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June 25, 2018
Audible
Propelify Tech Talks 2018
Women Tech Leaders From Audible Featured at Propelify Tech Talk
Below is an article originally written by Jane Li, Garima Agarwal, Nancy Huang, Alex Usova, and Neha Koul of PowerToFly Partner Audible, and published on June 11, 2018. Go to Audible's page on PowerToFly to see their open positions and learn more.
Despite a dreary morning sky, the boxed coffee and bustling energy kept all the volunteers in warm spirits. The outdoor Propelify conference on Hoboken's waterfront had been set up like a farmer's market—booth after booth showcasing cool tech ideas and enthusiastic young startups.
Audible's tent was fashioned into a swanky living room, with couches and a huge fuzzy carpet, a perfect invitation for attendees to come listen to five software developers from Audible's Consumer Domains, the full-stack engineering teams behind Audible's website.
Second, was an enlightening talk on Web App Security by Garima. The talk highlighted the importance of serving sites over https for several trust and security reasons. There was emphasis on https becoming a requirement for leveraging http/2 and future PWA (Progressive Web App) technologies. The talk demonstrated two security vulnerabilities on sites today—XSS and Clickjacking. This was followed by leveraging http security headers to tighten up the security of web apps, typically just by adding a few lines of code. Garima called out several other security headers used by Audible today and encouraged the audience to research and use them.
Alex followed with a speech about a resource hint called Preconnect. The preconnect link relation type is used to indicate an origin that will be used to fetch required resources. Initiating an early connection, which includes the DNS lookup, TCP handshake, and optional TLS negotiation, allows the user agent to mask the high latency costs of establishing a connection. Alex provided examples of pages with and without preconnect and compared their loading time, demonstrating that usage of preconnect gives performance improvement, as well as giving a convincing argument for why every millisecond counts in the web world. She also demonstrated how preconnect is used in Audible.
The talks concluded with time for questions from the audience. After thanking everyone for a hugely successful round of Tech Talks, the tent once again turned into a mingling of inquisitive conference attendees, Audible employees, and the chilly morning air.
September 29, 2020
Career Advice
How to Respond to a Performance Improvement Plan
Ah, the dreaded PIP.
Performance improvement plans (PIPs) can feel scary. They have a (not entirely unearned) reputation for being the first step on the road to an eventual firing. And sometimes managers do implement PIPs solely to appease HR by ensuring that they made every last effort to make a given employee successful before terminating that employee.
<p>But not always.</p><p>The lurid, doomsday stories about PIPs get traction in workplace mythology because they have a dramatic and sometimes tragic arc that draws us in. But for every story about someone getting put on a PIP and shown the door three months later, there's another story—albeit a less spellbinding one—about someone turning their performance around, keeping their job, and going on to be quite uneventfully happy at work.</p><p>So if you're put on a performance improvement plan, do not despair. Here's what to do instead.</p><h2>First, what's a performance improvement plan?</h2><p>A PIP is a formal document, usually drafted by your direct manager and someone from your company's HR team, that identifies issues with your performance at work and defines specific desired outcomes that would indicate that those issues were fixed, along with the repercussions (which may include termination or demotion) if those issues are not fixed. A good PIP also goes into detail about how those outcomes will be accomplished or measured.</p><p>For instance, if you regularly show up late to scheduled client meetings, which makes your company look bad to clients and puts more pressure on the rest of your team, your PIP might highlight that as an issue. It would state not only what you'd need to do, like "be on time to every client meeting over an 8-week period," but also how everyone will know whether that's happening or not, like "[your name here] will send a brief post-meeting summary to [your direct manager's name here] confirming that they were on time and sharing takeaways."</p><p>If your manager is a good one, a PIP will only come into play for issues you and your manager have already talked about and that you're still struggling with. A PIP shouldn't catch you off guard. It should be a distillation of practical next steps to help you make progress on things you and your manager both acknowledge that you have been struggling with. </p><h2>How to respond to a performance improvement plan.