It’s crucial to map out your career path since it enables you to understand where you are now and where you want to go. But how do you choose the best path for you when there are so many ways to go into technology and it’s such a fast-paced/evolving field to work in?
In this episode, Cecilia Nunn, Responsible AI/ML Technologist and Rachel Thuo, Junior Technologist at Digital Catapult, sit down with us to discuss their own professional paths, the various entry points into the tech sector, and tips on how to carve out your own career roadmap.
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hello everyone thank you for tuning in as always I am Katie batesman the content director actually can code and
in today’s episode we’re discussing how to map out your Tech Career Journey now
it’s crucial to map out your career path since it enables you to understand where you are now and where you want to go but
how do you choose the best path for you when there are so many ways into technology and it’s such a fast-paced
field to work in today I’m lucky to be joined by two amazing women from digital
catapult Cecilia none responsible technologist and Rachel Thoreau Junior immersive in iot technologist both from
digital catapult who will be sharing their own professional paths various entry points into Tech sector and tips
on how to carve out your own career roadmap welcome Cecilia and Rachel thank you so much for joining us thanks for
having us thank you for coming on this morning to have a chat it’s lovely to have it’s always nice to have a selection of guests on our podcast so
it’s going to make a really uh fun conversation today um about career roadmaps can we kick off
with a little bit of an intro from um both of you you know about how you got into Tech um and and how you landed
Your Role um at digital catapult um so Rachel should we kick off with you yeah yes thank you
um for that introduction so I am a junior immersive and iot technologist so
immersive um I deal with virtual reality augmented reality and haptic technology and iot
refers to internet of things so I actually joined digital catapult last
October and this was a couple months after I graduated from University
uh so at University I did computer science and math and basically in my final year
um I got a really interested in things to do with the metaverse VR
um and I wrote a paper on this and after that I kind of looked into game development
um virtual reality development and I thought yeah this is this is where I want my career to be so that’s how I got
an interesting immersive technology who encouraged you there though because
you I mean you just flat out said I took a computer science degree at University we don’t always hear that but obviously
we encourage ladies to do that so did somebody encourage you to do that at school or a parent maybe well
um actually I I did um an a level in maths and originally I was looking to do
just a degree in straight out maths um but I got into clearing
um and I was looking for courses basically during clearing and this one popped up and it was half-mast half
computer science and during my a levels I kind of babbled in Python coding so I
thought this might be interesting and I’m really glad I went with both math and computer science otherwise I
wouldn’t have got as much stuck into the computer science side so that’s how I
how I went on to do that yeah very cool amazing and you now have what sounds like a very cool job at digital catapult
that we’re going to go into a little bit um in in this episode so Celia what about yourself
uh so yeah I didn’t come from computer science originally
um so I came from Humanities and I did a degree in international relations and I
then did a master’s in development studies um and then I went into the world of
work basically um and worked abroad so worked in doing Chile and Guatemala
um and mostly for the charity sector as well within the UK and I started to realize that there was a lot of
inefficiencies basically in the charity sector and I found that they could be using technology a lot more to their
advantage so I started getting kind of like a little bit more interested and I’d had
my first child by that point um and I was kind of just looking around
and then I randomly got a call from a recruiter and they were like hi do you
want to come and work at Google and I was like sorry what [Laughter]
a phone call um and they were saying yeah we’re looking for a user researcher and I was
like oh okay and I was pregnant at this point as well with my second child and I
actually knew nothing about the technology so they asked me in my interview what’s your favorite Android
app and I had to Google what Android actually was because I was so clueless
so then I went and worked for Google which was a kind of baptism of fire at
the king’s cross office I was based in the building with hundreds of Engineers so completely immersed within computer
science and and started learning all about Sprints uax design usability
testing all that kind of stuff and kind of got into Tech from there and what I
do at digital Cashflow is I work in the AI and machine learning team and I was
kind of first exposed to AI whilst I was at Google because deepmind are in the same building yeah and lots of really
interesting stuff that’s happening with the mind um and so I thought oh yeah this is
really interesting and the way that this can impact society and kind of drawing on my previous experience in
