Tech Moms

Sarah Shook, Freelance Web Developer & 3 Kids

2021-06-08T00:00:00+00:00

About Sarah

Sarah Shook, Web Developer

👩🏻‍💻 Job: I currently freelance. My current projects work with Gatsby and Tailwind CSS on the frontend, with Prismic and GraphQL on the backend. In the past I’ve worked with many other languages including PowerShell, SQL, and PHP, and I’m open to project opportunities with those languages (or others!)

🇺🇸 Dallas, TX, US

👶🏻👶🏻👶🏻 I have a 6 year old who’s just finished homeschooling, a 3 year old, and a 1.5 year old (all three stay at home with me during the day).

🐥 Twitter

✨ Shook Codes

➡️ Hashnodes

Resources

I enjoy podcasts about current events, history, and tech (Lady Bug Podcast is a great podcast run by women!).

Career

Coding and learning

What do you like most about coding?

Everything is a puzzle. You can figure out how to make the computer do anything you want with the correct logic.

From what I understand you finished a coding bootcamp at home while taking care of your kids, this is amazing. Self-learning is hard, I can’t imagine what it is with kids. What gave you the motivation to enter this journey? What was your setup to make this all happen?

I’m currently attending bootcamp, and am scheduled to finish at the end of July. I used to work for a non-profit where I was the only developer, and while I learned a LOT, I always felt like there were holes in my knowledge.

I took a step back from working full-time after having my 3rd child, and focused on learning.

Balancing everything is a challenge, but I want to provide the best life for my kids, and I’m hoping the work I’m putting in now will pay off tenfold in the future.

Twitter Developers & Friends

I came upon your An Introvert’s Personal Guide to Tech Twitter post, what was the greatest thing Twitter brought into your life?

I joined Twitter because I didn’t know anyone who coded in my personal life. Being the only developer at my last job was sometimes lonely - I didn’t have someone to help me solve issues or celebrate the wins of resolving a challenging coding problem.

I joined Twitter to communicate with other developers. At first my expectations weren’t high, but I quickly built relationships with developers across the world. There are several people I consider friends from Twitter, and we support each other not only in coding, but in other aspects of our life.

Back to work

The route of freelancing

You’re actually job hunting. As a parent, what will convince you to join a company rather than another. What are you looking for and what will make a difference?

I’ve actually decided to go the route of freelancing for now, due to the flexibility and ability to work for myself.

I started my own LLC to keep me motivated, and I’m excited for what the future holds!

Taking things day by day

In this post you talk about the challenge of finding time to code with a family. For job interviews and home assignments, can you find time and energy to dedicate to this? Or is it also challenging?

I haven't had time to code yet today due to being a parent at home with kids. I'm trying to be happy for my friends who are succeeding, but today it's kinda hard, as my priorities are so much different and I don't have as much time to code (but have so much coding to do!).
— Sarah Shook 🎀💎 (@shookcodes) May 3, 2021

I take things day by day. Some days I am able to code for hours; others I don’t have time to open my computer. My spouse is very supportive and takes care of our kids when I need time to focus on homework or my career.

Career-mode

What do you like most about being back in “career-mode”?

I don’t think “career-mode” ever left, it was just put on the backburner for a while. That said, it’s become my main priority again (other than parenting, of course!), and I am grateful that I can try to be successful on my own so that my kids will have a great future.

Career & Parenting

Computer vs Kids

You make your family your priority, I love reading that. Working in tech, and having so much to do with side-projects, new things to learn etc., it’s important to be reminded that “Our kids are only young for a while, and enjoying time with them is more important than focusing on coding/tech related stuff all day.” Sometimes we tell ourselves “I will just finish this project”, “I just try this thing and I stop”, it can easily become hours to the detriment of our family. How do you set boundaries to not do too much work?

One thing that's been hard for me to learn, especially as a parent dev, is not to take more than I can handle in regards to projects and goals. These days my short term goals are spending time with my kids & doing fun things w/them & finishing bootcamp.
— Sarah Shook 🎀💎 (@shookcodes) April 5, 2021

I notice when I work too much and get too involved in something, I become short with other people (because all I’m thinking about is the problem or project on the computer, and I don’t want to be bothered).

When I get to that point, I know it’s time to step back and take a break. The computer will always be there; like you mentioned, my kids won’t always be young.

Freelance & Involved parent

What are your career plans? What would be the ideal plan to make you happy as a developer and a mom?

I took the plunge into freelancing, and while I’m not sure exactly where that path will take me, I am happy for the freedom it provides.

As my time opens up, I’m hoping my clients will grow, possibly leading me to form an agency. Working on my own time so that I can be an involved parent is my ideal situation.

Parenting

Time for yourself

Being a mom of 3, and having limited time, how do you take time for yourself? How do you avoid burnout?

Usually I take time for myself by going to the gym for an hour 3 - 5 times a week (though sometimes that is put on hold due to my husband’s work schedule or sick kids).

As far as avoiding burnout, I don’t get as much time to code as people do if they are kid-free or their kids are in some type of live school… So while I do get tired of coding sometimes… I don’t think it’s as much as others who actually sit and code for 6+ hours a day (because I can’t manage that amount of time per day usually).

When burn-out does happen, I take a night to focus on one of my other hobbies.

Homeschooling

How do you organize for homeschooling?

The school we go through currently has a weekly plan set out. I read the weekly plan, then try to get my daughter’s schoolwork done each day based on the weekly schedule.

While schoolwork can be completed at anytime, having a set number of assignments that are recommended to be due on a specific day helps me tremendously.

Free writing

Being a parent developer can be difficult, especially if you were career-oriented before kids, but then wanting the opportunity to stay at home with them while they’re young.

I deal with depression and anxiety (which I’m open about on Twitter), and sometimes mental health can factor into my productivity, both in parenting and coding.

Many people deal with mental health obstacles, and that’s ok. What matters is that we take things day by day and try our best; first, to be a good parent, and secondly, to focus on our careers or anything else that’s important to us.

Thanks for reading Sarah Shook’s post!

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Michaela Greiler, Owner of codalytics consultancy and training

2021-05-14T00:00:00+00:00

About Michaela Greiler

👩🏻‍💻 Job: I’m the owner of codalytics consultancy and training, and I’m mainly focusing on training software engineers through workshops, research in the area of code reviews and productivity, and consultancy in the same space.

🇦🇹 Austria

👶🏻 2 children: age 3 and 5

📝 Doctor McKayla

🌅 Software Engineering Unlocked

🐥 Twitter

Resources she enjoys

Career

You organize workshops and team coaching sessions, you write articles, run a weekly newsletter, host a podcast. What do you like most about your job(s)? What is the most challenging thing?

I love the content of my work. I love thinking about software engineering practices, I love creating content, and the feeling of self-determination.

The most challenging thing for me is that I want to maximize the impact I have with my work, while limiting the time that I spend on work, because I also have a strong desire to spend as much time as possible with my family, and for adventures.

Could you share with us what was the last project you worked on?

I’m working on a research project focusing on what makes developers happy and productive.

You’re focusing your work around code reviews organizing “Code Review Superpower Workshops”. What was your path choosing this niche?

Code reviews are a socio-technical practice, as such they are challenging as you have to have social and technical skills at the same time, and balance that with organizational skills.

From this perspective, they bring a lot of benefits, but an equal amount of challenges. Helping people get better and overcome those challenges is fascinating to me.

Career & Parenting

Developing Conflict Competence

In the Developing Conflict Competence article, you talk about “conflict competence”. Defined as “the ability to develop and use your skills to create a productive outcome during conflict while reducing the likelihood of harm.”. Has your relationship with conflict changed with having kids? I guess this is something parents have to deal with quite often when kids grow up. Does it require the same mechanism as conflict the management skills we may need in the workplace? Is conflict competence something you try to teach to your kids in any way?

It definitely has. I’m a strong proponent of non violent communication, a framework introduced by Marshall Rosenberg.

My abilities to actively listen, and separate observation from evaluation, is needed on a daily basis with my kids. I also teach this in the code review workshops. The quint-essence is to have empathy and be on a constant quest for understanding what drives your own behavior (feelings and needs), and what feeling and needs drive the people surrounding you.

The more you know about this, the more a solution that reduces harm and is beneficial for all involved can be reached.

The skill to say “No”

In The skill to say “No” — Agile product ownership article, I guess this is also a skill much required when having kids. “Actually saying no with grace, authority while minimizing negative reactions is an additional skill.”. In the article you noticed that there are few resources about “how to actually say no”. Have your kids helped you answer this question?

I’m struggling a lot with this. I could not say that the kids made me better at saying no in general. Confronted with their sweet little faces and sad eyes, it is more the opposite. I say “yes” too much.

But, the kids are definitely helping to say no to many non-essentials. I say no to projects, job opportunities and other people. I’m much more protective of my personal boundaries outside of my family.

So, in this regard, they have helped me quite a bit. I’m also a big fan of “Essentialism”, and can recommend the book. I listen to passages of it over and over to remind myself to stay true to my mission.

Resilience

For these two skills (Conflict Competence & Saying No), very useful in the workplace, do you think parents can have an advantage with developing soft skills at home?

I think, having kids definitely has made me more resilient to conflict. You have to deal with it on a daily basis, over and over. So, I’m quite trained at the moment to deal with it.

Parenting

Scariest

What is the scariest thing about being a mom?

The fear of something happening to the kids.

The challenges of 50/50 split

Have you faced any challenges being a mom in tech? If so, do you have an idea of how to improve parent’s journey in tech?

