Everyone Has a Place in Tech: Olga, Program Manager

Let’s Fast-forward to my Childhood

The world of mathematics, programming, complex calculations… Could I imagine my life story without it? Hardly. From my earliest years, I was inspired by my family’s example and had a strong interest in studying STEM. My grandma is an honored teacher of mathematics from the Soviet Union, my mom is a developer, and my father is an engineer-manager who invented a ventilation system in Ukraine. Can you believe these people raise a writer, an artist, or a movie star? Probably yes, but considering that the spirit of tech was in the air, it was impossible not to fall in love with STEM.

My Studying Years

And so when it was time to choose my future path, I was inspired by the parental example and had no doubts that engineering is the right way for me. To get an excellent basic knowledge, I started my way in the Physics and Technology lyceum, in an incredibly friendly class with 50/50 girls and boys. Honestly, I’ve never heard that boys are smarter than girls, and this spirit of equality inspired me to be better every day.

The first step is behind, so let’s move on to university years. I decided to dig into the protection of information. Programming, signals, physics, soldering — all of these were incredibly interesting for me, but not for other girls. Out of one hundred students on my speciality, only fifteen were girls, and half of them had enrolled there by accident. I think, somewhere on the way to adulthood, though, girls lose the feeling of confidence and give up on the hard things. Definitely, as in any field, it takes time and effort to figure it out, but it doesn’t mean you couldn’t do it. As soon as you start to succeed, you automatically start to like it. It happened to me too.

Success Comes From Unexpected Places

I always feel the passion and the curiosity to dig into a problem and try to solve it. Throughout my university years, I have always been studying hard to be a professional in my field. That’s why my third year of university was the beginning of the career path. Morning, tram, me being sleepy and going to university… My glance fell upon the Microsoft training center, and an ambitious thought came to my mind: “how cool it would probably be to work there.”

In those days I didn’t know that dreams could come true. And just in a couple of months, I became (the happiest girl ever) an intern in the partners’ relations department, where I successfully got my first work experience.

A few years later. Same tram, the same morning, but a new office in my eyes — Hewlett-Packard. I always kept saying, “Yes,” to new things and experimenting, and, as you can guess, after a while, I became a support engineer in this company. You couldn’t even imagine how exciting and, at the same time, hard my position was. I had to support enterprise clients in storage systems, network and server equipment at the level of installation, maintenance, repair, upgrades, large installation projects, software updates. When I applied for the position, my manager had a fear that I was a girl and the job is something that I’m not a match for, but a good knowledge of the architecture of computer networks helped me to become a part of the Hewlett-Packard team.

Just imagine 80 kg.. You have your hands, your partner, and no one else who could help you. I worked with large banks, mobile operators, where the servers look much larger than our computer, and it is difficult to lift them. There were cases when clients called the coordinators and asked to send a normal engineer, not a girl, but I did not pay attention to this. I believe that professionalism does not depend on gender, and I have always tried to prove it by my example.

From Lifting Servers to Managing Tech Teams

Despite the complexity and non-typical responsibilities for the girl, I really liked my work at Hewlett-Packard. For 3 years there I got a lot of rewards and good reviews, and I was especially good at leading teams, assembling data centers from scratch. Then the fun began. And as a girl who likes to challenge herself, I decided to change my speciality and dive into project management.

My path as a project manager began in a small IT company focused on mobile and web development, where I led the development team. While juggling projects, I boosted my skill and got incredible experience in communication with clients and managing teams. But I always wanted something more, and this time began. It was 2014, the time of the revolution in Ukraine, I wanted to work on a project that helped my county. I decided to return to the capital, where I was hired by a company that made mobile applications for Ukrainian business, where I successfully led projects. Trying to reach a new height, I got into a gambling company, where I built a development department from scratch. Then I got into a Swedish company with Ukrainian origins — Sigma Software, where I successfully led IT projects that help our clients worldwide.

Why Technical Background Matters

If I had the opportunity to change something in my career path, I would not change anything. After all, a girl’s technical path is no different from a man’s. Technical education shapes your thinking and helps in many areas of life. Now I am a project manager, but I actively apply my tech knowledge there, as the team speaks in a technical language, and on the other side, a client speaks in a business language. My task as a project manager is not only to create an efficient team and development processes but to be a translator who builds a bridge between both sides: technical and non-technical. Knowledge of technical aspects helps a lot in this.

Also, it seems to me that girls by nature are more empathic than men, and this skill helps a lot in my work: you can understand the needs of the clients, team and build efficient communication with them. This is often not the strongest male side.

Everyone Has a Place in Tech

I believe that technical or non-technical, everyone has a place in tech. Every background, skill set, gender and perspective brings value to tech companies and helps boost innovation.

If you hesitate to choose a tech profession or don’t believe in yourself, the best advice I could give is to just try and keep going. Now in 21 century, with access to all the information, you could change specialities at any time. Besides, diversity in our time is at a very high level, but still, some people will not believe in you. Be stronger, don’t pay attention, and keep saying, “Yes,” to experimenting, and slowly but surely, things will come together.