🖥 Presented by Women Who Code Career Nav & DoorDash 👩‍💻 Speaker: Liangxiao Zhu, Varsha Dudani. Moderated by Anna Shur-Wilson ✨ Topic: Find Your Company Green Flags and Choose the Best Position for You
When job searching, how do you narrow your search to a company that's a good match for you? One way to evaluate your options is to look for green flags: aspects of the company that speak to their corporate culture and values.
Join Women Who Code Career Navigation and Liangxiao Zhu, VP of Engineering, and Varsha Dudani, Director of Engineering, our partner DoorDash for a fireside chat about identifying your professional priorities and landing your best fit.
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So I want to give a big thank you to Door Dash for making this event possible and supporting us so much. And I'm going to pass it over to Cordell to give a little bit of an intro before our event. Yeah, perfect. Thank you, Anna. And goodbye. Morning. Good afternoon to everyone. My name is Cornell Zachary. My pronouns are he, him, his. And today I just want to really give you some insight into DoorDash as a brand. We have two amazing leaders, so I don't want to take any time away from them, but I figured I just tell a little bit of the backstory about who we are at DoorDash. So when you think about where it all started, it all started at Stanford University, where Tony, Andy and Stanley were in a macaroon shop. And they just really started to observe and look around and they saw that there are some awesome merchants, restaurants, store owners who want to get to their customers. They want to deliver orders, but they didn't have a fleet. So they started to work on a product, they started to aggregate, and at night, they started to deliver food as our first true DoorDash suite. And that's how DoorDash came about. So now fast forward to today. DoorDash's mission is to grow and empower local economies. And if you go to the next slide, you can see what that looks like in action. So we can go to our next slide. We call it our business Flywheel. We can go back one more tricky yeah, perfect. So we think about our business, Flywheel. We hope to provide local communities access to food and goods so that's our restaurants and merchants and owners, but also how do we get customers access to those products as well, while also providing earning opportunities for our Dashers. So when you look at how this all works together, we hope to create a community that thrives and is empowered through our product and our offerings. And our newest campaign is called a Neighborhood of Good. And the whole purpose of that is that DoorDash is a connector or amplifier of the good work that the community is doing where we work, live and play. So that's how it all looks together. And I think that's really important. As we look at our offerings, it's moving past restaurants, is going into grocery, it's going into wine and liquor and pet supplies. So we hope to grow and continue to build this neighborhood of good. We can go to the last slide we have and just want to talk about us as our employer brand that we have. So when we think about why we want you to work for us, when we look at our benefits, we recently put out a really cool article about our flexibility of work. We're really expanding our reach in terms of where our roles are located. We have competitive pay. We also have unlimited PTO for our salaried workers. We have an awesome package for benefits, and we definitely have a slew of different roles open today. We're continuing to grow. I'll be sharing interest form for candidates who are interested in talking to recruiters and wanting more. So you'll see me kind of engage in the chat as we go along. But also we have four roles open on the Women Who Code Job board, so check those out. I think we have Product Android Role Open, so feel free to check those out there. But right now, we just have an awesome global community. It was really cool to see everybody where they're located in the chat. Hopefully you can find a role that's near you, but if you don't, feel free to reach out to us, I'm sure hopefully you share information, but I'm totally happy to chat and share more if you reach out on LinkedIn. But yeah, really excited to have you all here today and learn more. So I'll hand it back to Hannah. Thank you so much. I'm going to stop sharing my screen now so that we can get into the panel. Thank you so much, Cornell, for that introduction. So I'm thrilled to welcome our panelists today. I'm going to pass it to them to give a brief introduction. So we can start with you, Varsha. Can you share a little bit? Like you said, a little what you wanted to be when you grew up, but why tech? What was the spark? A little bit about your journey and then what you do at DoorDash? Yeah, sure. So I'm Barisha. I'm a Director of Engineering at DoorDash. Growing up, like I said, I wanted to be different. I wanted to follow different careers. And then I accidentally started coding. And I just loved coding so much. I felt like I was made for it. So followed my passion and became an engineer. And that's my career joy story. I have been with Dodash for five years. I'm one of the OGS from back in 2017, and all these years I've seen Dodash go from a small company to a unicorn and now like a public company. So it's really exciting to see this journey and be a part of it. And what I do there over the five years, I've done different things. I've managed different built and managed different teams across DoorDash. I started off with merchant teams, which is basically making products and services for businesses, and then from there, I move to anti Fraud team for a short period. And then right now, I