I faced many, many challenges. The first one is that I haven’t been prepared how much having kids will change my life. And if I would have known before, I could have created a better and more supportive (work) environment. Nobody really talks about how much having kids takes a toll on the mothers.

I also lived in this fantasy world that we will be splitting taking care of the kids 50/50. But reality, at least for me, was that this was not even remotely possible at the beginning. How should my partner take over 50 of the pregnancy complications? Complications after birth? Now that my kids are older, we are close to a 50/50 split, but it took quite some time until we got there.

In hindsight, if I would have known, I could have prepared much better mentally and with making sure I have a professional setup that allows me to “fall-out”, and a supportive network of friends.

Last words

Since becoming a parent, time is much more meaningful to me. I’m very deliberate about making sure I spend my time on meaningful activities. This is also why I started my own business. It’s not always possible of course, but I’m constantly working on it.

Resources

How to give respectful code review feedback

Thanks for reading Michaela Greiler’s post!

Share it if you liked it, someone else may enjoy it as well 🙌🏻

Baby Sign Language, parents’ stories

2021-05-05T00:00:00+00:00

Meet the parents, Sylvain, Clair and Lucile

I have really been curious about baby sign language since the first time I heard about it. Most of the time, when I ask parents about whether they tried to learn and teach baby sign language, they said they tried but abandoned quite quickly.

I am very happy to have 3 parents, Sylvain, Clair and Lucile who commit to baby sign language telling us more about it.

Sylvain, Software cloud Architect

Assumed doting father & VR enthusiast
👶🏻 1 child (2yo)
🇫🇷 Sainghin-en-Weppes (near Lille), France

📝 LinkedIn 🐥 Twitter 💾 Github

Clair, Graph Data Science Advocate

I love to ski (retired ski patroller) and play guitar
👧 Sophie (10yo)
🇺🇸 Breckenridge, CO

📝 LinkedIn 🐥 Twitter 💾 Github

Lucile, Teacher and City council member

Ecologist and bike lover
👶👶 E. 3.5yo & L. almost 1yo
🇫🇷 Rennes

🐥 Twitter

How it started

The idea was born

It’s a friend of mine who told me first about baby sign language. He told me he could not wait to communicate with his baby that way. I was hooked.

I was also curious to know how Sylvain, Clair and Lucile had the idea to communicate with sign language with their child.

I've always wanted to learn sign language, and I’ve read some studies/testimonials and books about how sign languages may help the child with communication, frustration, and general growth

I hadn’t really thought about it too much before my kid was born. But then I saw our nanny doing it with her and I remembered reading something somewhere that babies pick up sign really quickly. So I thought we might give it a try

During my first pregnancy, I read about sign language for babies. I thought it was a good idea

Learning before teaching

I know nothing about sign language yet. I am starting to watch Little Bun Bao videos. I learned few words so far, “Teddy” (“doudou” in French) and “bath” words.

Did you know sign language before starting? How did you start?

I didn’t know sign language. I started with LittleBunBao’s videos and application (on iOS). Also, the Nanny we chose with my wife already knew sign language and helped us to learn basic words, understandable to babies such as “again”, “forbidden”, “dangerous”, “please”, “thank you” and “I love you”

I used to be fluent in American Sign Language (ASL). When I was in high school I was in a play¹, where I played the deaf lead. I went through an intensive education from a professional interpreter such that I could learn all of my lines for the show and then communicate (at least somewhat) with deaf audience members afterwards. I really developed a passion for it. By the time I got to college (University of Michigan) in 1993, I found out that there were no courses in ASL or other forms of sign language, despite having a secondary language requirement. ASL was recognized as fulfilling the requirement, but it was on me to find a professor who would sign off on the form saying that I met 2-year proficiency. Fortunately I found someone in the Department of Social Work who tested and passed me. I also spent summers hanging out with some of the deaf college students who interned on campus with the hearing institute at the hospital. They were the ones who gave me my sign name. With the help of these friends and the professor, I became a strong advocate for the university providing classes, which I believe they do today

When E. wasn’t talking too much between 1 and 18 month, I sought it would be a good idea to follow lessons on sign language to encourage him to talk and to be proactive (I’m a teacher, I know how being a good speaker is important). It was really great because it was a family activity we could do together. We had 5 lessons on vocabulary like food or hygiene or play. We learned songs also. That really encouraged us to sign to him. He goes to a kindergarten where some people would also sign. We love “more” which is really useful, “water” or “snail” as in the song “Petit escargot”

Sign back

From what I read, it’s always a great moment of joy when your kid signs back.

How long after you started to communicate with sign language did your kids answer back? How old was he or she? How did you feel?

We’ve been communicating since he was born. He didn't respond at first but only watched. The important part for me is either to tell the word you sign, or doing the action, then signing, and repeat. Then one day, he started to sign “again” after his lunch (ok, a special version of his own, but still understandable). He was 1 year old when he started to use the good sign with the meaning. I was confused at first as it’s been a year of signs without any feedback, and I admit that I didn’t recognize the sign first. It was our Nanny that told us. After that, I was (and still is) a proud doting daddy !

I think she was about 6-8 months old. I didn’t recognize it at first, but our nanny did. She signed “milk."

He began after several months to say “more”. I would say around 14 months old. He really needed to walk before speaking. Then it took us some time for him to use other signs. After we did our lessons, he learned lots of other signs. But really fast after learning a new sign he would learn the word and then stop using the sign to use the word. But not for “more. He did use it long after 2 years old

Difference between kids

Teaching is always a unique experience.

Was it different to teach your first kid compared to your second? What were the differences?

I’ve begun to teach L. and I know now that perseverance is the key but with 2 kids, it’s more difficult for me to sign. I try to use as much as I can “more”, “changing your diaper”, “poop”, one ou two animals and songs but that’s all. She did catch “more” at 9 months old. What is really funny is that I do the sign, my eldest will catch it and then he repeats it to my youngest

Partners

Is your partner also using sign language with your kids?

My wife’s also using sign language. And clearly it was a real helper for me because our son always sees sign language when we communicate with him, so he doesn’t have to adapt between sign comprehension and oral comprehension. (Also, it helps a lot when you forgot a sign !)

No, he isn’t/didn’t

He does. I think it is really important, so it is clear for the baby

Day to day communication

The best part

What do you like most about communicating with sign language?

As signing is easier for our son to do than speaking, it became natural for him to sign (or try to sign when he doesn’t know the real one) when he wants to communicate. Still, that doesn’t prevent him from learning to speak. At 2 he’s only starting, but sometimes the sign helps when the speech can’t. For example, a few months ago he started to cry after he played with something and when we asked him if he was angry, he said yes, but he was signing “scared”. We knew that he was in fact scared of being too close to the vacuum-cleaner. As he learned to sign before speaking he was able to tell us what he wanted/felt, we were able to calm him down and reduce anger and frustration episodes

Sign language is VERY expressive! Much more so than spoken language. There are words in sign that don’t have any translation and yet convey much more feeling

I like that you can communicate with your kid earlier than with words. It is also something you can do to encourage your kid to communicate. He learns that each word means something. It also enhances comprehension when you read books

The hardest part

What’s the hardest thing you’d think of?

It’s clearly patience. It takes more than a year of practice before getting at least one sign back. Sometimes we’re discouraged but you have to continue, to be sure that he learns

It takes constant practice. I stopped signing after I left college. I regret that and feel that I have lost a lot. I am not fluent anymore. We also eventually stopped signing with my daughter and she has lost the few words she knew as well

Being consistent. Doing it when you are tired or under stress

And then, spoken language comes

Did you stop communicating with sign language once they were able to speak?

At 2, we continue to communicate using both spoken and sign languages, we are not considering stopping for the moment. We use French Sign Language so this may help him later

We stopped when she was able to speak, sort of. However, I started to volunteer at her preschool to teach her class sign language once/week

When he was making small sentences, we stopped. Because at this point, he responded, so it went quicker to just speak. Apart with animals: I continue to use the signs when I’m playing with him and trying to make him guess some animals

The basic words

On average, how many words do you know and use in sign language?

Hum… That’s a hard question. In 2 years I have learned a lot of words, even complete nursery rhymes !

I think somewhere around 5ish: “Please,” “Thank you/You’re Welcome,” “Water,” “Milk,” “More,” “I love you,” and maybe a few others

I would say around 20? I learned lots of animals. “More” “water” “changing your diaper” “poop” “thank you” “please” “like” “angry” “eat” “bear” “snail” “snake” “wolf” “fox”

Secret signs

I am reading a book about sign language and I came upon a story of a parent saying that they would say “I love you” to each other every morning when dropping the kid off at school with sign language as a secret sign nobody else would understand.

Do you also use secret signs?

We don’t have “secret signs”, but a 2yo kid can not sign as perfectly as an adult, so some signs may only be recognized by his mom and me (like “please”: in FSL is a light touch on the cheek and with my son is more like a big slap ! Or “I love you” which should be your hand on your heart then towards the exterior, but with my son is more like a “bro-check” on the heart)

We definitely use “I love you” whenever we are trying to convey that sentiment through windows or dropping off at school or something

No we don’t. We did learn “toilet” with thinking we could use it to say between my husband and me, but we never used it

Communicating with others

Do your kids try to communicate with sign language with other people than you?

We communicate in sign language with my wife when we’re too far from each other. I also on one occasion used it when doing groceries with a deaf person at the store checkout

She will sign “I love you” to daddy, but that is it

Do your kids communicate in sign language with each other or other kids?

