5 Tips from Stack Overflow’s Melissa Sauceda for Healthy Productivity at Work
Melissa Sauceda isn’t at all worried about robots coming for her job.
“I tell my team that all the time,” says the Manager of Customer Implementation and Enablement at knowledge sharing platform Stack Overflow. “Stack could easily bring on robots to onboard customers, but we know that it’s our consultative presence in the customer partnership that is one of the biggest value-adds, and why folks choose us.”
That’s because working productively with others is as much of an art as it is a science, explains Melissa, who knows something about the mix of both. A former sociology student, Melissa is fascinated by looking into human behavior with an analytical approach.
In a way, her career has been all about using technology to facilitate human experience and learning, first as an administrator in higher education, and now as a manager in tech. Within Stack’s collaborative, non-hierarchical structure, Melissa has found that true productivity comes from empowering individuals through communication, iteration, and open-mindedness.
And those are three qualities that she and her (very human) teammates have in spades.
“Stack Overflow is easily the most collaborative environment in which I’ve ever worked, including in institutions of higher learning,” she says. “I’m learning a lot about operationalizing and making work more efficient, but still delivering best-in-class customer service.”
We sat down with Melissa to talk about some of those learnings, including what advice she’d give to other managers and leaders looking to unlock their team’s productivity.
The Human Side of Tech
Melissa got into tech after using an AI tool to help predict upcoming enrollment numbers at her employer, the University of San Francisco. The predictive insight was so helpful, and she was so convinced by it, that she ended up getting a job offer from the company that made the tool — and accepted it.
The timing was right. Melissa comes from a family of educators, but she was beginning to have trouble reconciling her belief in the importance of education with the life-changing debt that many students had to take on. And after working through the pandemic at a job that was stable yet stagnant, the chance to move to Stack Overflow was one Melissa was ready to jump on.
“I had been on autopilot for a few years, and the lack of stimulation was becoming unhealthy and really unsatisfying,” she says. “I knew I was going to have an opportunity to build, create, and iterate at Stack Overflow, and that’s definitely been true for the nearly 18 months I’ve worked here.”
Since her role is all about setting customers up to be successful, it’s almost like Melissa has come full circle.
“Our team’s job is to teach users and customers to use Stack Overflow for Teams. We get to play around with different learning modalities and pedagogies,” she says.
And this time, she fully believes in the product that goes with it.
“We tell a very compelling story: when knowledge is moderated to ensure that there's no misinformation, and objective in nature, it can be a very, very powerful utility. It’s not lost on me that I’m proud to work at Stack Overflow because of its products.”
Embracing Learning for All
At the end of last year, Melissa’s team had four dedicated implementation managers.
Now they have 12.
Every hire shares at least one piece of criteria: Melissa knows she’ll be able to learn something from them.
“We don’t extend offers to folks that we don’t think are going to be able to teach us stuff,” she says. “We’re very earnest learners, and it’s really inspiring to get to learn from these folks every day.”
Melissa individually, and Stack as a company, support and enable that learning. A standard agenda item on Melissa’s 1:1s with her team is their own personal development goals and how she can support them. “Part of my responsibility is to make you successful for whatever comes next for you,” she says.
And company-wide, Stack fosters a culture of curiosity, learning, and growth in part through supporting employees in their academic and career aspirations. One of Melissa’s team members is pursuing an MBA, for instance, while another is active in several professional associations.
And Melissa sees that the focus on learning and teaching isn’t just aligned with Stack’s source code and product — it also actively contributes to a sense of shared and sustainable productivity.
5 Ways to Support Your Team’s Productivity
As her team has grown, Melissa has leaned on things both high-level (like the principles of change management) and tactical (like meeting maintenance) to streamline productivity while supporting her team. Here are her top tips for doing the same:
- Avoid meeting fatigue. Melissa and her team spend 90 minutes a week together: 30 minutes in a team meeting, focused on process changes or announcements, and 60 minutes in an account review to share “war stories and challenges.” She separately meets with each 1:1, and occasionally in different small groups depending on project needs. “We have that time together each week, but we’re also great async communicators,” explains Melissa.