manage Dash engineering teams. So that's my journey. Hi, everyone. I'm Yang Xiao, and currently I'm a VP of Engineering at the How I get to the software engineering is because, as I mentioned, my father is an engineer, but he's a hardware engineer. He likes to invent things often. I remember when I was young, he's worried about cannot find a good software engineer to make the things he managed to work now. I said maybe when I grow up I want to be a good software engineer, can help my father. So that's where I am. That's why I started to learn computer science. Yeah. So before I've been with daughter for seven months now and before that I was at a Meta for almost ten years and before that was Microsoft. And at a Dodge I'm leading the new verticals engineering team. So for people who know Dodge, probably knows Dodge as a food delivery company. But our company mission is really connecting all the local store with everyone with a user and make your life much easier to purchase things. So that's why I thought I should start all the local new verticals which including convenience for you to get like ice cream chips and over the counter drugs or grocery or retail alcohol like flowers or different new verticals. Thank you so much both of you. I think you also showed really like that it's something that people use every day. I have to admit that I did get DoorDash last night. So let's start with you young Shao, since you just joined DoorDash recently and this is all about like choosing a job, finding the right culture. So why did you choose DoorDash during your job hunt and how did you know your priorities for your next position? Yeah, as I mentioned, I've been with Facebook for Omega for almost ten years. I still like Meta as a company and I learned a lot during my journey. And after ten years I'm really asking myself like what makes me happy? Right. So is that a manager huge team or like is that a building something really interesting or build something zero to one or solve harder problems? So what I get is I will be more passionate about it, building something zero to one as well as a solve harder problems. It's not about managing huge arcs. With that I was thinking about it, I actually started exploring inside Facebook as well as outside of Facebook. Right. And then I made two criteria. Top two criteria for me. One is I need to believe in the future of the company. And the second is the culture has to be the culture I would love to be within. Right. So I talked to a bunch of unicorn companies and I actually get all the offers and then why do as I mentioned, this local commerce machine really excites me. I had to see the trend of the world starting to go towards the local commerce. I feel really excited about it as well as the leadership is really strong. I think the execution is so tight. That really raised my confidence in the company. Right. And at the same time I talked to too many people and I found the culture. It's the culture I really like. I want to be like a worker in that kind of environment. So that's why I decided to join dolash thank you. Thanks so much. So the next question is for Varsha, and we'll come back to you, Yang Shao. Because we have more culture questions, but the young Shaw was talking about searching. So our audience is from many different levels. Probably most of our community is mid level, a little bit less senior than you are now. So how do people find these good opportunities that we're talking about? How do they find it? Any questions from hearing? Yes, it's okay. Awesome. So, yeah, listening to Lung Shao's answer, I felt like, you know, I have a framework for finding good opportunities. And her examples, it's like 100% into it, right? So let's walk through this framework, and you will be able to correlate how Lincoln's thought process and actually finding door actually 100% matches this framework. So step one of this framework is basically introspection. What do you really want in your next job? Right? So introspect about a yourself. What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? What are you passionate about? What will make you happy and make you wake up and come to work every day and do the things you want that's ahead of you, right? Every day. So that's a B. What are your career aspirations? Do you want to grow in terms of, like, in the next two, three years, do you want to grow your career? In Yasha's case, she didn't really want a large.org, but she wanted to do good work, right? So what are your career aspirations, really? And then what kind of companies are you looking for? Size of the company really matters. If you are looking for more fast paced environment like Julie's Motor Company, it will definitely have no structure, no processes. It will definitely need a lot more autonomy from your spare part to go get your own job done. But you will get a wide breadth of opportunities to work on which I'm going to teach you a whole lot more. And of course, it's going to be risk as well in a smaller company. So are you ready to take that risk? Because the rewards are higher, but then the risk, are you ready to take that? Right? So taking all of these criteria in mind, do some introspection and form your checklist. What are you really looking for? Right? And then put your priorities together, saying, do you want money? Do you want more learning? Do you want more growth opportunities? Is culture important to you? Good manager important to you? Like, what are your work ideas and what is the priority of those? Right? So once you have that, then you start preparing, right? And that's step two. So as part of preparing, I would say A, mentally prepare yourself that this is not an easy task. It is going to definitely