My son is with 2 other children at his nanny’s so they all have the habit to communicate with sign languages (either between them, or with the Nanny)

My son will show to his little sister. But I need to initiate it

Family and friends

How did your entourage react to sign language communication?

Most of our family members are amazed to watch our son sign regularly. Some had concerns about the fact “sign language may become easier than speech” and he may refuse to speak. But it was not the case and now he does both. And now we have to learn signs to all our family because they all want to sign with him !

Our family and friends were very supportive, but I think that is because they knew of my background with it

Our family and friends were very supportive and some went to the same lessons as us after

Link with the Deaf community

If you have the possibility to sign with your children, just do it. It has only benefits for you as parents and human beings, You’ll be able to communicate with deaf people and make them feel understood. and for your children you'll help them avoid frustration and communicate with their world

There is so much that I could write here! When I was learning sign (in the early 90’s), the Deaf community was fairly opposed to the cochlear implant. This has changed quite a bit since then. The interpreter who taught me explained it such that the Deaf community did not think that there was anything wrong with them, so why should they need to get this? (This at the time was also kind of the view about deaf people learning to speak. Some did, some didn’t. But sign language was still deeply rooted in their culture. They had some very strong opinions about “Children of a Lesser God,” because they were trying to force the deaf female lead to speak in the story.) Since that was a strong opinion when I was learning, I must admit to finding the change in views (or what I perceive to be the change anyway) to be a bit strange

Last words

As a tip to any parent who wants to learn this, don’t try to make your child do the exact sign. As soon as the sign is good enough to be understood by you or someone else, it’s fine. Don’t forget that they're just children and that’s is a brand new language for them to learn. And maybe you could have a secret sign with them one day !

Because babies’ brains are developing, their brains don’t allow them to quite make the same shapes and movements with their hands as adults. It took my nanny showing me that she was actually signing for me to see it, and that was with all of my background in ASL! I think the key is to just stick with it. Every time you hand them milk, sign “milk.” Even better, sign “milk, please.” Follow it up with “thank you.” Help them make the hand movements themselves. It will come!

I still use the sign “please” and “thank you” when my kid forgets to use it.

Thanks for reading Sylvain, Clair and Lucile’s feedback on Baby Sign Language!

Share it if you liked it, someone else may enjoy it as well 🙌🏻

Baby Sign Language, the basics

2021-05-01T00:00:00+00:00

What is baby sign language? Why should you learn and teach it? How to start?

Full-fledged natural languages

There is not one sign language, there are many. Contrary to what I was first thinking, sign languages are not universal.

There are different sign languages all over the world, just as there are different spoken languages. They are full-fledged natural languages with their own grammar and lexicon.

When exploring baby sign language I noticed that “mom” was indeed said differently when using American Sign Language or French Sign Language.

These differences make sense, for example “eat” is represented by handling sticky chops in one hand in Japan.

Baby Sign Language

Baby sign language is most of the time taught as a transition language.

Some studies put into light that kids of deaf or hard of hearing people were able to communicate from 9 months old. Whereas kids of hearing people were able to communicate using speech with short sentences around 2 years old.

Babies acquire the skill to make intentional gestures around 4-5 months old. The development of speech is related to the descent of the larynx. Until 6 months old, the larynx is in a high position in the baby’s neck, like the chimpanzee (and probably like Australopithecus). This explains why babies can drink milk while still breathing and use less sophisticated sounds.

Then, during childhood, the larynx goes to a lower position allowing the child to articulate sounds. The larynx settles to its final position around 4 years old.

Long story short, kids first acquire skills to move, then to speak. This is one of the reasons why sign language is very appealing. Your baby can express himself or herself when being hungry, scared, dirty and so much more, way before they can actually speak.

Baby sign language can be taught for accessibility purposes as it’s the same for babies as for deaf or hard of hearing people.

How to start

Little Bun Bao advises starting from 6 months old. It’s expected to have a sign back from 8-9 months old. It requires patience. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t get results right after starting.

It’s recommended to pick 2-3 words to start with. No need to put a pressure on yourself to learn the whole dictionary, and it would be very discouraging.

The most important is to use conscientiously the spoken word when signing, and vice versa. Always use sign language when telling them out loud.

I haven’t started yet really, but I already picked these words ⇒ Eat, Sleep, Change (and Bath) as his days are mainly organised around these activities.

Resources

As I am a french speaker, I will use the French Sign Language. So I won’t have great resources to recommend for other languages. But if you’re french, I use the courses of Marie Littlebunbao (she’s also on Instagram)

Sources

Leah Silber, Co-founder and CEO at Tilde & EmberConf organizer

2021-04-21T00:00:00+00:00

About Leah

Leah Silber, Co-founder and CEO at Tilde, EmberConf organizer

Co-founder and CEO at @tildeio, organizer of numerous developer conferences over the last ten years, including EmberConf, RustConf, jQueryConfs and RailsConf. @emberjs Core Team Member and @jquery Core Team alum.

👩🏻‍💻 Job: As CEO at Tilde for the last 10 years I’ve been responsible for anything and everything. Initially, it was getting the company up and running, and then it became keeping it running. Sales, hiring, HR, product management, and everything in between. Over the last two years I’ve also been able to prioritize getting back to writing code, which I’m enjoying, even though I’ve still got lots more to learn.

🇺🇸 Portland, OR, USA

👶🏻 A four year old and an infant.

📝 Tilde

🐥 Twitter

Career & Tech Conferences

Running EmberConf

Ember Conf happened at the end of March. What is the biggest challenge of being the organizer? What do you like most about organising it? How is it going with the transition to a virtual event?

Ember turns 10 years old this year, and I’ve been running EmberConf from the start (even back when it was still EmberCamp).

It’s been amazing watching a small project turn into such a successful and broad community, and I’ve worked with so many fantastic people I wouldn’t otherwise have met—people I know consider among my closest friends.

That’s part of why transitioning to virtual has been challenging. In addition to the logistics of running the event itself, there’s all of us being a little sad about missing our annual opportunity to hang out, grab ice cream, and just be round like-minded friends for a while.

We’re all optimistic about being back in person for 2022, and in the meantime, have a successful formula for a virtual event that works hard to reclaim some of our in-person magic. There’s no way to replace the face-to-face time we all miss, but we get as close as we can. Even virtually, EmberConf includes content for kids, fun non-technical sessions (like this year’s hand-lettering and stress management workshops!), attendee spotlights and a whole host of things designed to help us recapture some of what we’re missing.

Working behind the scene

You wrote a book on how to run memorable tech conferences, Event Driven. You do hard work behind the scene, have you ever considered giving talks at these conferences?

I’ve considered it, and I’ve done it! I’ve talked about event organizing a bit, about starting a startup, and given a number of talks about how to run open-source-centric businesses.

I like to give talks every couple of years to shake things up and challenge myself, as well as so I don’t forget the experience my speakers have, for empathy purposes. That said, the behind the scenes work is generally more interesting to me.

Career & Parenting

Setting reasonable expectations

You’re a multiple conferences organiser, EmberJS Core Team Member and CEO. How do you concretely organise to be on all fronts? Working on week-ends? At night? 😅 How do you organise to do it all with a kid? Do you have a specific routine?

I wish I had a formula I could share with other parents out there, but there really isn’t one. Every day is a new challenge, and no two days look the same.

Post-kids I really appreciate the freedom I had before them, even though I didn’t think about it that way before, but I also feel like my life is fuller and more enriched.

I work hard not to let work bleed into after hours time, but then I always did. Work/life balance is an important theme at Tilde, and I try and practice what I preach. Even before most of the team had young families, we all wanted the environment to be one that accommodated those who did, and that always allowed us to attract and hire folks regardless of where they were in life. It’s definitely paid off.

In general, there’s a lot of FOMO and pressure when starting a new company or project, to go go go as fast as you can, lest opportunity pass you by. But that formula too often results in burnout, a problem our industry is all too familiar with.

Setting more reasonable expectations all along the way, even when you can get away with pushing yourself harder, is a healthier and more sustainable way to do things that’ll sustain over the long-haul.

Side projects vs Family projects

Did you feel that your priorities have changed after becoming a mom? Can you still be involved in your projects/side-projects?

It wouldn’t be reasonable to say my priorities haven’t changed, but I would say my work life didn’t have to change all that much, thanks to Tilde’s general family-friendly orientation.

I think one of the most stressful parts is figuring out for yourself, how you want to think about your role, your identity, and how you want to prioritize your projects. Being perceived as a Mom is a very different thing than as a CEO (though maybe it ought not be) and lots of new parents have to deal with reconciling the two different roles. Even more so if they’re in less supportive environments.

I still work on side projects I care about, but it’s true that I’m probably more selective now. Passion projects are competing with more family projects now, and the burden to be worth the time and energy is surely a bit higher.

Babies at work

Working remotely

I love the idea of an infant-at-work program that you set up at Tilde. It was really precursor as with COVID all parents had to deal with a kind of “babies at work policy” working remotely. As you were more baby-oriented than other companies, has your setup changed with covid? How are you organised these days? Can people go back to work?

We’re not back in the office yet, but we’ve thankfully hummed along well over the last year. The transition to remote went smoothly, though honestly we all just miss being around each other.

It would be silly to think that people haven’t been mildly less productive over the last year. But frankly that’s less related to where they were physically working from, and more about the state of the world. A pandemic, political unrest, the focus on the many human rights violations and indignities going on around the world and especially here in the US, and more, have affected everybody. And to be explicit, productivity wasn’t the goal last year: survival was.

