Join us for a captivating discussion as we delve into the world of tech at Dunelm with two remarkable women from the company’s tech department. With one boasting a decade of experience and the other a newcomer of ten months, our guests offer contrasting yet complementary perspectives on their journeys within the company.
From their humble beginnings to the present day, we explore the evolution of Harj Kaur and Madara Kalnavarna, the challenges they’ve faced, and the invaluable lessons learned along the way. Discover how Dunelm‘s tech landscape has transformed over the years and gain insights into the latest trends and innovations shaping the industry.
Whether you’re a seasoned professional or an aspiring tech enthusiast, this episode provides a wealth of wisdom, practical advice, and inspiring stories to help you navigate your own tech career journey. Tune in as we uncover the secrets to success and unlock the potential of tech at Dunelm!
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Hello everyone. Thank you for tuning in again. I am Kayleigh Batesman, the Content Director at she Can Code, and today we are discussing navigating tech careers at Dunhill. I’ve got two incredible women with me today. One has 10 years of experience at Dunhill and the other has just over 10 months. So we’re exploring the journeys of Haj and Jo, the lessons they’ve learned along the way and about all of the innovative tech landscape that is happening at Dunelm. Welcome ladies. Thank you so much for joining me today. Pleasure, we are going to kick off with some backgrounds, if that is okay to set the scene for our ladies today. Hodge, can we start with you a little bit about you and how you got into tech, please.
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, of course. Hi, I’m Hodge Kaur. I’m a tech environments manager at Dunelm and I joined just over 10 years ago. So my journey into tech like any other youngster, choosing what they want to do when they grew up, I had no idea, so I was quite stuck when it came to choosing what to study at uni. I ended up going for a degree in business information systems, as I loved a bit of business and also a bit of IT too. I really enjoy the business side of things a lot. So for my placement year I chose to work for business and help with the accounting side of things.
Speaker 2:But once I finished uni I was waiting for results. I worked in the accounts department for Anderson Consulting and SDP. I didn’t really think I was techy enough to work in IT, even though my degree was very heavily IT based. As I was working through that company, an opportunity rose for me to do a six-month secondment in the tech service desk area. But my results came in and I totally smashed my degree. So I thought, okay, I can actually do tech.
Speaker 2:So I applied for a tech role in Selfridges supporting HR and payroll projects. So I was working in a support analyst basis for a long, long while. Then a new time attendance system was required and as I worked in the HR payroll space, I ran this project. From here I found out that I really liked project management, so then I applied for junior PM role in Dunelm, where I quickly lost the junior in my title. I did this for seven years and then applied the tech environments manager role, which is what I’m in now, to further expand my skills, as this also involved a large element of project management, and I’ve been in this role for three years. That’s a little bit about me.
Speaker 1:Amazing. So you are, and we say this on here all the time. You’re a perfect example as to why we started this podcast because you fell into tech and your words there were I didn’t think I was techieie enough for tech, which is something that we hear all the time and that we just love to hear when ladies have fallen in to the industry, thought that it had to be super techie. Also thought that throughout their career it was going to be super techie and that you, you know, we’re going to sit in a basement and code and do nothing else, and that’s the stereotypical working in tech. Um, and that’s why we wanted to share stories like yours on this podcast. So you’re another perfect example of somebody that, um, you know, came in a bit of a squiggly route in, as they say, um, but it’s now, you know, successful at at Dunelm. So, um, yeah, that’s it. It’s going to be an interesting conversation today with your experience. Jo, you’ve been at Danel just over 10 months. Can you tell us who you are and how you fell into tech?
Speaker 3:Yes, Hi everyone. My name is Jo Carl-Navarro. I’m a software development engineering test at Danel, so I started my tech journey when I was 17 years old. When I came to this country I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I read an article that said tech is growing, and that was in 2008,. Back in my country, latvia, I was comfortable with computers, and what I mean by that. I could turn them on and off, open a Word document, so I thought why not give it a try? That’s where my journey began.
Speaker 3:I studied at Leeds City College, then went to University of Leeds where I got my bachelor’s degree in information technology. With a year in industry experience, my first real IT job was at BMW Oxford mini plant, where I wrote my first C-sharp code. After finishing university, I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted to stay in tech. I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted to stay in tech. I knew data and big data was coming at that point, but I didn’t have enough resources to understand it at the time, so I didn’t pursue the opportunity. Instead, I decided to start my career as a tester. I started working at 1010 consultancy company, where I was sent to clients and had to move down south. I had worked in pension and health sectors. Then I moved on to a larger retail organization, john Lewis and Partners. I spent three and a half years there before trying my hands at the startups in the educational space.