take time. It's going to take a lot of effort. It's a full time job. If you already have a job, post your job. You have to put effort in applying and learning and being prepared, right? So prepare a brush up your skills, be really, really prepared. Also kind of apply the reverse psychology. The checklist that you make, what is it that's important to you? Is your resume really shining those things, like shining those skills that you want to look for in your job. So build your resume, which is short, good, and then also highlights your skills, the right skills, right? And then once you have your resume, once you have basically your checklist, and once you kind of have a mentally prepared, then you kind of start applying. Also, LinkedIn I think is a good source. So keep linking up to date. One tip is that most companies today don't even use PDF resumes, right? So mostly we just float around LinkedIn URLs, right? So LinkedIn super important, make sure it's up to date. And then in the process of applying, I would also say that LinkedIn Premium really came handy. Even five years ago when I found Odash, it was because I paid for LinkedIn Premium and a recruiter got in touch with me. So I would really recommend LinkedIn Premium. Glass door is another avenue. Go apply. So step three is go apply, right? And then you will start getting a lot of calls from recruiters from other places. The one adviser is don't rush the young shop that she had a few opportunities in hand. That's a good place to be, right? Like, how can you really have a few opportunities in hand at the same time that you can look at them and decide for yourself what is good, what is for you, what is better for you? Right? So with that, I would say when you start speaking with recruiters and when you start getting these phone calls right, ask them, what is the process, how long does it take from phone screen to onsite to getting the offer? And then try to backtrack the timeline from there. Try to keep it like two weeks, sorry, two months away, and start applying for other positions and start giving your phone screen dates such that basically you can get all of the offers at the same time. I think that's a good tip and a good way to get multiple at the same time and then make your choices. So those are the tips. So that's a framework. And then I want to give you one single tip. LinkedIn Premium. When recruiters look for candidates, they actually look for keywords. So make sure your LinkedIn profile has keywords. That your ideal job profile needs. And also, like a lot of companies have a big person hiring diversity, increasing the diversity number. And so for that, you know, one tip that one that we have been given and like we look for is looking for pronouns, she, her. So having those pronouns also makes you your name. Kind of helps with some of shining a little bit in front of the recruiters. So that's my pro tip, and that's the framework to find good opportunities. Thank you so much. Yeah. You've shared a lot of tips, many that I've never heard before, but one that really stood out was planning your career and planning your ideal and then working backwards to make sure that your resume fits. That I think that is absolutely incredible. So Varsha Spock spoke a little bit about looking for the good opportunities, all like that. I want to pass it back to you young shao people. Companies are always putting their best foot forward, of course. So how do you get a true understanding of what the day to day of the opportunity, especially as we're thinking about culture? Yeah. So I would say, of course, when you apply a job, people try to sell you, right. So I would say you need to come to be prepared, as I already mentioned, is know your priorities, know what you want. Right. Then after that, maybe come up with a list of questions which can do, like, a deep dive into those, like, priorities. Right. And then when you're talking to recruiters or every single interviewer, and it's a chance for you to ask those set of questions, do not be afraid to ask repeated questions. I actually really encourage you to ask the same question to different people so you can get a true understanding, because different people have different views. So that will help you to get a complete view. Especially you ask those questions to engineers, not managers. Right. So that will give you a good understanding, like, what is this opportunity is about and what's the company culture look like, et cetera. And also, typically, when I see people coming to interview, we think about those list of questions to ask, and people will ask the culture and people you work with, and also what is the future of the company and the work you will be focused on and your career growth. So I would say those are five areas. I really suggest people to thinking about the questions around those areas to ask. But of course, you need to know what your property is and pick the few areas which you want, like emphasis on. Yeah. When we were preparing for this event, we spoke a little bit about the difference between Culture Ad and Culture Fit. So before we start talking more specifically about culture, I would love I know, Yang Xiao, you had a lot to say about that, but before we move into the company culture questions that we have, could you speak a little bit more about that? And Varia as well? Feel free to unmute if you have anything. Yeah, yeah. I think culture Fit and Culture act is like two different concept. Right. So culture Fit, I will start with culture Fit is, first of all, you need to understand who you are, what type of things you like. Right. And do you like a culture which people really like, let's say like innovations always like brainstorm