We thankfully had the breathing room to give ourselves some grace during these hard times. There were more mental health days, more meetings that ran over because we all just wanted to talk about everything going on, and more personal life disruptions for lots of us as people we knew and loved got sick, or laid off, or any number of 2020-chaotic things. But we tried to all be supportive of each other, and to focus on being overall healthy and acceptably-adjusted human beings, rather than uber productive team members.

Overall I can’t put into words how proud I am of how the Tilde team made it through the last year. We were lucky, too, in that none of us got sick, which we’re all super grateful for (super quarantining really works, folks! Hang in there, it shouldn’t be much longer!), and in that we had each other to lean on.

As things hopefully continue to return to something resembling normal, we’re eager to get back to seeing each other.

Watching Tilde Baby Developers grow

How many parents have experienced the baby-at-work policy at Tilde? It looks a bit like a qualitative team building. Has your relationship changed with your co-workers since babies are at work?

The program has really allowed us to get to know each other (and our partners and kids) a lot better, and it’s been incredibly nice. One of the (many) sad parts about 2020 is that there would’ve been two babies in the program, and we only got to spend a tiny amount of time with them before lockdowns started. I feel a little like an aunt who hasn’t been able to see nieces and nephews during their amazing first year(s).

There have been four babies in the program, though again, some of them missed most of their window due to 2020 being what it was. Believe it or not though, there are a few more Tilde Baby Developers on the way though, so hopefully we’ll get to spend some more time with the next batch!

It’s worth mentioning that the program has also been a huge draw for candidates when we’ve interviewed since it started. There isn’t too much out there like it, and it has appeal for Moms and Dads alike. No one wants to miss out on their kiddo’s first year, regardless of the need to return to work, and this makes both things plausible.

Playtime

Something that would be a concern for me with a baby-at-work policy is playtime with the kid. I would feel guilty watching my son in his Rock n’ Play and not being available to play with him. Was it also a concern? If so, how did you or your colleagues deal with that?

There’s plenty of time to play! For parents and coworkers alike! And even if you’re pair programming while your baby sits next to you playing with their toys (or maybe just hands), they’re still getting more parent time than if you had to leave them with a sitter, or grandparent, or anyone else. And babies just adore being with their parents.

Baby-wearing has also been a huge hit, and is super functional. No reason you can’t be wearing a baby while programming, in a meeting, or almost anything really.

Before they’re mobile there’s just so much flexibility, and barring any specific medical issues or unlucky things like colic, they’re just so pleased to be around their parent, that they’ll be quieter, calmer and overall easier to co-exist with.

To be clear, I don’t mean to minimize the concern, only to say that it didn’t really come to fruition, like so many other theoretical problems people bring up when first hearing about the program (all people, even me! I go into it in a fair bit of detail in my Medium article).

In general the program turned out to be simpler, and more fun than expected, for the parents and colleagues alike.

Resources

Babies at Work: It’s Weird that it’s Weird: The crew over at Tilde started the year [2017] with a new somewhat uncommon policy: new parents (mothers or fathers) could bring their immobile infants to work with them.

Event Driven: Running a tech conference? Concerned about the details, the financial risks, the logistics and the wow factor? Event Driven will walk through the ins, outs and gotchas in an instructional format designed to help make sure you create the best possible event, and keep everyone happy along the way.

Thanks for reading Leah Silber’s post!

Share it if you liked it, someone else may enjoy it as well 🙌🏻

Becoming a mom: A “Mammalian” Experience

2021-04-12T00:00:00+00:00

tldr; Have you ever thought of you as a mammal ? Personally not, ever. But then, I got pregnant.

The discovery

My activities are mainly “mind-oriented”: I work as a developer, I read, watch videos, meditate (not so much but still!)… You see the picture :) I’ve never really thought of myself as a physical living being. I do exercise, within the limits of what is comfortable. It feels convenient not thinking of how vulnerable we are. The only time I felt being “flesh and bones” was when walking on the road to Santiago de Compostela. Still it remains more a spiritual adventure than physical.

As it may sound like an ordinary experience, pregnancy was a real life-changing one for me. Not giving birth, but being pregnant.

It was the first time that my daily challenges were more physical than intellectual. I was more driven by hormones and instinct than ever. I’d never thought of pregnancy being so physical. Experiencing it deconstructed all my beliefs about it!

I realised the strength and courage of pregnant women. As they continue to live their life as normal with a whole different body and all of the complications that may come with it. Working and shopping feeling sick, with breathlessness and pains, eating a special diet to avoid toxoplasmosis and listeriosis…

The pregnancy equation: a physical challenge.

I had this image of pregnancy as a moment of beauty and bloom in life. I used to see it as pregnancy = oneself + big belly

I was wrong! The big belly is just the tip of the iceberg. There’s way more to the equation.

pregnancy = oneself + hormones * (estrogen + progesterone)
+ nausea / vomiting + pains * (back + sciatica + breasts)
+ breathlessness + fatigueˆinsomnia + acid reflux
+ contractions + carrying life + big belly

Pregnancy is so physical (I do understand now why pregnant women have priority lines.)

The body, this wonderful mammalian machine

Well, the body organises itself to create life. More primitive qualities start developing to make all this happen.

The sense of smell overdevelops (it really felt like gaining superpowers)
The relaxin hormone relaxes the ligaments and joints in the pelvis to prepare the delivery
The cardiac flow (allowed by estrogen) and the respiratory volume increase to provide for both the mom and the baby. - That’s why we get to be more breathless
The organs move to leave space for the foetus. - That’s why we have many kinds of pains
The body stores fat for the good progress of pregnancy and breastfeeding.
The uterus trains contracting for the delivery.
And more…

Each pregnancy is unique, we may experience it differently. But we share this primal process. In fact, we share it with all mammals.

The ordinary in the extraordinary

As I was experiencing (undergoing?) this extraordinary event, I could not help thinking about how ordinary this has been for our own species for millions of years. And still is. More than humans, the mammals. We experience reproduction the same way. It is also true with milk production.

With pregnancy, breastfeeding has also been a revealing moment. Having the “power” to provide for the needs of a little human being with nothing else than our own body was a miracle to me. It sounds obvious. But living it is another thing.

Breastfeeding is physical. It implies milk flow, wounds, again hormones (prolactin) and constant presence to the baby. I thought breastfeeding was easy. It is not. The whole body organises for survival, I was certainly not used to it.

It felt weird thinking we experience the same thing than some animals like cats, dogs, horses…

And then, the little creature

The “primal” experience was not limited to my body. I was amazed to see how babies are driven by primitive instincts: how they need their parents to feel secure and protected.

They have primitive reflexes.

The sucking reflex so they can feed
The grasping reflex inherited from monkeys to grasp their mother as she moves
They find the nipples with their color and temperature
As their sight is underdeveloped, they recognize their mother by the smell -that they know from amniotic liquid

They haven’t learned, they just know. It’s absolutely amazing!

I am not even talking about the postpartum recovery. Estrogen and progesterone levels drop dramatically (contributing to “baby blues” or postpartum depression). The body once again realises miracles to get back to normal. In some cases, it needs to recover from a surgery (C-section or episiotomy). Uterus contracts to its original size. There’s much more to cover: lochia, perineum… We could write a entire article about this.

Well, this whole adventure was a real slap. I learned a lot about me, about us. We are designed to survive. And it is important to take time to be grateful to our body, and not only to our brain, for what it can achieve.

Caitlin Hudon, Principal Data Scientist, OnlineMedEd

2021-03-30T00:00:00+00:00

About Caitlin

Caitlin Hudon, Principal Data Scientist, OnlineMedEd

👩🏻‍💻 Job: I solve problems and drive business strategy using data, statistics, and code. And sometimes predict the future.

🇺🇸 Austin, TX, United States

👶🏻 One daughter, 1.5 years old

📝 Haystacks, A data science blog by Caitlin Hudon

🐥 Twitter

Resources Caitlin enjoys and recommends!

📚 I’ve read A Cup of Jo every day for the past 10+ years. The content is top-notch (I say “babies be babies” about once a week) and the reader comments are a gold mine. Kottke.org is one of my favorite places on the internet. Heart of Light is another (sometimes-)blogger fave.

🎙 My favorite podcasts right now are You’re Wrong About (the Princess Diana episodes hooked me and now I’m working my way through their back-catalog), The Anthropocone Reviewed (such beautiful stories), and Armchair Expert (I’m a sucker for a good interview).

👶🏻 Parenting stuff: Emily Oster’s ParentData newsletter lives at the intersection of parenting and data and I can’t recommend it (or her books!) enough. My friend Alex is a doula and gives the best Instagram recommendations to follow for different stages of motherhood and parenting, including Expecting and Empowered, Feeding Littles, and big little feelings, all of which have been really helpful for me.

Career in Data Science

Love the work!

Could you tell us more about your work?

I solve business problems using data, code, and statistics. I’ve loved solving problems with logic and math for as long as I can remember, and data science empowers me to solve big, high-impact problems using those skills combined with communication and creativity.

Data science didn’t exist when I was choosing a major, so I chose statistics and set my sights on becoming an actuary. When I learned that you could do my favorite parts of statistics (predictive analytics) on many different types of data as a career, I was hooked.

What do you like most about it?

I love that even after a decade of data work, I’m still learning new things (and doing so on the job!). I’ve worked with lots of different kinds of data and organizations, and I’ve never stepped into the same river twice in my work.

I also just love the work – I love seeing the glint of something interesting in a dataset and taking the time to brush it off, hold it to the light, and discover something new, or coming up with a big business question and being able to pull the data to answer it and see what’s worth further investigation.