international relations although it wasn’t Tech related I could draw some of that into what I was doing
um yeah and then just started getting really really interesting AI um and then kind of worked with
Charities and digital during covid and then thought actually I really want to go into this and then I found this role
at digitalcastbook and Isaac did you did you ever think you know that that you would be saying I work in Ai and machine
learning Never Never So then just before I came
to digital cast as well actually I did a boot camp one of the coding boot camps to become a kind of full stack software
engineer um and I got into that actually through a friend because I’d never heard about those kinds of things and she did it she
loved it and she thought it was great so I was like oh okay this sounds like kind of on my street I want to become a bit
more technical um but no never in my wildest dreams I didn’t know anything about tech growing
up I didn’t grow up on computer games it just wasn’t part of my world and so it’s
been a massive learning curve but I love it absolutely love it when they run you up though we’ll say something that you
thought this is for me was it did it sound very flexible for instance you mentioned that you had a young family I
mean it must have been something that they said that you thought this is for me otherwise you would you know on the inside you would have been screaming
like I have no idea what’s happening yeah I suppose like a few kind of
practical things I was like oh I really need a role at the moment
because I was pregnant at that point and obviously getting a job when you’re pregnant is slightly more difficult that
remote flexibility was a massive Plus for me and that is really what’s kept me
in Tech because I’m just about to go on maternity leave with my fourth and that’s what’s kept me in this sector is
the flexibility um I think also learning about new
things all the time because there’s so much to constantly learn and that’s what I was really kind of got my interest
into it and also a big company I think you can learn so much from Big corporations as well yes definitely or
it’s lovely to have two people from very different routes um which is exactly what we love to hear
as part of our community that you don’t have to take one um route into Tech and we’re going to
cover that off a little bit today about mapping out career routes um in your career roadmap and so in
terms of today’s discussion do you have any tips for our listeners who are unsure about their own career path and
ways that would help them to map out their own next steps do you think um
Rachel should we start with you on that one yeah sure um so a couple things uh personally I
found doing online courses in certain areas really really helpful it can kind
of give you a glimpse of the kind of work you might be doing um and kind of show you where your
skills might align with different things so I think that would be really useful
um also LinkedIn is a really really good place um and not just for jobs but also
finding mentorship programs um so I would say that is a good tip and
also networking events um so if you already have an idea of maybe the the sector you want to work in
or even if you don’t just go into networking events and finding out what people do day to day even you just might
find things that interest you and then you can look into it further so those are a couple of things definitely yes I
I love the fact that you said online courses to start with um as well if you’re if you’re if you
want to try something new or you’re transitioning to a new career it’s you don’t have to commit to that intensive
12-week boot camp you know you can try something online test the water and it
might not be for you but I think some people will worry we speak to a lot of ladies on here that do worry you know
they’ll spend out financially or they’ll you know um leave a job and think I’ll try and
for another one or they’re trying to do it in their spare time um and and they think you know it’s a bit of a gamble you know what what’s it
going to be like at the end and um and so instead of of actually you know studying or trying something else
so just stay where they are in their career Journey doesn’t move in further because they’re a little bit nervous
about it so yeah absolutely online courses um a great a great way to to move
forward and you mention networking as well which is something that I I think we’re all kind of getting back
to after kovid and um it’s nice to be back in those environments where you you’re not just
meeting with people online or um you know over LinkedIn and you can
actually share a drink and um and then as you said you mentioned mentorships
um but sometimes that even at a networking event it’s easier to to walk up to somebody have a chat and a
conversation and then you know develop a relationship rather than just sort of meeting somebody online and saying hey
would you Mentor me and it’s a lot more informal as well which I think helps especially if you
don’t feel all too confident um so yeah I’d say those are those are
great and also in terms of the online courses there are a lot that you don’t have to spend too much money on
um I used um code academy and I I got a couple free trials and that was just to try out
coding um and that was kind of enough for me to decide yeah I’d like to look at this
further so you don’t have to spend too much money yeah to commit yourself too much before you think maybe this isn’t