</h2><p><strong>1. Don't panic</strong>. Many, many employees have been put on PIPs and come out on the other side, still very much gainfully employed and actually better off for having had dedicated support to work on key weaknesses. If you come out of a meeting with your manager with a PIP in hand, take a deep breath. Be kind to yourself in the day or so immediately following the news. Get some sleep, eat something healthy, go for a walk, talk it through with a friend. And then show up to work focused and ready.</p><p><strong>2. Take charge of your progress.</strong> Your manager and HR rep will draft your PIP, but make sure you take an active role in implementing it. That doesn't look like arguing with them over wording, but it does look like asking clarifying questions to make sure you understand their expectations and suggesting granular next steps for tracking your progress (like weekly check-ins or asking for feedback from your peers as well as your manager). Show that you're taking this seriously and that you can be relied on.</p><p><strong>3. Identify root causes.</strong> You were hired for this role because you're qualified for it, right? So what has happened between your hiring and now? It's unlikely that your personality changed or your abilities regressed. Did your manager's expectations of you change? Have you been given fewer resources to produce the same amount of work? Are you struggling with something outside of work that is impacting the way you show up as an employee? Take the time to reflect on what's really going on, and then share it candidly—and not aggressively—with your manager at your next PIP check-in. Done well, this kind of reflection will show that you're taking the PIP seriously and are committed to being the excellent employee they hired you to be. </p><p><strong>4. Ask for help.</strong> If you're struggling to do something well that a coworker seems to have down pat, there's absolutely no shame in asking them for advice. And go beyond your peers, too; for instance, if lack of expertise is one of the root causes of your underperformance, you can ask your HR rep if there are training programs you can participate in.</p><p><strong>5. If all seems lost, start looking around.</strong> If you read the four points of advice prior to this and scoffed at every one of them, unable to visualize your boss treating you with empathy or your company's HR team responding positively to your proactive efforts, consider whether this is a job you want to stay in. If you're struggling with a toxic culture or <a href="https://blog.powertofly.com/how-to-deal-with-a-toxic-boss-2639004918.html" target="_blank">toxic boss</a>, maybe a PIP is a blessing in disguise that can motivate you to start actively networking and looking for a new role. Just make sure you understand what it is about this job that fell short of your expectations so that you find yourself in a better environment next time.</p><h2>Moving forward</h2><p>Remember that a PIP doesn't have to be a doomsday signal. If your manager thought you were a bad employee, they would just fire you. A PIP means that you are, in fact, a good employee, with plenty of potential worth investing in, and that you're just struggling at one point in time with a gap in performance. That performance could be due to you (lack of motivation or issues outside of work), to your manager (lack of guidance, expectations, or resources), or to your HR department (lack of training or support). Having you, your manager, and HR all in sync on what you need to be successful in your role can be exactly what you need to turn your situation around and really enjoy and flourish in your role.</p><p>If your PIP does end in your departure, maybe that's for the best. If your company, despite having chosen you from a long list of other candidates to fill a role, can't find a way to help you succeed in it, that may reveal much more about their training and management quality than it does about your potential. Go forth and <a href="https://powertofly.com/jobs/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">find a new role</a> that lets you shine.</p>
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September 29, 2020
Smartsheet Inc.
Thinking of Applying to Smartsheet? - Meet the VP of People
We recently chatted with Megan Hansen, VP of People at Smartsheet, who oversee the employee lifecycle from Talent Acquisition to Alumni support.
Get a behind-the-scenes look at the company's culture and values, and learn how you can make your application stand out!
To learn more about Smartsheet and their open roles, click here.
June 25, 2020
For Employers
How Leaders Can Support Their Black Employees
A five-step framework for addressing systematic racism at work
The world has changed in the past few weeks.
We're watching corporations and organizations across the world come out in support of Black lives in droves. Many of those organizations are doing so for the first time in their history.