The newness of the field means getting the chance to help shape it, and that my peers have very different backgrounds and are all learning too – in that way, the data community has been a great place to connect and grow and I’m glad to be a part of it.

In the past year-ish I’ve had my first management experience and then laddered back over to an individual contributor role, and to say I’ve learned a lot in the process would be a huge understatement. It was probably the most uncomfortable year of my career, but also one of the most high-growth years I’ve experienced. For now, I’m settling into my new role as Principal Data Scientist and working on balancing short-term impact with long-term strategy.

DataMishapsNight

Signing off with a giant smile because I got to spend tonight with 250 other data nerds talking and laughing about mistakes we've made. Thanks to everyone who came out and supported #DataMishapsNight, and especially to the presenters who shared their stories!
— Caitlin Hudon 👩‍💻 (@beeonaposy) February 6, 2021

I just discovered there is a #DataMishapsNight, could you tell us more about it? You are one of the organizers, how did you come up launching such an event? Could you give us an example of mistakes that you made or that made you laugh?

I’m so glad you found Data Mishaps Night! I co-organized (and co-hosted) the event with Laura Ellis in February, and we were focused on creating a community-centric environment where people could share and learn from data-related mistakes (and hopefully enjoy some cathartic laughs in the process). I think we achieved that goal by having 16 data professionals tell their data mishap stories on a Friday night to a high-energy room that felt like a party. We’re excited to do it again!

The idea came from a talk I gave at rstudio::conf in 2019 called ‘Eight Years of Data Science Mistakes’ where I got on stage and talked about mistakes I’ve made while working with data, and how mistakes have contributed to my experience and made me a better data scientist.

As a data professional, I’m often tackling new-to-me problems which means learning on the job, and making mistakes is a healthy and normal part of that process. I think sharing mistakes – and being transparent about not knowing everything – is important for building the type of data community I want to be part of: one that is open, honest, and welcoming to newcomers.

And in that spirit, one of my favorite mistakes was learning, after we designed and launched and were ready to analyze the results of an A/B test, that we’d accidentally put everyone in the same group and launched an A/A test instead! Made for a great lesson on the importance of cross-functional communication.

Career & Parenting

Learning on the job & confidence

You wrote an article about Imposter Syndrome in Data Science. Has becoming a mom reinforce your self-confidence? Parents are “learning on the job”, this is also a field where we “will never be able to learn everything there is to know”, but at the end of the day, everything goes well for our family. Even when times are tough, we can do it! I personally found to be slightly more confident in general since I am a mom.

Parenting has been the ultimate “learning on the job” experience, in more ways than I could ever have anticipated. Because there’s no way to be fully prepared and know everything you’ll need to know ahead of time, you have to make the best out of what you do know, learn what you need to, and roll with that – which is the advice I give (and have taken) in my imposter syndrome piece.

I feel pretty confident as a parent. I’ve learned lots about how to balance parenting and work and life and everything else, and continue to learn more about myself. I still get humbled by a 1.5-year-old on a weekly basis, but I love her to pieces and have a lot of fun doing it.

There’s also a kind of confidence that comes with knowing that you can do big things – and knowing now that I can do them while carrying a baby (and now raising a toddler) feels like a super power. The balancing act is certainly work, and not always easy, but there are some delicious moments when it all comes together and I feel like I can do anything.

50/50 partners

I really like reading your article N=1: My Experience with Motherhood in Tech where you tell your journey in motherhood. Thanks for sharing such a personal ride! (love the oatmeal part :))

In this article, you said “I still love tech and data science and don’t have any plans to change the general theme of this blog, it’s important that I acknowledge that my life looks a lot different than it did a year ago”. Have your priorities changed? How do you approach work / your career being a mom now?

I’m putting more wood behind fewer arrows. I’m much more thoughtful about how I focus my time and energy, which means making room for the things that matter and letting go of the things that don’t.

I feel very supported at home and at work, and that has made all the difference. At home, it was important that my husband and I had many conversations about how we’d co-parent and balance work and family before we decided to have kids. We both love our work and wanted to continue to progress in our respective fields, so planning for that was necessary and helpful. We’re 50/50 partners and that has afforded me flexibility in balancing my career with family (and the same for my husband). At work, our culture is very supportive of working parents and I’m able to take advantage of that flexibility offered when I need it.

To address the quote you mentioned, I’m glad that I have the support I need to balance family and work, and think it’s important to acknowledge the impact that both experiences have on me, and hope that sharing the things I’m learning from both experiences is helpful for others.

Data as a support

You made a data visualization of your time allocation since the birth of your child. Has collecting data helped you to clarify, take decisions with your child?

The way you spend your time changes significantly when you have a baby (especially if you're a woman who decides to breastfeed). I think this is best explained visually. Here's what my time looks like before and after: pic.twitter.com/S8Ul0W8k6z
— Caitlin Hudon 👩‍💻 (@beeonaposy) January 11, 2020

Great question. When my daughter was born, we tracked a bunch of things: her diapers, when she last ate, and her sleep schedule were numbers that we reviewed basically hourly for the first month.

Data helped us to figure out her needs and patterns and plan for them. I spent a lot of mental energy on the logistics around nursing and pumping, in particular, and having a space to record that data to get it out of my head was really helpful.

I made this data visualization after a conversation with a friend where I was trying to describe how my free time literally doubled after shifting one nursing session. It felt monumental at the time (and it was!) and after translating my schedule into a visualization, I thought other people might find it interesting.

Over time, as each of the activities we were tracking (naps, feedings, diapers) became more regular and more routine, and our daughter could start communicating with us better, we stopped collecting data.

Parenting

Figuring it out & learning

I could feel in this article and also in your baby stack that you were a bit stressed out (“maybe-a-little-neurotic first-time parents”). How is the journey doing? How do you feel now?

Thank you! I’m smiling because there’s a lot of self-deprecating humor in those posts, but maybe a kernel of truth to feeling like we had a lot to figure out and an awareness that we didn’t have it all figured out.

I’m happy to report that I still haven’t figured it all out, but I’m learning a lot and really enjoying the journey.

Value of parenting stories

I also agree with you on wanting to hear about motherhood journeys from other women in tech, but I feel like I was not attracted by that kind of content before pregnancy and didn’t know yet how much I needed it. How do you think we could reach not-yet parents or “non-parents”?

I mentioned up top that I’m a sucker for a good interview, and to expand on that, I could listen to people tell their stories and talk about things they’re interested in all day. So I’ve been sponging up parenting stuff for years, with the idea that “someday” it would be applicable. When I actually got pregnant, I circled back to all of the blogs I followed to re-read their parenting stuff, and reached out to friends who’d had babies to ask lots of questions about their experiences.

This is why I think projects like yours, collecting these interviews, are important, and why I’m so happy that you asked me to participate. To your point, we don’t always sponge up information that isn’t applicable to us at the time, but having those stories available when parents are ready to read them is so helpful, and that was really part of the motivation for my N=1 piece on motherhood.

I wrote the piece I wish I could have read when I was trying to figure out how all of the pieces would fit together for me, and I tried to answer some of the questions I had before becoming a parent.

I hope that would-be parents and non-parents find these interviews helpful when they’re interested in reading more about parenting.

Last words

There are lots of ways to be a good parent, and balance looks different for everyone.

For me, some days being a good parent means putting my child before work, some days it looks like wrapping up work even when I’m in the zone, some days it looks like staying late to make sure things get finished and I’m not distracted during family time, and some days it means taking some time for myself.

Do what works best for you, and try not to compare yourself to others. (Amy Poehler’s motto, “Good for her! Not for me” is a nice reminder here.) Strive for balance, let the small stuff go, and enjoy all of the little moments along the way.

More about Caitlin

Here are a few blogs I’ve written that folks might find useful or interesting:

Thanks for reading Caitlin Hudon’s post!

Share it if you liked it, someone else may enjoy it as well 🙌🏻

Arit Amana, Engineer at Forem, Founder at Our Time For Tech, mom of 2!

2021-03-27T00:00:00+00:00

About Arit

Arit Amana, Engineer @ Forem

👩🏽‍💻 Job: Forem builds software that powers safe and thoughtful online communities. A lot of my day-to-day tasks involve coding and testing the tools and features that moderators and administrators use to configure their forms, and keep their forem members safe.

🇺🇸 Silver Spring, Maryland, USA

👶🏾 A son (school age) and a daughter (pre-K)

🚀 Our Time for TECH

📝 Personal Blog

🎥 Youtube Channel

🐥 Twitter

Resources she enjoys

➡️ DevDiscuss

Career

Last project

What is the last project you worked on at Forem? Could you tell us more about it? What do you like most about your job?

My last project involved refactoring Authentication settings within the Forem Admin Portal. This portal is where forem administrators configure their forem to suit their community’s needs. Before my refactor, the user experience for the Authentication section was not as robust and fool-proof as it could be. For example, admins could enable login using Facebook, but leave the Facebook site and secret keys blank, a combination that made no sense really.

What I love most about working at Forem is, for the first time in my professional experience, I do not feel like I am leading two lives: one at work and one at home. Forem feels like home. My bosses and colleagues empower me to do my best work, to rest when I need it, to bring my whole self to work each day.

I also love the actual work we are doing; there are ample opportunities to level up technically through our tech stack, and the engineers are generous with pair-programming.

Our Time For Tech

Could you tell us more about Our Time for TECH? How are the cycles working? Is this in a bootcamp-style format?