and move fast and very scrappy like environment, or do you like something more like, say, very think through deep into the technology. Those are the things you need to ask yourself what type of environment do you like? Right? I think that will be the first step. Then when you talk about culture fit, of course you need to know what's the culture the other side looks like, right? Not just you, right? So what the culture looks like is more like, as I said, ask a bunch of questions around the culture and probably read the blogs of the company, really understand what the company value is about and what they care about, right? And then you can ask the questions around those value because people might have a different interpretation of those values to get the true meaning of what those value means during the DayToday job for people. So you can get a really good understanding. And also, let's say when you think sense about culture is when you like interviewing, talking with people during the interview, after the people's attitudes, the question they ask you, you can sense a little bit about the culture as well. So, yeah, I'll pass over to variation that she would like to ask. Yeah, how do you get a true understanding variable of a company's culture? What questions would you ask? Yeah, I think Liam Shaw put it well. So again, thinking about like step by step about how do you assess a company's culture? I think step one, there is a company assesses your culture also. So let's start with that, right? So most companies today have core values like Liam Shafir, and most of them are published, right? Like Dodge has its own core values. We are leaders, we are learners, we are doers, we are bias for action and all of that, right? And then we are one team. We work together with each other well, we are humble, good, we teach each other alone from each other, right? So those are our core values, right? And then remember that a company will always assess you for these core values, right? So make sure that you have good you research what the company's core values are and then you have good examples for them. Like for example, what brings you here today? Like a common question you ask and most companies ask what brings you here? Right? And so kind of relating back to the core values thing, I love fast paced environment, I love bias for action. That's a core value that really resonated with me and therefore that brings me here. Right, so that's a good way of thinking of examples before thinking of obvious questions that may come to you. Like what feedback do you get from people around you? What's the constructive feedback that people give you around? And then showing your learning as part of that are good ways of like showing the company that you are fitting into their culture, just to give an example. And now the other way around, how do you assess what are the company's values? I think for that, again, we have to start with what are your own core values? Right? We spoke about the company's core values and most companies today have core values. Have you ever thought about personal core values? Like, I should have core values for myself, right? So what are my own core values? What do I look for? I want to work with good people. I want a good manager who will support and guide me. Maybe those are my top two. Or maybe you can have your top three or four or five, right. And then go prepare with questions for that. Right? Like, for example, I am a very active interviewer and a lot of people come to me with questions and I can assess that. They are trying to assess a culture. So questions are like, what is the one thing that you like about Dodach? What keeps you here at Dodge? That's a good question to ask your interviewer, and I see who's going to be a peer or a manager who you are going to be reporting to. Second is like, what is the one thing that you would change about Dodash? Is another question I get a lot. Right? So basically you will hear things that are not so good about the company and like how they're operating and then things like, hey, if I have an idea which is impactful and good for the company, how do I go about making it happen? Will you support me? Will you like, let me take it up? And what is the process? Do you listen to people? Give me an example where you kind of supported an idea that's coming bottom up. Right? So those are the good questions which you first find your own core values and then frame your questions around it and then ask the people who's interviewing you about it. And I think that's a good way to match both fit into companies culture as well as assess company culture in its own way of good values. I love that question about if I have an idea, who do I bring it to? I think that is just excellent. So now that we've talked about kind of looking behind the curtain, seeing what the culture, let's talk a little bit about both of you are leaders. You're somewhat responsible for keeping the culture and keeping it going. So, as Cordell mentioned, DoorDash has expanded a lot in the past few years long. You've only been here one year, but Marshall's been there much longer. So I'd love to hear from both of you. In your experience, given that it's expanded a bit recently, how do you maintain that culture with how do you maintain the culture? We can start with you, the young Shao, just because farha went past and then we'll go to Vasha. Actually, I will let Varsha suffer because being with daughter for like five years, she had seen the company from zero to one, now become one to end. Right. So I'll leave our to go first. Yeah. I feel like I have seen a lot of importance given to our culture from the time you are very small to even today that