- Stay open to new ideas. When it comes to how to support customers, “we have a formula and a recipe,” says Melissa. “But we pressure-test that and adjust as needed. Nothing is set in stone, which is another reason why it’s important for us to bring in folks who we can learn from, because their experiences help make our shop more efficient.”
- Don’t make everything a fire drill. “If everything is an urgent priority, then nothing is an urgent priority,” she says. “Going back to the humans over machines philosophy, being able to prioritize is a key skill. A lot of startups have the ‘move fast and break things’ mentality. But without judgment and discretion, that mentality isn’t a long-term strategy for what we’re trying to accomplish.”
- Surround yourself with people you can learn from. “It’s okay to be the smartest person in the room, but you should be recruiting and surrounding yourself with people from whom you can learn, whether that’s people you manage, your peers, or other teams,” says Melissa.
- Plan ahead for challenges. “Good leaders know that bad storms are going to come. If you’re prioritizing thoughtfully and being proactive when you’re not in those urgent moments, then you’re going to weather that storm.”
To learn more about Stack Overflow, including their open roles, click here!
Start a Career At Stack Overflow - Meet The Engineering Team!
💎If you’re looking for a career opportunity at Stack Overflow, don’t miss this Inside The Team video! Watch it to the end to learn all about Stack Overflow’s job openings.
📼 When considering applying for a career at Stack Overflow, there are some essential items you need to know about the company. Meet Ellora Praharaj, Director of Reliability Engineering, and Jon Chan, Director of Engineering at Stack Overflow, who’ll go over some aspects of the engineering culture that they have at Stack Overflow, how the engineering team is growing, and what will tell you what they're looking for in new team members.
📼 If your dream is to pursue a career at Stack Overflow, Ellora and Jon share three essential takeaways to consider: first, be excited about building high-quality products with technology. Second: value collaboration- Stack Overflow has always been about how the power of community and working together can make the world a better place. And, last but not least, the third key takeaway is to get involved in Stack Overflow’s mission, which means, participating in the major transformation that code development is bringing to the world. When you become a part of the Stack Overflow engineering team, you’ll have a hand in shaping what the future may look like!
📼In order to make a successful career at Stack Overflow, giving and receiving feedback is a valued skill. As Ellora says, it’s very important to create an environment where folks feel comfortable sharing and receiving feedback. This kind of environment is based on mutual respect, openness, and trust. In Ellora’s experience, leading by example is the simplest way of demonstrating her approach. Being honest and focusing on the facts, by taking accountability and owning up when mistakes happen.
A Career at Stack Overflow - Be Part Of A Diverse And Dynamic Team
Stack Overflow is a place that's been built by developers and for developers. And what that means for the engineering team is the need to build a team that's as diverse and as dynamic as the community that they are serving. In Jon’s words, when he first joined the company, as an out, queer, person of color, and a self-taught programmer, too, it was important that he joined a company that really made him feel comfortable being himself. When Jon joined Stack Overflow, he found that they weren't just supportive of him, individually, but really gave him the resources to pay that support forward. Not just to the team, the broader company, but even the developer community that Stack Overflow is serving, too.
🧑💼 Are you interested in joining Stack Overflow? They have open positions! To learn more, click here.
Get to Know Ellora and Jon
Ellora is a technologist with over a decade of experience working in fast-paced environments, building high performing teams, embracing the right technology for the job at hand with an eye on the long term implications of those choices, and a volunteer doing hands-on (non-digital) work. Jon is a technology leader interested in supporting causes related to technology education, diversity and inclusion, and cultural impact. If you are interested in a career at Stack Overflow, you can connect with Ellora Praharaj and Jon Chan on LinkedIn. Don’t forget to mention this video!
More About Stack Overflow
Founded in 2008, Stack Overflow is on a mission to empower the world to develop technology through collective knowledge. More than 100 million people visit Stack Overflow’s public platform every month making it one of the 50 most-visited websites in the world. Their private knowledge sharing and collaboration offering, Stack Overflow for Teams, is transforming how people work.