Speaker 3:As I said, currently I’m a software development engineer in TEST, short for SDET at Donnell. I work in a back-end team that deals with voucher capabilities and using heavily Amazon Web Service, aka AWS. My responsibilities include, but not limited to, design and implement different types of quality approaches and tests, improving the reliability, testability and performance of our areas we own, coaching and supporting the team to use best industry standards when it comes to quality engineering practices, running workshops, share knowledge and, as of recent, a very proud moment is introducing contract testing between two of our services. Industry standards when it comes to quality engineering practices, running workshops, share knowledge and, as of recent, a very proud moment is introducing contract testing between two of our services. As you can see, one day I could be writing code all day. Other day I could be supporting engineers and testing their functionality, or be part of an architecture design session for a new feature, and tomorrow I could be helping debug a bug Due to how my role has changed in recent years.
Speaker 2:I had to adopt.
Speaker 3:I would say I had to become a T-shaped engineer, where the vertical line represents the depth of my knowledge and expertise in a specific technical field In my case this would be quad engineering while the horizontal stroke kind of represents a broad range of skills and knowledge across various fields. This is something I love about my job and being in tech.
Speaker 1:Amazing. I love the fact that you said that you from 17,. It’s almost like you fell in. You were thinking about it, but at least you studied in that area, which is also really nice to hear that there are ladies out there that do see tech as a brilliant career and think that’s the career path that I’m going to take. Joe, you said that you didn’t know much about computers. There must have been something about it, though. Were you like one of those children that took things apart when you were at home or, like then, couldn’t put them back together? Or is it literally just? You know what I’m going to give tech a try.
Speaker 3:I just give tech a try. I wasn’t actually one of those children. I wasn’t myself good at maths back then. I don’t still think I am very good at it, I am becoming a bit better but I don’t think maths was the reason of why I would have gone into tech. I just knew in the news there was something up on the rise, I was, I like computers, I liked playing games on it and that was about it and that’s how I kind of fell in it.
Speaker 1:Yeah good, that was a good gamble to take Good career path. So you have very different backgrounds, but also one of you is very experienced and one of you is very new in Dunhill. So you’re going to have both really good stories to share with us today about what your careers have been like so far at Dunhill Harsh. We’re going to start with you a little bit. Can you talk a little bit about your role, because you’ve been at Dunelm for about a decade, so how has your role evolved since you joined Dunelm’s tech team? You’ve had a couple of roles within that team. How would you say it’s kind of evolved for you?
Speaker 2:So for myself, when I first joined Enelm, I was a project manager where I managed the HR power projects. So all that was more like a softer side of things where, like you, look at supply selection, steering boards, delegation, coordination with large teams, planning, budget, risk, test management and so on. So, and through my journey, what was happening is project manager roles were being replaced by delivery manager roles, where it’s slightly different to PMing, right, but I was really comfortable. I wanted to carry on doing project management because that’s what I did with my Queen’s 2 qualifications. That’s what I wanted to be. I thought I want to be a PM, I don’t want to be anything else. Then, as I was umbing and ahhing where I want to go in my career path, a job came up for tech environments manager. So I applied for it and obviously got it right. So I did tick all the criteria apart from knowing about environments. I thought you know what I can easily learn that. I thought I’m going a bit different, but it was different. So where I started to where I am now is completely different, right, so. So as a PM, I didn’t really care what platforms I worked on, what system I was working on, as long as my laptop worked, I can get new applications. I didn’t care what they sat on. You know, I could run my spreadsheets, all my systems. I could run PowerPoint, et cetera, et cetera, and it was all fine. That’s all I cared about.
Speaker 2:Where I am now, I now look after non-production environments and make sure they fit for purpose and running as smooth as possible. So my role involves mapping out integrations between the systems and basically have an understanding of how all the systems link and talk together and talk to each other. Sorry, this role does overlap a lot of the pm skills, as involves a lot of planning, coordination, delegation, which really helps. But it’s completely different how I was back then to where I am now never thought I could do it because it’s very tech-based. I’m learning things.