for me um Cecilia you just have any any tips for our listeners who are unsure about their career path
um so yeah 100 behind the online learning because that’s how I got into AI because I wasn’t really sure whether
it was for me um so I did an online course so 100 with that one
um ironically podcasts
um into a lot of different podcasts
um just listening to different people’s experiences really um that I found really helpful
um and there was also one that I used to listen to which was all about kind of
presenting yourself then it was called how to own the room um and I just found that really helpful
in terms of thinking about ways that I could maneuver next and also something
like there’s another one called squiggly careers um which really I think is showing you
that for example my pass hasn’t been very linear into Tech
and whilst I complete I think you can kind
of get a toolkit with regards to your roadmap but I would say like don’t kind
of hold on too tightly to this kind of linear progression and if it doesn’t go
the way that you think it is or you don’t get the role that you were planning for it doesn’t mean that
everything is kind of disheveled and um you kind of have to rethink career
um there are lots of different ways in um yeah lots of talks I’ve been to a lot
of online talks I found that really helpful um as well as the kind of online conferences
um and I think also looking at some goals so setting yourself some goals so
that kind of smart acronym um so it’s achievable you’ve got a
timeline in place um you’re making sure that you are
setting goals that don’t make you feel guilty either because so often we can
set these massive goals we don’t achieve them everything falls by the wayside and we just feel really deflated but
actually setting yourself a few small goals that are achievable and measurable are really really helpful because it’s
really easy to just keep going all the time you go I’m going to put my head down I’m going to work really hard and
one of the best pieces of advice I got was actually don’t work harder work smarter and it’s saying right how are
you raising the visibility of what you are doing it’s not just about kind of grinding yourself into the floor but
actually raising your profile raising your kind of personal branding and also
keeping yourself accountable to the things that you want to do rather than being dictated from other people which
will happen all the time at work people will pull you in so many directions and if you have those kind of goals that you
can kind of hold on to it kind of let’s say
um route to you essentially to make sure that you’re always coming back to well
actually I want this and these are the things that I’m going to kind of look forward
and focus on yes I I love everything you just said that it’s such great advice because
um you’re right once you get in it’s so easy that the day job can just you can
just go and you get on that treadmill and it just goes and before you know it the only Milestone that you’re thinking
about is I’ve been here a year and another year and another year and actually when you look at it you haven’t
done anything that you that you wanted to achieve um that year so I definitely agree just
just setting um some goals and making sure that that you um stick to them and I I love as
well that you said about squiggly careers and and that’s why we have these conversations on here as much as we can
and dip into different careers in the way that um the ladies that come on here and to share their stories and the ways
that they got into Tech because you’re right with I think we compare ourselves sometimes and and you think if
I’m not taking the same path that everybody else is taking then I’m not going to make it and I had a laid on
here a couple of weeks ago and she said when I graduated I didn’t have a graduate opportunity and
I was thinking I was I was failing and should I hadn’t even made it into work yet and I was thinking I’ve already failed everybody else has got a grad
opportunity and I haven’t and she said if I had just stopped at that point and thought I’m failing she wouldn’t have
gone on to have you know a great start to her career a great company
um you know she said it but in my mind I had this path that everybody else was taking and we shouldn’t always we
shouldn’t always think that way um Cecilia I’d love to actually to ask you about the challenges um have you
faced any challenges along the way and the reason why I want to start with you is because the way that you came into
Tech was very much like hey do you want to work at Google you know what kind of challenges are you
focused along the way did you did you feel like you had you know things like imposter syndrome and all those things
did did they you know turn up in your head yeah I think quite a few different
challenges um so 100 not not really knowing what I
was doing kind of understanding all the language um especially when I did my coding
course and was coming much more into the kind of software engineering side there
were lots of acronyms I didn’t know about lots of kind of it’s funny because in software
engineering you don’t have the lad culture of like the football talk but you have kind of a different culture
where lots of people might speak about computer games or different sci-fi conferences or stuff like that so that
there’s been huge learning Journeys what I’ve really kind of had to put