Stack Overflow Interview Tips From Recruiters
💎 Prepare to apply to Stack Overflow with these interview tips from the company’s recruiters!
Watch the video to the end to learn about the application process and what will make you a successful candidate!
📼 Ace your Stack Overflow interview with some great tips and tricks from Amy Roberts, Principal Technical Recruiter, and Joyita Bandyopadhyay, Talent Acquisition Consultant at Stack Overflow. They’ll take you through Stack Overflow’s values and culture and help you with some insights for the interview process.
📼 The first Stack Overflow interview tip relates to the very first step of applying: submitting your resume. Start by reviewing the job description and confirm your resume includes the required skills and experience. If you're on the fence about applying or perhaps don't have the years of experience or proficiency noted on the job posting, Amy encourages you to apply anyways! “Please just add a cover letter detailing what makes you a unique candidate. Tell us more about what makes you, you,” Amy advises. If the specific position isn't the right next step for your career, the recruiting team at Stack Overflow may have another, more suitable posting available or something opening up in the future that might be a fit. Oh, and good news: your resume won't go through a bot. So share your personality in your profile to give the recruiters a sense of who you are.
📼 More Stack Overflow interview tips from their recruiters: At Stack Overflow, you'll work primarily with C+, ASP.NET, and Microsoft SQL Server, with supporting technology such as Redis, TypeScript, and Elasticsearch. As a company dedicated to increasing developer knowledge, Stack will give you the resources and support you need to develop mastery in your craft. And remember, soft skills are just as important as tech skills! Successful candidates will have critical thinking, teamwork, and strong problem-solving and communication skills.
Stack Overflow Interview Tips - Take a Deep Dive Into the Company
Prior to the interview, Joyita encourages you to explore: What motivates you? What excites you? And align your answers with what Stack Overflow has on offer. Do check out the company website and its profile on PowerToFly, The Muse, and Comparably, to get more information about their wonderful benefits and inclusive work culture!
🧑💼 Are you interested in joining Stack Overflow? They have open positions! To learn more, click here.
Get to know Amy and Joyita
Amy is an experienced Full Life Cycle Recruiter with a solid track record of building and maintaining client and candidate relationships. She has a demonstrated ability to self-manage multiple positions by sourcing, screening, qualifying, coordinating interviews, negotiating, and closing candidates. She also possesses strong expertise managing large staffing projects with quick delivery dates. Joyita is a highly dependable HR professional with strong multicultural and multinational experience across the USA and APAC region (Singapore, Thailand, Australia & India) as Talent Acquisition Specialist / HR Systems / HR Business Partner. Adept at working collaboratively with multiple stakeholders, she’s known for being a self-starter who delivers best-in-class HR partnering to accomplish business goals with a positive employee experience. If you are interested in a career at Stack Overflow, you can connect with Amy and Joyita on LinkedIn!
More About Stack Overflow
Founded in 2008, Stack Overflow is on a mission to empower the world to develop technology through collective knowledge. More than 100 million people come to Stack Overflow’s public platform every month, making it one of the 50 most-visited websites in the world. Their private knowledge-sharing and collaboration offering, Stack Overflow for Teams, is transforming how people work. In addition, their Reach & Relevance products help companies build their brand (Talent) and reach the world’s largest audience of developers and technologists (Advertising), including through Collectives™ on Stack Overflow. Joining Stack Overflow means helping developers and technologists at life and at work and the chance to collaborate with a smart, talented, and supportive team.
9 Ways to Grow Your Career Within a Company With Stack Overflow’s Brittany Boardman
Brittany Boardman went to her first interview with Stack Overflow without expecting much.
"I'm not technical, I'm not an engineer. And I wasn't necessarily looking [for a new job]. But Stack just blew me away," says Brittany of her first exposure to the company behind the world's largest and most trusted software developer and technologist community. "The people I met that day seemed like they genuinely liked coming to work. There was this cohesive belief in what the company was doing. I was converted pretty quickly after that interview—Stack was somewhere I wanted to join."
That's exactly what Brittany did. She first joined as a Senior Account Executive, parlaying her sales and consulting experience into partnering with Stack's clients, and then grew into a lead for that team. Earlier this year, she became the Enterprise Account Executive on Stack's newest product, Teams, which solves the problem of how to manage and share knowledge across an organization.
