and then this kind of becomes the the substrate upon which we construct our identities. And for men,
00:24:45
Speaker
It appears to be more that they take possession, they project their identity outwards, taking possession of their surroundings, of things, of also of other persons, families, partners, et cetera, et cetera. And then these kind of become extensions of themselves that they carry along. And by adding essentially their wage to their own, this kind of grows their identity.
00:25:06
Speaker
and I would not want this to be understood as something that is somehow derived from biology or whatever. It's like, if you have ovaries, you behave that way. if youre Yeah, that's nonsense. But I think that this is very much a social cultural thing that kind of arises from the way that we see gender nut behavior and gender roles in society. And that to me is also one of the reasons why men are driven towards this kind of achievement mentality where they want to earn money, earn more money than other people because it couples to their self-worth a lot more than it couples to women. Yeah. Wow. Wow. Wow.
00:25:43
Speaker
So much to unpack there, but i mean on your side, because of course you've been in you've been in the space for a while now, how do you think we can encourage more women to get into tech with the financials in mind? What do you think we need? I mean, I know something which I think is is important, but what do you think we can do to, I guess, couple that the reasons for getting into tech? not ah Not only being because of money?
00:26:07
Speaker
but being because of because of that. you know I mean, I speak with men all the time that say, why are they changing jobs because they want to earn more money? I speak with women and and it's their reason for changing jobs in tech is is never because of money. So how do you think we can maybe link the two and and encourage more women to get into the space with the financials in mind?
00:26:26
Speaker
um Let's start with the financials and then I would kind of want to end on a point that I think is even more important. So um if we look at um how women were positioned in society traditionally. We were essentially always in a position of being indentured servants to the families that we currently occupy. First the bath family, then the family of the husbands that we end up marrying. And this was a position that was not in some that that was absolutely mandatory. You could not escape the system because this is society did not provide sufficient degrees of freedom for women to extricate themselves from these kind of yeah essentially positions of servitude.
00:27:04
Speaker
And we find echoes of this even today, where um this, let's say, traditional family arrangement with one male person that essentially takes care of the financials and one female person taking care of the domestic work of children, et cetera, et cetera. And if people want to pursue this mode of life, then I'm not blaming them by all means. It's a very valid thing to want. But the thing is, I'm arguing that we should have choice.
00:27:32
Speaker
choice comes very much with independence, because these positions are indenture of being indentured very much are coupled with the financial degrees of freedoms that we have, because formally we are no longer mandated by law or tradition or society or whatever to retain to stay in these kind of relationships if we no longer want, but having the opportunities to accept a relationship specifically having the opportunity to actually exit a relationship that has maybe turned sour or that is even habit better that has even become physically abusive or these kinds of things, proves to be very hard for the victims in these kinds of situations. And having a lifeline back into independence is extremely important. So I would say that with tech jobs being more and more flexible these days and allowing more and more for remote work and these kinds of things,
00:28:22
Speaker
We can also end making making also space for part-time arrangements, et cetera. Even if one wants as a woman to dedicate oneself to being essentially the the primary child re-run care worker, domestic worker of a family, keeping one's skills relevant or maybe even working just two or three or four hours a week in a remote position at some tech company can keep us in a position where we can rapidly scale that up if we need an extra strategy from these kind of situations.
00:28:52
Speaker
And then I think the more important part, why should women get into tech more?
Encouraging Women in Tech
00:28:56
Speaker
Because we're good at it. Yeah. I have, in my career, worked with precious few other women, but every single one of them excelled at what she did. Yeah. Every single one. And I mean, this this may just be selection bias. And I'm very much aware that I'm not like pulling a statistically valid um analysis out of my arm here. But anyway,
00:29:19
Speaker
If you just take my anecdotal experience for at face value, then women excel at tech drops and we should definitely enter the space a lot more. wow Wow. Yeah. I couldn't agree more. I think women are amazing at whatever they do, but I think especially with tech, I think there are so many skill sets and qualities in women that I think are needed in in in spaces that are not only male dominated, but in spaces in general. So I think women can be good at anything they they want, but I think equally in tech where there are so many men, it would be lovely to have so many other women just doing amazing things in the tech space. So yeah, I couldn't agree more. And and and I really do hope this this episode does encourage other women to pursue a career in tech. So yeah, of course, I'm glad we could end on a positive note. And yeah, I wanted to say thank you so much for joining and just kind of sharing a different side to tech, which I don't think we talk about enough.