um my head kind of above the water and said actually can you kind of explain this to me I’m not quite sure what this
means um yeah really putting myself forwards and
asking questions essentially because I was so new to the environment
um I think also finding out how open people are to
teaching you I found Tech actually lots of really really
um lovely people who are very open to sharing their knowledge and sharing their tips and tricks Etc
um so that’s been really good I suppose another challenge it is hard being a woman in Tech I’m not gonna lie
um and especially as you kind of go further in your career and you become more senior it does get difficult 100
um and that’s something that you are I have found that I’m regularly maybe potentially walking into
a room with clients or things like that where I am the only woman in the room
um so I think it’s just having that confidence to hold yourself hold your knowledge
um and not kind of feel undermined in certain situations and really kind of
backing yourself as well I think that’s really important yes yeah and then just
having children like it’s hard when you have kids um in a in any career to be perfectly
honest um but having remote work because that’s what’s so good about kind of technology
is that you can be remote and so often or maybe one day in the office
um that that has huge kind of areas of flexibility and it’s not just children any kind of caring responsibilities as
well um so yeah I think a few a few challenges
um but yeah it’s always a learning curve and I think as long as you’ve kind of got that growth mindset
then it doesn’t really matter yeah you’re always you’re always going to get on well that’s it yeah I mean
um I was going to say about overcoming them but you’re absolutely right you mentioned you know just kind of having
that growth mindset and when you go into a meeting you know kind of mentally preparing yourself for that I should be
here I know what I’m doing um Rachel you you came in you know with the qualifications and you were on with
the knowledge but have you faced challenges you know similar challenges as a woman in Tech you know do you still
have to put on that hat when you walk into a meeting and think I I know I’m qualified I know what I’m doing but you
still have that niggle I think and I agree with a lot of what Cecilia said but I think uh for me
um one of my main things I have to kind of get over is my age and confidence in
my abilities um and just generally being nervous speaking about things things I might
know uh but I guess so if um maybe if I’m presenting
um just yeah just being just being nervous to speak about things um
I guess and yeah personally in terms of being a woman in Tech
um I actually I feel that a bit um the difficulties of that a bit less
working that digital catapult uh from coming um from being in University lectures uh
computers on its lectures filled with um firstly very little girls and a very
small number of black people as well so I definitely felt um
the lack of diversity there a lot more and um the position I am in now I can
definitely see how as you get more senior um there’s there’s few women in that
position but think yeah what I feel the most now is my age really yeah because I’m
surrounded by just so many people that know what they’re doing and have so much experience and I guess that’s a really
good thing as well well it is because um they’re very eager to help me and teach me things but it’s also asking for
that help you feel a tiny bit embarrassed but it’s all part of the learning curve just being able to ask
for help when you need it so yes yeah that feeling of just being in work and
growing into yourself and I I was going to ask you a little bit about Harry’s digital catapult supporting you and your
your career journey and and I suppose you just touched upon it a little bit there because you know about asking
people for help um obviously it sounds like you work around a lot of people that are highly
experienced um anyway and and I suppose just coming out of yourself a little bit more really helps with a career Journey
being a great company or picking the right company for you is really going to help you move forward with your career
path and it’s digital catapult doing anything else to help you along the way you mentioned a mentorship programs and
things like that is that internally or externally uh so that’s internally okay
um so we can volunteer so I Mentor someone at the moment and but you can
also put yourself to the men to be a mentee as well and so that’s an
initiative um that has recently been promoted a lot internally
um is that something if you do put your name forward for that like Rachel for instance if you wanted a mentor do you
just put your name forward and then they match you is it kind of one of those systems yeah it is
um but at the moment that’s something that I have not personally done just because um I have I’m very lucky to have a close
relationship with my manager so she’s a really great mentor to me um and you know it’s really helped my
transition into basically working full-time yeah and
just going into the Work World so that has helped me a lot personally yeah yeah and do you do you have some kind of
um you know like an annual review or quarterly reviews that kind of do they kind of help you along the way with what
you want to do next in in your career yeah definitely uh so we have regular
check-ins um to do with work and just check-ins how am I feeling and things like that