I founded Our Time For Tech to help fill the gaps that women changing careers to software engineering may still experience during/after bootcamp, or while self-teaching. No we are not bootcamp-style; I admire the work that competent bootcamps are doing out there, and felt no need to duplicate their efforts. Currently we have two tracks:

CodeCollab has our fellows building a forward-facing web app as a team, during which they improve their technical collaboration and communication skills.
BetterPrep supports job-hunters with mock interviews, live coding practice, job application tracking and retros.

Breaking into Tech

Mentoring

You transitioned to Tech (from being a public health analyst), you said that you benefited from a lot of guidance, mentorship and support. Do you still have mentors today? Now you are a mentor yourself, what do you enjoy about it? What are the challenges you face?

I absolutely have mentors today; infact, my bootcamp mentor Jeremy is still very much in my life today :) As a mentor, I most enjoy supporting women (especially moms) transitioning to Tech Careers, or just figuring out what they want to do professionally and where their skills and interests lie.

My mindset is, a mentor cannot tell you what to do, but they can guide you in doing what you’ve chosen so that you pace yourself, stay motivated and take advantage of lessons they learned and mistakes they made.

For me, the greatest challenge of mentoring is when mentees expect you to work miracles for them, or believe that you always have the connections or power to get them to their next level. Sometimes, this is just not true.

Real talk about Tech sessions

I love that you offer 🔍 Real Talk about Breaking Into Tech. Anyone can book a time slot with you, it’s amazing. How are the sessions doing so far? Do people dare to book a talk session with you? How do you organise to do all this?

Real Talk about Tech came about after I went viral (for just a moment!) on Twitter. My DMs were filled with requests for mentoring and to talk. I knew I could not meet with everyone one-on-one, so I decided a group format would work better.

I held two sessions in March, and I believe they were fruitful. Moving forward, I will open up more slots as my schedule permits. And YES, please join the sessions! I am very transparent and practical in my advice and counsel, so I believe the sessions will be worth your time!

Imposter syndrome & transparency

In the 🖊 (Don’t) Always Trust Your Inner Critic article, you talked about your self-doubts, kind of Imposter Syndrome, when breaking into Tech. This is something many of us know. How did you deal with it? You talk about not taking feedback personally. Do you have any other advice?

At 2 years into my engineering career, I have accepted that I will always feel imposter syndrome. Now, instead of manifesting feelings of “I’ll never be good enough”, I choose to respond with humility and a willingness to keep learning and keep improving.

I also try to stay transparent about my skills, my triumphs as well as my mistakes. For example, when I’m going to be live coding during my tech talks, I resist the urge to “dry run” the coding before my talk, so that attendees can see me make mistakes and figure my way out of errors.

I think this type of transparency helps to empower others to push through their feelings of being an imposter.

Career plans

Do you have any plans for your career in Tech? If so, could you tell us more about it :)

Absolutely. In terms of my career, I plan to keep leveling up technically. I want to be very sound and proficient as an engineer. I think landing a role as a Principal Engineer or thereabouts would be wonderful!

I would also like to achieve the power to make hiring decisions in Tech, and do my part to increase the inclusivity of the Tech industry.

Career & Parenting

On being present

In the 🖊 365 Days a Dev: A Review article, you talk about work-life balance, and how tough it was when starting a new job with a toddler. “Now I felt the strong need to build my dev career around my life, not the other way around.”: how do you set limits?

I think the key to setting appropriate limits is communication.

Be clear and firm on when you are and are not available for work. Then commit to being as present as possible, whether it’s at work, or with your family.

I think the boundaries get blurry when we try to do all things at all times, and are thus never really present anywhere.

Also I think, especially for moms, it helps to do the soul-work (I call it) of releasing the guilt of having a career, and wanting to grow and excel in it.

Own your professional aspirations & brilliance! If your career makes you happy, then you’re a happier mom for your children, and that only serves them.

Change of habits

Do you think it is possible to grow a career in Tech without work overlapping our personal life (and our mental health - thinking of the joy of sleeping :) ). How do you do?

Absolutely, but the key is to STOP comparing your tech journey to that of others (no small feat, especially if you’re on Tech Twitter lol).

Slow, steady progress is still progress; the idea that you must breathe, eat, and sleep your career in order to level up is, at best, naive and, at worst, potentially destructive.

Now, for me, one of the things that had to go was my marathon TV-watching lol. I couldn’t be there for my family, keep learning tech skills AND keep up with 12 shows. So some of your habits and indulgences will change, for sure, but you don’t have to sacrifice a balanced life to level up in Tech.

Working mom’s routine

What is your routine / evening morning?

Before I share this, I should say that I work 100% remotely.

In the mornings, I wake my children, get them ready for school/daycare, fix their meals. If I planned to workout that morning, I’ll dress in my workout clothes; after dropping my kids off, I workout. Next I shower and start work.

I typically break in the early afternoon for 60-90 minutes, either to eat, to load the dishwasher/laundry, or run a quick errand. I continue working through the afternoon; if a morning workout couldn’t work (say, due to an early meeting), then I’ll workout right before going to pick my kids.

In the evenings, I focus on dinner and time with family. My children go to bed fairly early (8-ish pm) so I have a couple hours after their bedtime to de-stress, do my skincare routine, return calls/texts, watch a show, etc. Then I head to bed.

Parenting

Mental and experiential challenges

From what you experience, what is the most challenging thing about being a mom / working mom?

I think the challenges can be both mental and experiential. Mentally, if we’re dealing with guilt around desiring a fulfilling career, or practicing adequate self-care, I think it’s harder to show up fully for our families and lives.

I also think that the emotional support (or lack thereof) that we receive from partners, family and/or friends influences how confidently we balance mommying, career, relationships, self-care, etc.

Experientially, I think challenges can arise when we do not introduce structure and encourage independence where it would be helpful. For example, my daughter was an infant while I was in coding bootcamp; early on, I realized that if I did not sleep-train her and get her on a schedule, I wouldn’t be able to keep a regular studying schedule. I have learned to accept a less-than-spotless home and accept my childrens’ cleaning limitations lol.

We mothers experience so much expectations from all sides; I have found the freedom and sanity of deliberately disappointing some of these expectations, so I can prioritize those aspects of my life that are most important to me.

Inspiring our kids

And the greatest?

My son has said, “Mom, I want to be a software engineer just like you” That was such a crowning moment for me, not about his career choice per se, but that I was inspiring my son.

That’s my superpower as a working mom - I demonstrate to my children that through our work, we can improve and empower lives, make a good living, practice generosity due to that good living. As a satisfied, fulfilled woman first, I can then bless my children with my wholeness and strong sense of self-worth.

Last words

The process of improving your life - whether it’s entering a new career like I did, or something else - will change up the status quo for you and everyone in your life.

Some of these changes will be enjoyable and welcome; some will be uncomfortable, maybe painful. Your loved ones may roll with the changes, or they might outright reject them and even you.

Do not be afraid. Live deliberately. Live intentionally. Trust your gut and your instincts. Lean into your future. You are enough and you are capable of becoming far beyond what you or others think. Do not be afraid. ♥️

Thanks for reading Arit Amana’s post!

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Anne Michels, Head of Product Marketing, Microsoft Teams Core, Education and Free

2021-03-20T00:00:00+00:00

About Anne

Anne Michels, Head of Product Marketing, Microsoft Teams Core, Education and Free

👩🏻‍💻 Job: I lead Product Marketing for Microsoft Teams for the areas collaboration, education and the free version of Teams. Our goal is to drive usage of Microsoft Teams to help organizations around the world to improve how they collaborate and communicate and to assure that our customers get the most value out of using the product.

🇺🇸 Seattle, USA

👶🏻 Tori (2 years), Emma (2 weeks)

📝 LinkedIn Blog

🐥 Twitter

🌅 Instagram

Career: Impacting a millions-users-a-day product

Could you tell us more about your work and what you like most about it?

I lead product marketing for Microsoft Teams for the areas collaboration, education and the free version of Teams.

What I love most about my job is the impact that I have – Microsoft Teams is being used by 115 million users every single day – and I get to tell its story and influence the product strategy!

Working in product marketing also means that I get to do a mix of a lot of things – definition of the target audience, definition of the overall marketing strategy, storytelling, messaging and positioning, customer presentations, events, product and features launches, customer research and we also work very closely with our engineering teams to make sure that the product meets the needs of our customers.

And I get to work with smart and passionate people every single day – so I guess, I love all of it.

Career & Parenting

Family vs Career challenges

The birth of your first child seems to have been a revealing experience: you now are a fervent advocate for working moms! What was the driver/reflexions that led you on this path? Personally, my first pregnancy really changed the image I had of Parents. It’s been a real slap in the face. How was it for you?

I definitely hear you on this. Before I had my first daughter Tori, I didn’t have a lot of friends that had children and I never fully understood the challenges that working parents struggle with every day.

Now, I definitely do – it’s hard to be a working mom! The question “‘How do you balance motherhood and a full-time job” is a question every working woman who is thinking about starting a family is faced with.

There are actually a lot of people who believe that the reason there aren’t more women in tech is that companies are not giving women, especially mothers, the flexibility they need to pursue their career and raise a family at the same time. There are many women who choose to put their career on hold at some point when they have a child. According to the Harvard Business Review, 43% of highly-qualified women with children are leaving careers or taking a career break. Think about that for a moment – 43%!

I now understand why. I now understand the concerns that women have. I had those concerns myself when I was thinking about starting a family. I’m one of those people, I love working, I love my career. So when I got pregnant I had a lot of concerns about what this would mean for my career.