<p>But supporting Black people goes beyond sharing a mission statement or putting out a press release. It requires dedicated, ongoing work and resources.</p><p>As leaders in the Diversity and Inclusion space, PowerToFly has been getting questions from business leaders on what else they can do. How can they make Black employees feel supported at work? What kind of analysis should they be doing on their own processes and policies to root out systematic racism they may be perpetuating? And how can they keep these conversations about race and racism going even after the media coverage has died down? </p><p>A few weeks ago, in my role as PowerToFly's Director of Global Diversity and Inclusion, I held a chat-and-learn two weeks ago focused on how individuals could be better allies to their Black colleagues and friends. (You can watch a recording of our conversation <a href="https://powertofly.com/career/live-chats/276535-being-an-ally-to-black-colleagues-and-peers" target="_blank">here</a> and read my summary of takeaways <a href="https://powertofly.com/career/webinars/277594-how-leaders-can-support-their-black-employees" target="_blank">here</a>.) Two weeks ago, I held another webinar, this time focused specifically on what leaders—whether CEOs, executives, HR managers, or frontline team leads—can do to support their Black employees. You can<a href="https://powertofly.com/career/webinars/277594-how-leaders-can-support-their-black-employees" target="_blank"> watch a replay</a> or read on for my summary of key points and advice on the subject. </p><p>A reminder: none of what's going on right now is a Black problem. This is an American problem and even a global problem. Black people cannot end systematic racism or white supremacy, and we need white Americans and other allies to work together to end it. We need everyone in the boat with us, rowing together, if we're to see any real change. I know that fighting for that change isn't always comfortable or easy, but it's vital that we do it. It's especially important that all of you leaders, who have seats at the table to change policy and be actively anti-racist in your organizations, do it. </p><p>Thank you for joining the fight.</p><h2>A five-step framework for addressing systematic racism at work</h2><p>Most of us were taught not to discuss race, politics, or religion at work. But times are different now, and ignoring how race and racism impact work is the wrong thing to do. It's vital to address racism in the workplace not just for your employees, but also for the general public, who are noticing which companies are speaking up for what's right and which companies aren't. It'll be increasingly important in the future for leaders to commit to this change as workers and consumers alike seek to align themselves with organizations that share their values. </p><p>To aid you as you start doing that work, here are five steps you can take to start addressing racism at the workplace.</p><h3>1. Get comfortable with having candid conversations about race.</h3><p>There's no such thing as being colorblind. Saying so is problematic. We can't address the things that need to be fixed if we don't see color. Start by acknowledging that there are certain groups of people who are treated differently or haven't had the same opportunities. Start by accepting that you don't have all (or even any) of the answers, but that you're committed to working towards them.</p><h3>2. Do regular, mandatory training on inclusivity, sensitivity, and other race-related topics.</h3><p>Most workplaces have certain courses that are required, at least for managers and leaders, like sexual harassment courses or compliance training. If you want to make it clear that race is important and that racism won't be tolerated at your workplace, you need to invest in mandatory inclusivity training.</p><p>It has to be more than just a check-the-box activity. Your approach can't be, "Oh, everybody took unconscious bias training, we're good to go."</p><p>Just like anything else in your business that you really care about, you'll need to devote money and time to actively dismantling systematic oppression. That looks like monthly or quarterly workshops, having a speaker series where you invite SMEs to take on diversity topics, and investing in a D&I leader or in a resource group and partnering with them to regularly train and educate your workforce.</p><h3>3. Address systemic issues in how you hire, pay, and promote employees.</h3><p>A Black Lives Matter press statement is necessary but not sufficient when it comes to addressing racism at your company. It's a great first step, but if you don't start addressing and making changes beyond the company values section of your website, it's all for naught.</p><p>Start by looking at your salaries. Is there equity in what you're paying Black employees compared to white employees? Don't assume that there is without taking the time to analyze the situation.</p><p>Do the same for employee promotion rates. Who is moving up into bigger management jobs—and who isn't?