you're a giant company. Right. And I think that is super important. We have a lot of support from top, from our management all the way to the shootout and I think that is super important. The leader that the company gave up importance to the culture, that's like step one to maintaining a good culture. Right. And I think that also on the floor there is constant awareness of what our culture is and what our core values are. Right. And then integrating that into our day to day is like I think it's done well. Right. So I'll give you an example. So our day to day conversations, we bring up our cultures very often, right. For example, hey team, this is a hard problem, we need five people to fix it. Like one team won five, let's go. Right, so that's how we kind of bring up our culture very often, right? Or hey, that was done really well, that showed really good bias for action, right. So using that terminology again and again, giving kudos and reward for it, I think that's one thing that we do very well. We constantly talk about our culture in our DayToday language and that keeps us reminding us of our culture. And I feel like we do have a separate EI department which talks about inclusivity and all of that. Yes, they do a lot of initiatives to actually support inclusivity at the workplace, like ERGs biases training. Elevate is a very unique program. If you haven't read about Elevate, I would really recommend you to go and read. It's like a unique opportunity. We get people to meet the leaders of the company, learn from them and take some training, learn the business better, more closely. Right? So Elevate their hand, but that we don't just depend on a dei central department to take control of the culture and inclusivity. Right. I think as leaders, yamshaw myself also, you know, we are very involved. We run programs such as like women mentorship circles, right? So basically we make circles of women, junior, senior who help each other meet once a month, answer questions from each other, be it organizational, be it leadership, be it technical. And then we have mentorship programs for engineers, for leaders, we attend conferences, we organize women in English lunches where forum for people to come together and help each other. Right. So there's a lot that we do, we just keep it top of mind. And I'll let Liam Shaw talk a little bit more about culture now. Yeah. So I would say when I joined Dodash, I think there's several things I observed that the company is doing really well. One is I would say the company leaders are leading by examples. So they are the role model of those cultures, right? During the no matter during the way how they operate all in the meetings, in the reviews, in the product reviews, business reviews, they're really promoting those cultures, right? How can we move fast to action or how can we think about one team, one fight? How can we be like be more optimistic as well as care about the future, right? So those are the make the right decisions. So those are the things, like, I would say leaders really like caught out and lead by examples. Another thing is really important, which like I'm surprised to learn is when we do come to the injury evaluations, literally in the evaluations, it's right down what the people did to promote this culture, right? So which actually I do feel the incentive, the injury evaluation is a good way to keep the culture because that means like, hey, what type of culture will be getting rewarded, what type of culture we are against, right? Against means if you really care about your own ownership, does not think about doing the best thing for the customer and this is something we will point out during the evaluation. So those are really good mechanisms to keep the company running with a good culture. Another thing I want to point out is no matter from Dodge or other companies, so when the company from zero to one really small and when the company from one to end, I think the culture, even the same set of culture, but I would say we'll change a little bit because the company is different size and you cannot run with the same mindset. In that part, I feel like. As. A company, like we did a really good job. Let's say when the company become like a bigger, how do we translate, how do we interpret those culture? Now at this environment, this will really give the people a really good guidance on hey, how do we keep this culture? For example, let's say we always talk about buys to action, right? But a bias to action, zero to one means hey, let's put in really hacky solution. Let's just get things done by to action. Let's work on right. Right now we still buys to action, but buys to action really need to think about building some things can be reused, right? I would say the interpretation change is really helping the company still be able to keep this culture when the company grows. Thank you so much. Our next question that I'd like to have you answered on the show, even though you just went so the market, everything is very unstable. We can be honest about that. There are many unstable things and I think it's great that we have this question. Because Justina in the chat also asked it. So I think a lot of people are going through this right now. So what are some types of questions that you can ask to figure out the future of the company? So Justina and the chat shared with us when the interviewers mentioned there's been a restructure recently in the.ORG or people left, for example, what are some follow up questions? I think that both of these things are pretty connected. So I would love to hear your thoughts. Yes, this is a really good question. Actually, a lot of people interview with Dodge always ask me this