Especially working in the tech industry, an industry that is known for its fast pace and demanding nature. I have a job – and many of you probably have as well – that sometimes requires me to put in long hours, join early morning meetings or travel for business. How do you do this with a baby?

While it definitely is a challenge, I strongly believe that having children should not prevent you from being able to pursue a successful career and I want to help others to achieve the same.

Parenthood Talks: learn from each other

What do you talk about in your ‘parenthood’ talks? What is the message you want to address?

The first step is to create awareness of the challenges that working moms are facing. We can’t fix a problem if people don’t acknowledge it, if we don’t see it. So a focus of my talks is to simply educate and share data and research in this area.

For example, a lot of people have never heard of the motherhood penalty – a phenomenon according to which working mothers encounter systematic disadvantages in pay, perceived competence, and benefits relative to childless women.

I also want to make sure that any working mom attends any of my presentations gets something actionable out of it. We all face the same problems, the same challenges and we all find unique ways how to deal with them – and we can share those ways to learn from each other instead of trying to figure it all out on our own.

For example, one question that I get all the time is “Can you do it all?” Can you have a fulfilling career and a rich family life? My answer to this question is yes, you can have it all BUT what you define as “Having it all” will be different when you have children. And it will be different for every single person. That is very important for women to realize – and for me, that realization didn’t come easy.

I first tried to do everything the same way I did it before having a baby. But that doesn’t work because your entire life changes when you have a child. And you also change as a person – your priorities change and as well as the way how you think about work.

So yes, you can have it all. But the ALL will look different when you have children. I wish someone had told me all of that before I had my first child.

Microsoft: “Expecting” program

In this post, you announce the launch of the program to better support parents at Microsoft as they prepare for parental leave. Could you tell us more about it? How did people receive the program at work? Are there other topics you’d like to address at work in the near future?

Be the change you want to see.

When I returned from maternity leave, I had the strong belief that the experience could be improved even further.

Today, I launched a program to better support parents at Microsoft as they prepare for parental leave.
— Anne Michels (@Anne_Michels) February 16, 2021

Having a baby and going out on maternity leave is a critical career inflection point for working women. When I went out on maternity leave with my first daughter, Tori, I had a lot of questions about the experience.

I especially wanted to better understand what going on maternity leave would mean for my career. And talking to others at Microsoft, I quickly realized that I wasn’t alone. Others had the same questions. Others were going through the exact same experience.

There is no question that Microsoft is a great employer when it comes to maternity leave and supporting women on this journey. We have an internal website which is called “I’m having a baby” that has a wealth of information. But it can almost be too much information! A lot of women I talked to felt overwhelmed by the information and they all spent a lot of time trying to make a plan. And they all shared that it was most helpful for them to directly speak to someone.

When I returned to work after my leave, I had a lot of ideas on how to improve the experience and I decided to create a program by employees for employees – which I called Expecting – that supports employees as they prepare for parental leave by providing them with a structured experience and resources incl. a welcome email with resources, HR sessions to get an overview of leave options, a mentor program, workshops on related topics and a parent network.

We launched the program in February and the response was amazing – we had a lot of women reach out to us in the first week who wanted to get involved or take advantage of the resources.

We’re just getting started. One of the areas that we want to tackle and improve next is the experience managers have as they support employees who are going on maternity leave.

Morning routine

As a working mom, what was your morning routine? (before maternity leave) I read in one of your posts that you would get up very early to spend time with your daughter.

Oh, the morning routine. Before becoming a mom, I had this image in my head of me getting up at 5 or 6 to work out before the kids wake up. Well, I quickly realized that when you have a baby, that sleep is much more important than working out in the morning. And also that spending time together as a family is much more important.

When you and your partner both work fulltime, it can be difficult to find quality time with the entire family. So I now protect the time we have together in the morning so we can always have breakfast together. And as bedtime is still quite early between 7 and 8, we pick Tori up at daycare early on most days so that we can spend time with her before she goes to bed. That means that I sometimes have to still work a bit at night but it’s worth it.

Quality time for yourself: 3 things

What is, in your opinion, the biggest challenge of being a working mom? And how do you handle it? I haven’t been back at work yet from maternity leave, but I am afraid that time and sleep would be hot topics.

That’s what I thought as well but sleep was actually only a problem in the first few months..

What I’ve found to be one of the biggest issues instead is how to find quality time for yourself.

When you work, much of the day is taken up by that. And the remaining time, you spend with your partner and your children. So when do you have time to do the things you enjoy?

What works well for me are 3 things – first, I now use my lunch breaks intentionally for example to go for a quick run.

Second, my husband and I often split one day on the weekends between the two of us – one watches the kids, the other gets to do whatever they want.

And third, get a babysitter! Who says that babysitters are only for date nights? We use our babysitter all the time during the day – we even had her come at 6 am when Tori was little so that we could catch up on sleep.

Moms: 3 factors impacting your career

Which leads me to my next questions: Do you think it is possible to grow a career with kids? - as time and sleep are missing, the brain tends to lack amplitude to focus. Or much of the work has to be done before having kids? Formulated differently: Do you think having kids may slow your career down? Or on the contrary move it forward in some way?

This is unfortunately a topic where I have to answer with Yes at this time. For many women, having kids can slow their career down for a bit. There are multiple reasons for that, one being very obvious – maternity leave.

For some women, going on maternity leave can have a negative impact on their career as they might for example miss the chance of getting promoted.

I’ve seen this in my own experience and this is also what research about the motherhood penalty shows. According to research, mothers often experience disadvantages not just in terms of pay, but also when it comes to hiring and daily job experience.

But I’ve also seen in my own experience that it doesn’t have to be that way! I actually got a promotion while being out on maternity leave with Tori.

In my eyes, there are 3 factors that are extremely important when it comes to your career as a working mom:

First, your manager – is your manager supportive of you and your decision to have children?

Second, your employer – does your employer support women in their journey of starting a family?

Third, your environment at home – does your partner support you with your career, and do you have other family members or friends that can help with the kids if both of you are working full time?

Don’t get me wrong – I absolutely recommend women to take maternity leave – I’m taking 5 months maternity leave for the second time right now and I love these first months with my little one!

But I think we have to be realistic about the experience many women have today so we can discuss how to improve this. So that hopefully one day, the answer to the question if having kids slows your career down is no.

Maternity leave

Being a second-time mom

You were pregnant for the second time. What changed compared to the first pregnancy? I always hear that you tend to be less anxious for the second but more tired as you have to take care of the eldest at the same time, meanwhile you could just take care of yourself with the first pregnancy. How is it for you? How being a second-time mom differs from being a first-time mom?

It’s really different! Pregnancy was easier and harder at the same time. Easier because you know what to expect during those 10 months. For example, you know how often you have to see your OB and what will happen at those visits. You don’t have to buy maternity clothes and most importantly, instead of spending days putting together a baby registry, all you need to buy are diapers and wipes.

Being pregnant the second time was also harder because with a 2-year-old, you are always on your feet. It’s hard to explain to them that you need to re> st for an hour when all they wanna do is go to the park. So I was definitely more tired!

Baby blues

In this post you talk about the baby blues. Did you feel more prepared the second time? It may be challenging for many moms especially in a pandemic as meeting with family and friends is restricted.

Voir cette publication sur Instagram

Une publication partagée par Anne Michels (@anne_michels)

Ugh, the baby blues. I think this is one of the topics people don’t talk about enough. I actually just went through it for the second time and again, it was really hard. There were some days where I didn’t recognize myself – I was extremely irritated, I couldn’t concentrate, and I had crazy mood swings. There were days on which feeding my newborn every 2-3 hours felt like too much of an effort. Or responding to your questions was impossible for me for a few days.

If you are used to being a high performing and successful individual, this change can be really tough. I have high expectations of myself and it felt as if I was failing myself, my little daughter and my family.

I had to constantly remind myself that this wasn’t the case and that this was just a phase which would be over soon.

On being kept busy

Was it hard to stop working? I really found it bewildering to go from full-time working to maternity leave. What are your activities during maternity leave?

This time it was actually easy for me. I was so tired when I stopped working at 36 weeks – I was constantly fighting with headaches and random pain, so being able to just lie on the couch all day long felt like a very welcomed change at that time. But of course, this is not something that will fulfill me during the entire maternity leave!

A learning from my first maternity leave is that for me to be able to truly enjoy maternity leave, I need to do something in addition to taking care of my little one – I need to keep myself busy and do something productive.

And I discovered a lot of things I can do while taking care of my baby, especially while being on stroller walks or while I carry her.

So I have quite a list now: improve my Spanish by taking online classes, meet friends for coffee walks or brunches, get back into writing blog posts on LinkedIn and get back into running and working out once I’m cleared by my doctor.

To make all of this work it is important to be flexible because babies definitely do not stick to a schedule!

Parenting

Being connected with family abroad

You’re originally from Germany, living in the US. Do you teach your child german? Or anything about the german culture? Do you easily connect with the family?

Yes, we are raising both our children bilingual. Both of them have American and German citizenship so we want them to not only know both languages but also both cultures. In today’s world, it’s so easy to stay closely connected to friends and family on either continent as they are always just a quick video call away.

Joy children bring to your life

What do you like most about being a mom?

I never expected the amount of joy children bring to your life. I can have a terrible day at work, and still, when I come home and spend time with our girls, they will make me laugh within minutes. This really puts things into perspective, and you realize what is truly important in life.

No screen policy

Working at Microsoft, what is your approach about technology and screen for your daughter?