</p><p>Look at project allocation, too. Are the same people getting the same chances to appear and present in front of executives? Are your Black employees getting opportunities to work on stretch projects?</p><p>Once you understand where the inequities are in your business, address them. These issues have deep-rooted causes and won't go away overnight. You'll need to come up with an action plan and start working against it.</p><h3>4. Review your employee referral program.</h3><p>While employee referral programs can be great, they are often not the best way to attract diverse candidates. If you have a mostly male white workforce, then your employee referrals are going to reflect that. The majority of companies don't have diverse workforces, which warrants a closer look at how these programs are implemented.</p><p>Consider running specialized referral programs through employee resource groups for underrepresented minorities. If you have a Black or Latinx group, for instance, work with your HR or Recruiting teams to source referrals from those pools.</p><h3>5. Create executive sponsorship opportunities for Black employees.</h3><p>Sponsors can make or break a career path. They can fast-track someone to a leadership role, create opportunities, and give an employee cover to try something new. But if Black employees haven't had a chance to get in front of executives—if they aren't playing golf with them, going out to dinners and lunches with them, or working with them on high-priority projects—they won't get those benefits. Add an explicit diversity focus to current sponsorship initiatives, and if none exist, create them in partnership with ERGs.</p><h3>Tips and guidance to inform your approach</h3><p>In implementing the above five steps, you may find yourself feeling unsure or uncomfortable. That's natural, especially if discussing race is something you haven't done before. Remember that to do this work well, you need to be willing to listen and to learn. Below, I've provided answers to some community-sourced questions on how exactly to do that.</p><p><strong>How can I navigate a conversation with Black employees in a way that makes them feel supported?</strong></p><p>As business and HR leaders, you might be wired to be very solution-oriented and to want to fix things for your employees. But you can't immediately fix racism or fix an employee's experience with it at work.</p><p>When talking about race with employees, do not make it about you. If an employee is talking to you about what they're feeling or going through, you can say things like, "I'm so sorry you're going through that" or "I hate that you're feeling that way" or "I care about you." Do not say "I know what you're going through" if you don't. Do not apologize on behalf of the white race or in any other way make it about what you're feeling, whether that's guilt or frustration or anything else. Just listen.</p><p><strong>How can I—or should I—check on Black employees without disrupting their privacy?</strong></p><p>Keep in mind that Black people have been taught to assimilate and blend in as much as possible, especially at work. Being called out at work specifically for being Black is not going to be a comfortable thing for many people. Do not zero in on the one Black person on your team in a meeting, for instance, and ask them how they're doing with everything that's going on.</p><p>If you are going to do a check-in, do it in a one-on-one setting. Give your employee an opportunity to give you cues. Are they bringing up what's happening in the news? Are they sharing that they went to a protest? If not, maybe they don't want to talk about it.</p><p>If you decide to check in anyway, don't direct the conversation. Tell them that you're there to help if they want to talk and that you want to know how they're feeling. But if they don't want to engage, let it go. Remember, this is not about you and what you think you need to do to be a good or inclusive leader. This is about your Black employees and what they are feeling.</p><p><strong>How can I address colleagues who have implied or explicitly stated that they are not allies?</strong></p><p>Be conscious of your energy. There are policies to create at work. There are protests to attend in your neighborhood. There are kids to raise and jobs to do. Investing time in someone who does not care or opposes who you are or what you believe in is not good for you, so minimize those debates and focus on what you can change.</p><p>That being said, don't change your message to make people comfortable. Now is a time to take a stance. If your colleagues aren't willing to do that, it might be time to leave them behind. </p><p><strong>How can a primarily white team or organization support the Black community right now, especially if financial levers like expanding hiring aren't available?