We sat down with Brittany to learn more about her different roles at Stack and how she continued to find exciting growth opportunities without leaving her company. She shared insight that's applicable across career stages and industries, and we're excited to bring it to you here.
9 ways to grow your career…
…as an interviewee
All of the career growth advice in the world won't help much if you're not at a company that encourages its employees to succeed and supports them as they work towards their goals.
Brittany has worked in finance in New York, been a consultant in Denver, and is now working remotely for Stack from her hometown of North Carolina. She knows her way around an interview process, and her first three tips are about how to use interviews to figure out if a company is a place where you could build a successful career.
1. Talk to a peer. "Even if it's not part of the hiring process, reach out to someone on LinkedIn," she recommends. "They can tell you whether it's an organization that helps to promote and encourage mobility within their employees."
2. Ask about growth paths. Brittany suggests asking the hiring manager directly about trajectories for the role you're considering. Do employees stay in that role for years? Move into management? Transfer laterally to different teams? You don't have to follow one of those set paths, but knowing that people do move up and out is a good indicator.
3. Determine whether your would-be manager will help remove obstacles or just add to them. When Brittany was interviewing for her current role at Stack, she was looking for two things: first, that her future manager had done the job before and knew how to coach her, and second, that she was willing to "roll up her sleeves, have a conversation, strategize, and remove blockers to success." "I probably would not have joined the team if I didn't sense those two things about her," reflects Brittany.
…no matter what your role is
Brittany's latest transition at Stack helping large enterprises bring in Stack Overflow for Teams. It combines her love for collaborating with internal and external stakeholders, strategizing to solve CTO- and CIO-level problems, and being true partners to her clients.
That role didn't drop into her lap, though. As she learned more about herself, her skills, and her company's needs, she saw there was an opportunity and went for it. "There was that question of, 'What do you want to do when you get up in the morning, when your feet hit the floor?' And it's exactly what I'm doing now. I'm really happy. It almost feels like I've created a new job," explains Brittany.
Here's how she recommends you do the same:
4. Ask people you admire about their habits. "What helped me ramp up really quickly was identifying people that were having success and what was driving their success," says Brittany, who found Stack's open culture to be one where people were happy to have those conversations.
5. Don't worry too much about timelines—focus instead on getting managerial support. Brittany's first promotion came pretty early in her Stack tenure, and she wouldn't have gone for it without the encouragement of her manager. Why? It seemed too soon. "I think a few folks were like, 'Oh, that's a big thing. People tend to wait a year before they go out for that role.' But I had a really great manager who encouraged me. 'What's the worst that could happen?' she said. 'They say no and they know that you're interested,'" remembers Brittany. In the end, they didn't say no, and her manager continued to support her even as she moved to a new team.
6. Find mentors. "People want to tell you about how they've been able to overcome something," says Brittany, who has reached out to her company's CRO as well as a few director-level managers to get their perspective on her career. "Just ask!" she says.
…if you want to move into management
While she's not a manager yet, Brittany is interested in stepping into that kind of role at some point, so she's preparing for it now. Here's what she's investing in and where she recommends you do the same:
7. Understand your industry. "You want to really understand the context that you're working in. What's going on in the market? How are things changing? How might that impact our products or clients?" says Brittany, who notes that having that industry knowledge helps with strategizing and bigger-picture thinking down the line.
8. Build relationships across your organization. In her new role, Brittany has to collaborate with people across her company, from security to product. By making those personal connections and building up her understanding of how their teams and processes work, she's preparing for bigger collaborative efforts: "Having that ability to go talk to finance or legal is crucial when moving up into management."
9. Study the managers you admire. It sounds obvious, but it's vital, says Brittany. "I've been fortunate to have some really good [managers] here. And I think, 'What do I like about them? Is it their communication style? How they set clear expectations?' I'm learning from what I appreciate as an individual contributor," she says.
If you're interested in working with Brittany at Stack Overflow, check out their open roles (and start putting her tips to use!).