question, right? So what's the future of the company? Will the company be stable? Will you guys do lay off, etcetera. Right? So I actually think right now when the market is not stable, stop dropping like crazy, right? That's actually a good testimony for the company. Can the company survive because we have a lot of opportunities. Can the company is truly be able to know, like, to survive, to operate in their, like, really like, not great environment, right? Tony always said in 2017, Dodash is at the stage is like always running into say we're going to run it out of money. Running out of money in a few months is running out of money, right? But the company survived. I think the company survived after this is a really strong company because the company knows how to execute in the lowest environment. And so that's why like, dot ash in three years, like from the market number four to market number one has a really like a huge market share, right? So that type of company is I think this stock really helps you to look at like, find this type of company, how the company survived in the road environment and what they do to survive the road environment. Then several things you can also ask yourself or you did do some research on is like, what is this area the company is operating at? Right? So what is the future of this area? What's the market size for this area? For example, local commerce is a huge market size. It's a huge area, right? Because that will really help you to understand what's the future, what's the upscaling of the future for the company, right? And then you can also ask, you can look at that the company has a product market fit by looking at the market share the company has, right? And like, how fast they grow in the area and how many users they have. So you can get a sense that the company has a market share. And also, let's say you can also ask things like, hey, if the company is not profitable yet, you can ask the managers or leaders saying, hey, what's their strategy to make the money, to make the company profit, right? And what's the strategy they have to grow the users as well. And also you can look at it is like what's the current execution of the company looks like and can the company move fast or let's say pivot quickly when things change. And this will help you to answer those questions. Can the company survive in the role environment? Another thing you can look at is how the company compare with the competitors and what is their winning levels and why do they stand out. You can ask the people say for example, why does Dash stand out? Why? So what is your secret sauce? Right? So that will really help you to understand is that something true? You really resonate with the company being able to grow really fast. And lastly, I would say is do some research of the company leaders and the founders leaders and that will give you more confidence on the future of the company. Thank you so much. I'm just looking a little bit. We're getting wonderful questions at the same time so please keep them going. And a lot of the questions are very similar to ones that we prepared. So I'm thrilled to see this. Our next question and this will be the last one and then we'll focus more on the audience questions but this one is shared also from an audience member and one that we wanted to talk about. So for Varsha, how do you figure out that you're just going to like the people that you work with? What are the signs for you? Yeah, I do think that it's much easier in today's world to know what kind of people you work with today because social media is out there. LinkedIn, Facebook, so many avenues for you to go from common connections in a company and to go and find out what the culture of the company is like, what the people are like and what the group is like. And I think these go to your LinkedIn, like go find your first connections, second connections. Go tell your first connections to introduce you to your second connections and go find out if you can talk to someone that's internal and tell you more about the people. So that's one way. I think Glassdoor Reviews is another way, right? And the interview tells you a lot. You meet so many, at least four to five people in an interview now and I think assessing a little bit of like how are they, how is their attitude? They're definitely on the driver's seat. So are they really respectful though? They are the driving member in the conversation, right? Are they humbled, are they smiley and like cheerful? Those are the signs. You can pick up a lot of attitude signals during the interview itself. Never be afraid to ask questions like am sure. Ask them questions about what is your team like, what do you like about the people on your team? Those questions kind of help you get signals as well. And then don't be afraid to ask your manager to speak to a peer, I tell your manager I want to speak to somebody on the team, that's probably my level. And then ask them questions about like, hey, how long, when would you take your application if work life balance is important to you, right? And do you shut completely on like Saturday, Sundays, or do you work a lot? So asking questions directly to your peers is never a bad thing, and asking the recruiter or your manager or during the interview panel that you want to go speak to somebody on the team is also not a bad thing. So those are some ways I feel like my favorite part about working at Dodach is that I think I work with the best in the industry, right? So talent at Doda is what I learn from every day and that makes me wake up every morning and come to work. And I do feel like Dodge's engineering blog reflects that. So if innovation and working with the best talent in your