</strong></p><p>It's important to move towards creating a more equitable workplace and culture even if you don't have a Black employee on your team. It's the right thing to do. Remember that allyship is essential, and that white allies can have huge influence within organizations and communities. So start with the five steps above. If you have a budget beyond that, invest it in additional D&I training. Provide resources for doing anti-racist work in-house. Dedicate time every week in your team meeting to talk on topics relevant to the Black Lives Matter movement, whether that's defining what being an ally is, learning about systemic oppression, or brainstorming ways to get involved in your local community.</p><p><strong>How can I use levers to make sure my internal and external recruiting is as diverse as possible without being discriminatory?</strong></p><p>First of all, there's nothing discriminatory about asking for a diverse slate of candidates, whether you're asking an external recruiter or an internal team. You're not promising anyone a job based on their identity; you just want to make an effort to see a range of candidates. Hiring diversely doesn't happen by chance. You don't post a job and then just see a flood of resumes that perfectly represent all races and identities. That's called the "post and pray" approach and it's destined to fail.</p><p>If you're hiring internally, start by going to employee groups and encouraging group members to apply. Ask if they have anyone they'd recommend for the position. Make an effort to ensure that people know about open opportunities and what you're looking for.</p><p>If you have a recruiter or sourcer working with you, tell them that you want to look at a diverse pool of candidates.</p><h3>Going forward</h3><p>These are tough subjects to tackle and doing so will require sustained focus and resources. Thank you for doing this work. If there's anything we at PowerToFly can do to help as you continue down the path towards becoming an actively anti-racist organization, please feel free to reach out to me and my team at answers@powertofly.com!</p>
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September 21, 2020
T Rowe Price Group Inc
Preparing for the Unexpected: How Maria Fava Found Her Confidence as a Bicultural, Bilingual Woman at T. Rowe Price
Born in Mexico City and raised in Guadalajara, Maria Fava never would have predicted that she'd have a career in financial services. And certainly not in Maryland.
Over two decades ago, when Maria moved to the U.S. to study psychology at the University of Texas at Arlington, she'd planned on moving back to Mexico to study law after graduation. Instead, she fell in love with an unassuming Italian-American her senior year. She married him and moved to Maryland, his home state.
<p>Now, some twenty-five years later, she's still in Maryland, and working at investment firm <a href="https://powertofly.com/companies/t-rowe-price-group-inc" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">T. Rowe Price</a>—the same company where she started her career. But she hasn't been at T. Rowe Price all those years. Having joined the firm as a broker, she left to start a family and help her husband run his business. Fifteen years later, she knew she wanted to return to the company that had helped her launch her career, so she rejoined the firm in a totally new capacity a year and a half ago. </p>
<p>Now a Corporate Events Lead Manager, the unpredictability of her own life has taught her a lesson close to any event planner's heart: always plan for the unexpected.</p>
<p>We sat down with Maria over Zoom to talk about her decision to join (and rejoin) T. Rowe Price, the challenges and opportunities she's had from being bilingual and bicultural, and her advice for other women looking to become more confident in their careers. </p>
<h2>Adapting to new environments and learning to see insecurities as assets</h2><p>Maria's commitment to helping those around her uncover their strengths stems largely from her own early-career experiences of learning how to fit in. Having moved from Guadalajara to Texas, and later from Texas to Maryland, she knows a thing or two about feeling out of place. </p><p>In her first few years in the States, for instance, she worked on her accent. "I noticed that by learning English in Mexico, I had more of a British accent, and when I got to Texas, that was a little awkward," she laughs. She eventually did such a good job adopting a Texan accent that she worked to change it all over again upon moving to Maryland. But that came with its own challenges, especially early in her career. </p>