which is really helpful and then we have um Regular reviews to have a look at my
goals how am I moving forward with them and that’s that’s really good just to keep a note of the things that you’re
achieving as well because like you mentioned earlier it’s really easy to forget you’re doing stuff when you’re
just constantly moving you need to go back reflect um and actually praise yourself for the
things that you have achieved so you can talk about yourself a bit better and brag about yourself a bit more
confidently yes because sometimes you don’t realize you get to the end of the year and you look back and you think my gosh I’ve got all the things actually
that we achieved this year and year we worked on and the challenges um we overcome
um Cecilia yourself at Harry’s digital catapult supporting uh you your career
Journey you did mention about making sure that you put in your own goals as well and I suppose sticking to them is
that something that you found in your reviews that it’s quite flexible digital catapult they kind of let you pick your
own goals as it is and move towards them as long as they align with the business obviously
yeah um so I run a kind of small team so we’re the responsible Innovation
um team and we look at responsible technology across the organization
um we’re the main focus on AI and machine learning so I’ve been doing a lot around the strategy of that and then
what my goals are um kind of around that strategy and how
can we kind of move that forwards um but we have a really good Learning
and Development team and who do lots of different trainings for us as well as
give us the kind of opportunity to go and chat to them and say this is what I’m thinking how do you think I could
potentially get there how do you think I could fill this Gap that I’m looking for what kind of training do you think I
could do and so for instance I was feeling that I wanted to take that next
step with regards to my technical ability in Ai and machine learning
um so I was doing a um professional certificate in
engineering of machine learning and that was all through the company the company
um supported me through that so that was really brilliant as well to kind of fill that Gap both within the organization
but both within my kind of career objectives as well yeah um and we do a lot as well with um the
apprentices in our organization which I really really enjoy I think coming from
the charity sector as well there are certain things that I really love about different organizations and working with
apprentices interns we work with Ada college so we work with the students
there so also sharing your knowledge and kind of supporting the Next Generation we get to do a lot as well which I
really like yeah and that must make you feel as well like you want to stay you
know it sounds like they work quite hard to retain Talent you know you must be thinking you know I’m not ready to to
move and on because of the opportunities that are handed to me I mean Rachel you
mentioned that you don’t even feel a need yet to apply for a mentor because you really feel like you have one through your line manager yeah and um I
actually joined a digital catapult as an intern and that was when I first started
so I didn’t internship for six months and I’ve recently become permanent staff now so yeah it
was the fact that I was given responsibility during my internship to actually learn and grow from that
um and the the work that I was taken on board it was first of all really fun but
I was learning so much and I was being able to talk to different people in different teams and that really helped
my idea of where do I want my how do I want to kind of
um evolve in my career and you know just being around loads of people doing
different things that really helped me um so yeah really really great for retaining retaining people yeah and it’s
good to hear that your internship was used wisely and you weren’t just left to shred paper
um you hear a lot um and they’re obviously it bridge the gap between um where you were and going into your
first job and on that note then what Rachel what would you say you were most proud of in your career so far is it is
it Landing that that full-time job or is there a project that you work on worked on that really sticks in your mind yeah
I definitely say um Landing the job was definitely one of my highlights um and also a project that
I worked on during my internship it was basically using both my immersive
technology team and my Internet of Things team to create a digital twin and
that was the first I’d heard of that term but after working with both teams I was able to basically create a product
um and I gave a presentation on it to loads of different people in the
technology teams and that was a really big thing for me just um speaking in front of a lot of people about the work
that I’ve done and that was good fun I was a bit and I was beforehand but I had
so much help in preparing and yeah it was just a great thing to do for myself
and that was one of my highlights too yeah amazing any Macedonia on you then
actually I haven’t got a clue what other projects might come up in the future if it’s something else that I haven’t heard
of that you’ll be working on and yeah that must have been a great experience
um having just started in in a role um Cecilia yourself is there something that you’re really proud of in your
career so far good question um I think probably