industry is important to you, try looking for blogs from that company, try looking for published material from that company, and that will give you a good sense of the caliber of people that work. And I think even that's an important factor to consider. Thank you. I'm so glad you brought up worklife balance because someone actually asked in the chat a little bit about work life balance. So I hope you are writing down those questions. Those are very good questions to ask. So we have another question a little bit about what does the career path generally look like? You can speak a little bit about door, but I think it really connects to what we were talking about is how do you learn about growth opportunities, how do you ask those questions to see what the career path is. And that's for whoever wants to answer it. Maybe I can start on this. Right? So for me, career path, so in general I want to answer in the career path because a lot of people always thinking about is after they get to the senior ICS, right? So the only career path is to be a manager to go out, right? So I actually like to do nothing so right myself. Like I see for a long time, like if I was not asked to be a manager, probably I would be IC always, right? So like for me is the first of all, I always believe you need to pay your chance, right. Knowing what you are good at, then like knowing what you are passionate about, you will do the best of your job. So I would say no matter if the It route or manager route, you can always be leaders, no matter which route you take. And as a manager, I think you need to really care about people. I think the people part, people culture, organization part, is really important to be a manager, to be successful right. Because a manager is not a thing. Dig deeper. Like solving the problems is really important people around them to solve the problems, right? But as I see the different parts is IC gets to work on really interesting and hard challenges. So IC needs really passionate about the technologies and then they lead by examples and do have followers. So then I saw someone really ask, let's say how I see a manager become a leader, right? For me, the leader definition is not equal to be a manager. So anyone can be a leader. What's the definition of the leader? So leader basically is you take on the responsibility, you take on the initiative, lead large efforts, right? So you can lead a large effort by bringing the production strategy, or you can lead a large effort by drive the really hard technical decisions, right? You can lead by actually like lead by examples. A lot of people really follow you and copy what you have done. Right? So those I would say is like, these are different type of leaders. And in a company, I would say we need a different type of leaders to make the company to be successful. That's why I want to throw out the song. So really encourage you. Everyone here is really play your strengths, know what your strength is, play your strength, what you're passionate about, right? Yeah, I think that's a wonderful answer. Liam Shaw has all these talks like frameworks and thought processes, so well, thank you, Liam Shaw. Tactically, adding to that, like extremely tactically, asking questions again, I go back to like giving tactical answers for people to take back. Tactically, you can ask questions like to your manager or your future manager, saying how often do you meet your people, how often do you have career conversations with them? Right? And what is your framework? Like, are they written down expectations that you set with them or not? How do they know? So asking I get those questions a lot when I interview, right? And I think there's nothing wrong in asking those. So ask those questions ahead and you will know how invested the manager is in growing people on their team. If they think a lot and don't have the bad answers, then maybe they're not doing as much of that. But those that do a lot of it will have ready made answers because that's the life delay every day. Right? So having those conversations openly is another technical add on. There is a little bit more here as well as tactic questions. So I think if you ask your career growth for a company during the interview, first of, you need to know what is the aug and the team is about, right? Because people can tell you you can't work on the project. Now, what is the project important? Is the project complexity? Is matching your level or help you to get on to the next level? Right? So I would ask the question is like hey, what is the team vision? And the charter is how this lad opera to the company goes or the goals. Right? So how important it is then what is the team structure? How like ask the manager how do you structure the team? For example, the manager tells you these three parts. Then you need to ask, hey, my project is belongs to which part? Or it's just that I come in the leading the entire part right now ask manager is also let's say what's the set up for me to get on to the next level in your mind. Right? So it's not saying right now, but I would love to know what other opportunities there on the team. So those I would say is kind of like really understand it's a deep dive into the opportunity and really understand what is your career growth path. Wellbeing, on the team, that is very important. That's wonderful. Thank you both. I'm seeing a couple of different people have asked questions on this topic and so we have talked a lot about green flags. Yes, but everyone has had this or many people have had this experience where you interview and then you realize it's not a good fit. And so do you have any advice for when you do realize it's not a good fit or kind of what