<p>"Sometimes I would use a word that was incorrect and I had this anxiety of sounding dumb. I thought it might've been better if I <em>did</em> have an accent so that [coworkers] could understand that English was not my first language," says Maria.</p><p>She also had to learn to deal with often being not just the only Hispanic woman in the room, but sometimes the only woman, period. And on top of navigating the workplace in her second language and learning a new culture, she had to contend with the voice inside her head that told her she didn't really have the experience she needed to do the job: "I felt that I didn't quite have the qualifications that I needed to be able to compete."</p><p>It was the support she received from T. Rowe Price to build her finance expertise, coupled with her own realization that "being bicultural and bilingual enabled me to do my job better," that helped her move past this and develop confidence in herself and the unique skills she brought to the table. Maria hopes other women reach the same realization, and offered some advice to start building that confidence in yourself:</p><ul class="ee-ul"><li><strong>Don't exclude yourself from anything.</strong> "Don't look at the qualifications that you need and right off the bat think you don't have them. Give yourself a break, apply for the job that speaks to you, and find out if you need to have continuing education or other training later," she says.</li><li><strong>Always have a backup plan. </strong>In the world of event planning, says Maria, one adage is truer than all the rest: nothing is perfect. "What sets you apart from being an okay planner to a really good planner is anticipating all the things that could go wrong and having backup plans for the backup plan."</li><li><strong>Get there early. </strong>Almost <em>too </em>early, says Maria, who's taken this on as a personal goal after getting lost en route to one of her first-ever big client meetings and showing up an hour late. "I never did that again!" she says. "I'm always early now."</li><li><strong>Find opportunities and act on them.</strong> Maria's career has seen her take on finance, accounting, marketing, events, and legal work, all because she's not been afraid to raise her hand and volunteer to work on new opportunities. </li></ul><h2>From broker to small business owner to events manager: coming full circle </h2><p>Maria first joined T. Rowe Price by chance. Having just relocated to Maryland, she needed a job and a friend told her T. Rowe Price was looking for bilingual speakers as they expanded into Latin American markets. She was hesitant at first, "I'd never even taken a finance class. I had no idea how I was going to do it," explains Maria, "but I went to the interview and I got the job." </p>
<p>T. Rowe Price supported her as she got her brokerage license and Maria found that she loved the work. "I'm a lifelong learner. If you give me a book, I'll try to learn from it. It really was exciting to me," she says.</p><p>Her career took off from there. She traveled often, presenting to clients, and took on more and more responsibility. "When I started, I was 22 years old, right out of college, scared to death of everything I was asked to do," she says. "But I got completely out of my comfort zone. It was an incredible experience that allowed me to be basically fearless."</p>
<p>She would've kept going, but she and her husband also wanted to start a family, so Maria went part-time and consulted for T. Rowe Price for a few years, then transitioned to working with her husband to start and manage their wholesale produce business. She learned a different set of skills and handled the accounting there for 15 years, while consulting for clients, including T. Rowe Price, on the side.</p>
<p>Maria's career has seen her take on finance, accounting, marketing, events, and legal work, all because she's not been afraid to raise her hand and ask for opportunities. She first got involved with translation work at T. Rowe Price after she caught an error in some of the firm's Spanish marketing materials and flagged it to their legal department. That turned into regular contract work down the line and opportunities to learn about different parts of the business. "If I voiced an interest in wanting to do something, [my managers] always gave me the tools to get that education and continue to learn," says Maria. "Be sure to speak up and ask for the learning tools, education, or leadership opportunities that you want."</p>
<p>A couple years ago, when Maria's kids were headed off to college, she felt ready for a career change—and she wanted T. Rowe Price to be a part of it. "I knew I didn't want to be a broker again, but I always had in the back of my mind that I wanted to pay it forward at T. Rowe Price and do something for other people like it had been done for me," says Maria.</p><p>In her new role as Corporate Events Lead Manager, she's responsible for executing meetings hosted by the company's C-suite and management community, but she's also set a personal goal for herself: to mentor and support the women around her, the way her own T. Rowe Price mentors supported her when she began her career. "I wanted to see if there was anything that I could do to help some of the up-and-coming talent to feel the way that [my first managers] made me feel," she says.</p>