My husband and I both believe in a fairly strict ‘no screen policy’ until the girls are older. We both grew up in the countryside in Germany and spent the majority of our childhoods outside – which is the same experience we’d like our girls to have.

Of course, there is some screen time – we might call the grandparents in Germany or look at some photos – but besides that we try to spend the time we have together each day more intentionally. They will be exposed to screens early enough.

WIT and MIT stakes

You support Women in technology initiatives (“Building a successful career in tech as a woman”). Do you think WIT stakes and Mothers in tech stakes overlap?

Thanks everyone who provided input for my talk on "Building a successful career in tech as a woman"

Here are the topic I'll talk about:
- Building credibility
- Building a network
- Taking credit for your work
- Making your voice heard

Sign up at https://t.co/Wj32OjUK29
— Anne Michels (@Anne_Michels) September 29, 2020

Absolutely. There is a very natural overlap as every mother in tech is of course also a woman in tech.

The not so obvious but very important overlap is that every mother who works in tech might be raising the next generation of women in tech. And that every mother in tech serves as a role model for girls out there who are asking themselves if tech is a place where they can be successful as a woman – and mother.

Last words

My biggest learning is that we all need to be gentle to ourselves.

Being a parent is hard. And being a working parent is even harder. So don’t be too strict to yourself. Be gentle to yourself. Especially if you have a little baby, adjusting to the new reality of working AND having a baby, that adjusting will take time. Things won’t always be perfect. And that’s okay.

Do you have any “techy” content you would like to share to have readers know more about your job?

You bet. Here are some links to presentations about Microsoft Teams that I’ve done:

Microsoft Teams Tutorial

Microsoft Ignite keynote

Thanks for reading Anne Michels’ post!

Share it if you liked it, someone else may enjoy it as well 🙌🏻

Allison McMillan, Director of Engineering at Github

2021-03-14T00:00:00+00:00

About Allison

Allison McMillan, Director of Engineering at Github

👩🏻‍💻 Job: Running the Coding department for GitHub engineering, focusing on improving and innovating on Repositories, Pull Requests, and Codespaces.

🇺🇸 Washington, DC, USA

👶🏻 Leilah, 3 and Devin, 5

📝 DayDreams in Ruby

🎙 Parent Driven Development podcast

🐥 Twitter

Resources she enjoys

Lara Hogan: I love Lara Hogan’s newsletters and resources. She’s amazing.
Lucie’s list: Best for the first few years of your kids life but this is like everything you need to know, sent to you in a newsletter exactly when you need to know it.
A Mighty Girl for toy, book, etc. recommendations

Career

You are now Director of Engineering at Github. What do you like most about your job?

I love a lot of things about my job! As the Director for the Coding department, focusing on repositories, pull requests, and Codespaces, the work we do is truly central to the mission of GitHub and how developers use GitHub every day.

It’s amazing to deliver this sort of value to folks all over the world every day. At the same time, as a leader at the company, it’s critical that I create an environment where people feel supported and challenged, a place where they can do their best work.

I love working with my peers, the department leadership team, and all the developers, product managers, designers, etc. to do that.

You have an inspiring journey in Tech after changing career, what advice would you give to someone doing a professional retraining?

There will be ups and downs, twists and turns, but just keep going and be kind to yourself along the way.

Career & Parenting

On being everywhere all at once.

In the How I Organize article, we see how busy you are professionally. This article was written 4 years ago. Has motherhood (of 2) had an impact on your professional activities and the way you organize?

When I wrote that article, I had 1 kiddo and I thought I was busy then! After having two, the systems I have in place are honestly what keeps my head on straight and makes sure everything is on track. I have THE WORST memory ever right now and so if it’s not written down, it simply is likely not going to get done.

Additionally, with two kids, my head is always everywhere all at once. Calendars, note taking apps, and the tools my partner and I have in place help make sure we can divvy up the workload (and mental load!) more effectively and make sure that we’re able to juggle everything together.

Getting comfortable with being uncomfortable

In Parenting and Managing: A short list, you list the ways in which being a parent makes you a better manager. Do you think parenting also had a positive impact on your other activities?

The thing that I love (and hate) the most about parenting is that it forces you to face your most difficult challenges and learn from them.

Whether you have kids that are exactly like you or completely different, parents are often changing their style, getting comfortable with being uncomfortable, and doing things differently for their children based on what is best for them.

I have definitely learned to be more patient and been able to psych myself up more for tasks that are new to me or outside of my comfort zone.

I think I’ve also learned to trust my gut more.

As a mom, I feel like i’m making a million decisions a day, as best I can, for each of my children, knowing who they are and what they need. Sometimes those decisions come with data, other times I just need to trust my gut and make, what I think is, the best decision. (also, sometimes i’m wrong and that’s ok too).

The challenge of keeping up

In your Being a new mom in tech article, you talk about the challenges of being a new mom in tech, do you still feel that way? I may be totally wrong but I feel the Tech industry is making progress (at least is trying) regarding parenting.

I think the industry has grown leaps and bounds in this area in the past 6 years!! It’s still not perfect, and there are still a lot of issues, especially for moms in tech, but there have definitely been improvements and, if nothing else, there is a much stronger support network these days.

What is, in your opinion, the hardest thing about being a working mom in tech?

In my opinion, the hardest thing about being a working mom in tech is keeping up with changing technology, new languages, and new ideas coming out every day.

As a mom, I don’t have time for side projects. I don’t have hours outside of work to dedicate to learning new things or staying up to date with everything and i’ll never be able to compete with someone who does have all of those extra hours.

But I do know how to work smarter, how to find the time in my day to learn the things I need to, and how to periodically make time to get that information through going to conferences or other opportunities that are more accessible to me as a mom.

How to improve parents’ journey in tech

I really like your talk BDD - Baby Driven Development, where you give great advice for parents in the workplace. I think parenting is underrated. What do you think we could do to improve parents/mothers’ journey in tech today?

This is a hard question!

I still think one of the things that needs to change is how we interview for jobs.

As I mentioned before, I’ll never be able to compete with someone who has oodles of extra hours in their day and this is doubly true when interviewing.

It is extremely difficult to find an hour or two of focus, outside of work time, let alone the ~6 hours most code challenges take, where many others, where time limits aren’t imposed, are spending significantly longer than that (at least right now, with younger children).

Required lengthy takehomes that anticipate having these longer blocks of time make it difficult for parents to apply to jobs and show what their skills are during the interview process.

Parenting

The scariest

What is the scariest thing for you being a mom?

Having no idea what i’m doing!!! My two kids are so different so even with my second I feel like I’m constantly navigating new territory.

There are so many things to decide, explain, and talk about every day, and especially this past year, so many new challenges and situations to explain. I just always hope I’m doing the right thing.

Back to work challenges

As you’re a very busy lady, how did you live your maternity leave? What was the biggest challenge you had to face coming back at work from maternity leave?

I’ve taken maternity leave twice now.

With my first, it was a whirlwind. I was working somewhere that had a really short leave policy and so it felt like I was back at work and trying to navigate it all very quickly.

With my second, I was able to take more time which was fantastic. But I also had a toddler who was almost 3 and full of energy and my second NEVER slept. I feel like every moment I had I was just trying to catch up on keeping my household going.

Both times, I think the biggest challenge going back to work was understanding how much I could actually do.

I was slower than I had been before, the way my brain worked was different (which was news to me that having a child can also change how you learn and how your brain works!), and I had to get used to the split focus of work and more worries related to home things.

After my second, I learned to also make sure I had a manager who was really understanding, a team with more parents (and ideally more moms), where I could ease back into work and make sure that we were on the same page regarding expectations.

Parent Driven Development

What was your motivation to create the Parent Driven Development podcast?

In 2016 I started talking about being a mom in tech at conferences. I was only speaking because I was pretty afraid to write too openly about it.

Every time I gave a talk, I had parents come up to me, telling me how grateful they were to hear that they were not alone. People told me they used my talk as a way to open up conversations with peers or managers and that it really made a difference to them. To me, that was a huge accomplishment.

I wanted to be able to provide support to others and for it to be easy for people to feel like they weren’t alone in their journey of being a parent in tech. That’s why I started the podcast.

To provide folks a place to (hopefully) listen to interesting topics, from the perspective of parents in tech, and to also hear our good moments and our failures, and know that they weren’t alone either in thinking about some of these issues we face in tech, talking about things from the perspective of developers, or just knowing that all parents have great moments and have some pretty bad ones.

What do you like most about podcasting? What is the most challenging thing running a podcast?

I’ve been able to talk to so many interesting people!!! I think some of the episodes we’ve done have been so important… ones about being a trans parent, infertility, looking for jobs, and more and it’s been great to ask guests all these questions that I have. I’ve learned so much!

The most challenging thing about running a podcast is finding the time to do so. Parent Driven Development is going on hiatus starting early-April, 2021 and i’m so sad about it. I feel like it is the right thing to do at the moment after the year we’ve all had, I’m honestly exhausted and just need a little break, but I definitely want to bring it back in the future and the website and episodes will all continue to be available!

Last words

You are doing a great job!!! I like to tell other parents this as often as possible because no matter what’s going on, or how good or bad your day or week has been, you’re doing a good job. We all need to hear it, especially these days.

More about Allison’s work

I am (very) slowly working on a series of blog posts about manager how-tos. You can find the outline at this repo: Manager Tools and follow daydreamsinruby.com for future posts.

Thanks for reading Allison McMillan’s post!

Share it if you liked it, someone else may enjoy it as well 🙌🏻