your next steps are at that point? And I'll pass it to Varsha because I see you nodding. So I'm hoping that means you're ready to go. Oh, you're on mute. Oh, sorry. Yeah, so it depends on what were the red flags if they were obvious, like human red flags or like cultural red flags that should never exist. I would encourage everybody to bring this out, like with HR, with names. Also the company needs to know that the people are being hit by XYZ in an interview and we shouldn't be encouraging that. Now, if it is just a mutual, like, okay, I don't like this, then of course I would say that's fine. Like a politely declined give you reasons for it and it's fine. That's my two cent. Make sure you have anything to add then. Yeah, I would say probably. I also ask like if you already select the job right on the team, you find it's not a good fit and how would it be? So like yes, if you interview find it not a good fit? Probably one of ours says if you already on the team. So I would first ask is why? Why? I do not feel it's a good fit. Is that a culture? Is that a project or is that a people I work with? If it's a project, go find your manager and talk about this. Right. So tell them what I'm passionate about it and I would love to work on those things. Typically manager should empower you really find a good match, good fit for you. That will use your strengths and also, let's say, motivates you to do the work every day. Because of what I see, a lot of people get demotivated. It's a project that I'm interested in. Right. And I think really helping your manager to understand who you are and then help you to find the right opportunity, that is very important. If this is a truly purely people or culture fit issue, I would say it's like talk to the leaders of the.ORG to understand why and understand what are the changes the leader is making. Right? If a leader do not feel so, then I would say it's a time for you to move on. Thank you both for those answers, for both sides before and after. Here's another question from someone like a current employee, this participant, they said, I heard companies are doing all of these innovative things to attract people. So what if you are a current employee at the company and you want to encourage them to take some of these practices on in adopting strategies to continue hiring diverse candidates? Is it okay for the employee to speak up? How would you recommend and who to go to if they want to help with that initiative? Yeah, I would think recruiting would be the right person to go speak with. I think Dodge is a classic example where we don't wait for a particular department to make a change. Like in 2017, we had no diversity and inclusion separate department. Right. But at the same time, anybody who had diversity ideas, for example, women in Inch Lunch, right? We started it ourselves. We said, okay, we want to do this and we're going to do it. Right. So I feel like we shouldn't be so somebody, when I was earlier in my career, somebody told me at a workplace, nothing is not your problem. Like, that not your problem should never come up. Because at a workplace and that's the leading strategy, that's how you will win. Nothing should be not your problem. So if you see that your company is not adopting to some of these strategies that other companies are adopting to, that you're listening here in this webinar or somewhere else, and you want to propose that, I would say organize your thoughts, put them down on paper. Like, talking sometimes doesn't register very well. So put them down on paper and then take this paper, document, whatever. Too many key people, not just one, right? So maybe it's HR, maybe it's your manager, maybe it's a VP of Engineering. In my case, it's just TCP building. I have these awesome ideas that we should be including and someone will hear. I do feel like companies come with good intentions and they want to do the right things. And so, of course, companies have constraints also. So not everything may or may be heard, but whatever can be heard, I'm sure the companies will hear. We're actually almost out of time, which and I apologize. There were so many amazing questions. We're not going to get to every one of them. I just will ask a quick shout out to Cordell. A lot of people are asking about apprenticeship programs or early career programs. And if you have an answer, if we have an answer to put in the chat, that would be wonderful. I unfortunately do not know that answer. But to close up for both of our panelists, what is like the one thing that you would like people to come away from this event? We shared so many frameworks, so many things to think about. Yeah. What's the thing that you want people to leave today? Remembering I can start. I would say know your priorities, know your strengths, and that will really help you to find the job that you really like and your shop. Yes. Following up, I feel like we spoke about a lot of positive nuggets here on this webinar, a lot of things to take away. But the one thing that we didn't speak about, which also you should take away is basically rejection is a part of the game. Right. So you will get nos from companies. And the one thing to keep in mind is don't get discouraged. Do not get discouraged. Keep trying. If it's a no, it's probably because it's not a mutual match, something that the company saw that you didn't. So take it positively. Move on the right opportunities ahead and go get it. Thank you all so much. Thank you. DoorDash. Thank you to our panelists. This has been absolutely amazing. We hope you have a great rest of the morning because you are on the West Coast. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Bye. Thank you for Debbie. Hi.