<p>That was part of her rationale for joining Mosaic, T. Rowe Price's employee diversity resource group. She appreciates all that the company is doing to make people feel included and wants to be a part of that. "There's more engagement, more opportunities, even just to collaborate with each other and find each other within the firm," she says.</p><p>She also looks for opportunities to remind those around her that they can achieve anything they want to if they're willing to stretch their comfort zones. Not long ago, she encouraged a co-worker who was struggling to get advancement opportunities to advocate for herself, and she's since been promoted. "Now I ask <em>her</em> to review things for <em>me</em>!" Maria says, smiling.</p>
<h2>Preparing for the unexpected: planning through a pandemic</h2><p>In a career built on her ability to adapt and navigate between different environments, it's a little ironic that Maria's second year back at T. Rowe Price has seen her adapting to a completely different version of event planning. When offices shuttered and events were canceled because of COVID-19, Maria had to figure out how to put on events completely virtually.</p><p>"It was a hundred miles an hour, searching for virtual platforms, learning terms, taking webcasts, just trying to get trained and educated on how best to support my clients," she says. "But I'm all about the experience. I spent a lot of time learning about best practices—lengths of meetings, camera versus no camera, lighting—just how to create the proper environment for the objective not to be missed."</p><p>It's been stressful, says Maria, but not impossible, and the opportunity to completely transform her role has been an interesting one. "I always believe that you sell yourself short if you run away from an opportunity to learn. I would have never learned all these new technologies, but I've learned so much, and I appreciate that," she says. "Being adaptable has been the key to succeeding in this environment."</p><p>And she's been able to see the silver lining, too. "I don't want to say that there's a lot of positive things about COVID," says Maria. "Everybody is going through so many different things in their personal lives and people have all learned to be a little more understanding."</p><p><em>Interested in growing your career (and your confidence) at </em><a href="https://www.troweprice.com/corporate/en/careers.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>T. Rowe Price</em></a><em>? Learn more about the company and open roles </em><a href="https://powertofly.com/companies/t-rowe-price-group-inc" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>here</em></a><em>.</em></p>
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September 24, 2020
Remote
How to Succeed as a (Remote) Quip Intern: Advice from Mai Sha and Leslie Carr
When the pandemic began in spring and her friends (and fellow Carnegie Mellon master's students) started to find out that their offers for summer internships were canceled, Mai Sha held her breath.
<p>But then she got an email from the intern recruitment team at mobile productivity suite<a href="https://powertofly.com/companies/quip" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> Quip</a> and let out a sigh of relief. Her software engineering internship would still happen, albeit remotely, and she would still get a chance to be a part of the Quip team.</p><p>We interviewed Mai and her summer manager, Leslie Carr, a Senior Director of Engineering at Quip, to learn how Quip successfully took their internship program remote, how the Salesforce-owned cloud-based word processing app is maintaining its culture despite not working in the same building together, and what future interns can do to succeed.</p><h2>Why Quip?</h2><p>Mai was first introduced to Quip at a Grace Hopper conference. "I thought it was impressive how they were bringing their customers a new way to work together," she remembers. She interviewed for a summer internship and during the process really connected with what she was seeing of Quip's company culture. "I could tell every interviewer was top-notch. They seemed pretty humble and extremely nice, and it felt like working with teammates at university, not like an interview," she says.</p><p>She liked the team, she liked the culture, and once she did her research, it turned out she liked the product, too: "I had some previous experience in version management in spreadsheets, so I know how much it can help, and Quip's product is an open workspace that also values privacy. It's a good balance."</p><p>Mai's summer boss, Leslie, joined Quip a couple of years prior for similar reasons. She'd actually first talked to the company three years before joining and remembers the team feeling "really, really welcoming," but she wasn't looking to make a move then. When she did, she did more due diligence and loved what she found. "I was actually pretty impressed by the number of women in the engineering management team," remembers Leslie. "It was really important to me to be at a place where I saw faces like mine. I also really liked their engineer-focused mindset; that aligned well with my values."