different milestones at different points um so
completing the coding boot camp was a massive achievement considering I wanted
to throw for any computer at the wall a few times and my childcare
um kind of collapsed halfway through as well um so that was a massive achievement
getting to the end of that was was huge actually um but then there’s kind of like career
ones so um there was a lot of really cool products I got to work on when I was at
Google and launching things like YouTube premium and new features on Google Maps
and stuff like that um but then I suppose most recently
I think I’m doing a lot of work in the responsible AI community and I’m really
proud of that work and we’re working quite closely with the House of Lords with the new AI white paper that’s
coming out um and really kind of promoting a user-centered focus around the adoption
of response Yi um so yeah a few bits and Bobs really
yeah yeah it sounds it sounds like it and and and and by what you just said
there as well about you know having a job we hear it a lot a lot of people don’t know that coming
into Tech you actually really can make an impact and make a difference and it’s not just
um you know the technical side of things and you find yourself working on things like you just sit there working you know with the House of Lords on a white paper
about AI you know we don’t we don’t hear it enough do we that you know that’s
that’s the type of thing that you’ll be working on it’s not just sitting down um with your headphones on all day
coding and not talking to anybody and um you know building products and and that’s it
ladies we’re almost out of time so I’ve got one last question for you um what advice would you give yourself uh just
starting out Rachel should we start with you so something you wish somebody had told you before you went into the world
at work um I would probably say uh Don’t Panic
um I think when I was coming towards the end of my University Journey
um everyone around you is trying to secure that grad job um and it kind of it feels like a race
and you need to find something fast but I say don’t panic because you’ve got time even if you take time to yourself
to do some um so just find out what interests you
um there’s no rush and you can kind of get into your dream job at any time you
can just kind of um fall into it without expecting it so you don’t have to have every single
thing worked out I’d say yes yes it is fighting isn’t it when you go back for graduation and you’ve been away for a
few months and you start talking to people that were on your course and they’re like oh I’ve found a job or you
know and and you might be sitting there thinking actually I haven’t yet and actually that’s okay that you haven’t
found something that works for you just yet um but I think it’s being back around
that isn’t it where you start hearing what other people are doing and they’ve already found their dream job
it doesn’t help because there are so many so many different routes
um Cecilia is there any advice that you wish somebody told you when you started
um probably two main bits I think one was from a course that I did at Google
called I am remarkable and it was it’s not bragging if it’s based on facts
because so often in your career you can do lots of things but you don’t tell
anyone about what you’re doing or you might just do it with external clients so no one really knows the hard work
that you’re putting in so actually saying to your manager or your colleagues yeah actually I did this and
I achieved that and it’s not bragging you’re just factually saying and stating
the work that you’ve actually done and so I would say that’s a really big point because so often we can say oh this
person hasn’t noticed what I’m doing I’m doing all this hard work and no one’s seeing it will make sure that they know
about it make sure that you do do do that kind of self-promotion
um don’t wait without we as a team we don’t always you know highlight the
little bit that that you did um that that helped that project be successful we always say you know we as
the team which is great but she said it’s not bragging if it’s suspect exactly
um and the next one I would say is really kind of fight for yourself so when you are going into pay negotiations
when you are going for promotions really bigger be a bigger be your like best
Advocate um and really kind of fight for yourself yes I love that because I and we hear it
from our community so often that sometimes you know as women we don’t always put ourselves forward for things
or we wait for a manager to perhaps suggest you know or putting us forward for a promotion when
um you know our managers are not mind readers and they might not know that you want to go for that promotion or that
you need a pay rise or what whatever it is um so you’re right it’s just you know putting it out there and being confident
um in your abilities and that that you think you are um deserving of them obviously if you can prove that you’ve
done the work and then why not but um I completely agree and it’s a lovely
positive note to end on ladies because we are already out of time um so thank you so much for joining me
today to talk about career career mapping and Journeys it’s been an absolute pleasure to hear both of your
stories and so thank you so much for joining us ladies thank you yeah thanks for having us
thank you and for everybody listening as always thank you so much for joining us and we hope to see you again next time