</p><h2>Getting to know a company remotely</h2><p>It was tough for Leslie to transition that mindset and the culture she'd built on the engineering team to a remote environment. In the pre-pandemic times, she'd relied on informal social activities like boba runs, hallway check-ins, and walks around the park to check in on her team, including her summer interns. Without those touchpoints, she had to be much more deliberate about how to keep everyone engaged—particularly the interns, who would have only a couple of months to complete their projects and understand what it meant to work at Quip.</p><p>Leslie adapted her management style, moving from biweekly 1:1s that lasted an hour to weekly 30-minute check-ins with each person on her team and proactively setting up mentors and pairing sessions for interns like Mai.</p><p>And while those changes allowed Leslie to keep an eye on everyone and do her job, she notes that it was really Mai's proactive approach to remote work that allowed Mai to succeed even past her expectations.</p><p>"A lot of Mai's success was because she had such a good learning and growth mindset," explains Leslie. "She wasn't afraid to ask questions."</p><p>Mai kept a Quip document full of project updates that provided real-time transparency on where she was and what she was planning to do next. She reached out to her team members for help when she needed it and made sure to connect with people on projects unrelated to her own to learn more about the company culture. She worked with a small group of about 10 people and notes that she always felt part of the team. "I felt like I had a voice. The team always cultivated an environment that let us speak out and show off our work to everyone," she says.</p><p>"At Quip, it's a constructive process. Not only my manager and my mentor, but everyone else on the team helped me out. They didn't just teach me how to debug, but made sure that I totally understood it," explains Mai. That helpfulness extended to non-project tasks, too, she notes, like working on her interview or presentation skills.</p><p>While Mai ended up adapting quite well to a remote internship, she was nervous at first. "It was my first software engineering internship, and it's remote! I felt slow during the ramp-up period, and I doubted myself a bit, because sometimes I couldn't figure it out," she says. "But luckily, with work and help, by the end, I could even unblock others." By the end of the internship, she was even looking forward to Monday, she says, so that she could get back to work.</p><h2>Advice for future interns</h2><p>Leslie hopes Quip is back to in-person work and internships next year, but no matter where and how future internships happen, she's learned a few lessons from this summer's all-remote internship that she will apply in the future—and is happy to share with future Quip interns now.</p><p>"Don't be afraid to ask," she says. "There's still plenty of stuff that I have no idea about in engineering. But that's how we learn and grow." Mai, she notes, did a great job of asking for help when she needed it: "A couple of other interns who were afraid to ask questions were blocked for much longer than needed. Instead of being blocked for an hour, they were blocked for two days."</p><p>Mai takes that advice a step farther, sharing what worked for her. Aside from her doc of project updates, she had a separate doc of questions where she would tag her mentor so that they could go in and help her whenever they were free. She also made good use of the engineering team's chat channel, with its in-depth documentation of historical questions asked and answered, and stayed active in the intern chat room, too. She joined all the social events she could—from weekly coffee chats hosted by Salesforce to virtual escape room team events—to keep meeting new people, learning about different projects and ways of working at Quip, and practicing her communication skills.</p><p>"One of the biggest things I learned from this internship is to never stop learning!" says Mai, smiling. "There are so many things I don't understand, and I have a long way to go to become a great software engineer."</p><p>Leslie notes that it's that desire to constantly be learning that set Mai apart and that would serve future interns well, too. "Not only did Mai do a great job on her project and finish it ahead of schedule, but I was even more impressed with how she sort of joined like a normal team member afterward!" says Leslie, who explained that Mai jumped in to help another engineer write tests for his project. "We'd given her some feedback on getting better at testing before, and she took an area for improvement and turned it into a strength through being willing to just dive right in and explore that area. That was awesome."</p><p>Mai's final advice for future interns is simple: soak up as much as you can. "Stay curious," she says. "You can learn anything you want to here."</p>
<p><em>If you're interested in learning more about Quip, check out their PowerToFly profile </em><a href="https://powertofly.com/companies/quip" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>here</em></a><em>.</em></p><em></em>
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