Speaker 2:I never thought I’d get my head around systems. I didn’t really care what they were, but I had to literally have a blob of a system in the middle of a diagram and start connecting things. I started really basic. I thought if I start understanding from from the base, I’ll start learning. So I started small and slowly learned by talking to a lot of people to get to where I am right. Because, yeah, to learn this role. You have to talk to a lot of people you know. You get to know the business, you get to know people you never knew before. So, yeah, it’s very different, but it’s really good. I’m really enjoying it.
Speaker 1:It is tech heavy but compared to where I was, where I’m now, it’s all good. If I can do it, anyone can do it. You know, and I love that because I’ve had a few ladies on here that said I didn’t know that a project manager was a role that was available in tech and also that when you worked in that role it kind of that’s given you a nice basis of a lot of ladies on here say I thought I’d have to be highly technical to do that role and actually they needed more soft skills and tech skills.
Speaker 1:yeah, definitely yeah because they had to communicate what they would, what they were doing, and that kind of gives you a nice basis to then.
Speaker 1:Now you say your job is more tech heavy, but there’s that project manager role, that a lot of our ladies in our community just didn’t know existed um actually didn’t even they weren’t also aware that they were probably already doing that a similar role at a company that they’d worked at before. Um did that kind of when. When you moved into that role, was it a bit of a surprise for you, did you? I mean, you said before that you thought that um working in tech was going to be very techie, but actually a PM is quite different it’s very different.
Speaker 2:So the skills as a PM you can work in literally any industry. I could be working in, like in a bakery, or you know, you’re delegating, you’re managing, coordinating. So work using those softer skills in an IT based role. Tech base is no different. You probably a lot of girls, men, will probably do a lot of project management in their own personal lives arranging a meeting, arrange to go up for dinner with, with their girlfriend, the boyfriend, the parents. You’re always planning, you know right, so you may not have a spreadsheet or you know, like a lovely, like gunshot, what’s happening, etc. But the planning, um criteria, is always there. You’ve got a date, you’ve got people, you’re gathering family members, friends, you know, adding a diary event. It’s no different to PMing, so it’s a being in tech. It just sounds, may sound scary, but really isn’t, because you live and breathe it every day anyway. So it’s just literally applying it to the role. So, um, if you’ve got those softer side skills, you can literally apply it anywhere and it’s really easy.
Speaker 1:Yes, let the word tech scare you, because no, it’s just, it’s just, it’s just a word yeah, it sounds as well that because you’ve got in a company that it sounds like they’ve really developed you as as a professional as well, because you started in these different roles and then thought you know what, I’m probably not techie and then actually you’ve slowly progressed into picking up more of that, that technical knowledge, and now you know it sounds like you’ve really flourished. But I think that’s sometimes getting into the right company rather than you know a company just kind of letting you sit there and think you know until you get bored and then you leave. You’re quite a loyal employee.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, they’re all very supportive. We have, you know, thrive, which is like a learning platform. We have like every month in the afternoons we have like a payday learning afternoon where we can sit and learn things. You know, it could be personal stuff you’re working on, it could be a little I don’t know a little learning program you go on to, or just self-learning or learning things that your colleagues are doing like a bit of mentoring. So we, your colleagues, are doing that bit of mentoring. So we are quite at denelma, quite helpful in progressing our careers as well. So it’s a great place to work. On that front, we’re not shy or skeptical. I want to learn this. They may say no, that really encourages. We’ve got training programs to learn more, expand our skills. It’s.
Speaker 1:It’s really a great place to work, yeah, and to keep, to keep somebody a company um for for a long time as well. People love to job hop and I think really good companies know how to retain good talent and to let you try new things and to really flourish in your role instead of just feeling like it’s time for me to leave. So some really good companies know how to do that. Ten years, yeah.
Speaker 2:I’ve been here for quite a while.
Speaker 1:I’m part of the furniture now Exactly, but a nice piece of furniture since it’s done it on my own. Jo, you are an experienced professional but you are new to done it on, so can you tell us a little bit what has been your initial impression of working in tech at Daniel, compared to your previous experiences?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So when I first joined Daniel, I became and I still am a part of the backend team and for me this was a big, big change because I was used to work in a frontend teams and seeing how all the different parts of interaction that you are moving around and basically front-end team being in a back-end team has given me the opportunity to learn about development process from the API perspective, even though I didn’t have a specific background in a back-end team. But then Elm made an offer. They must have seen something on my CV that they liked and they made an offer and obviously through the interview process as well, I must have shined quite well. However, I did during this interview process also showed my skills of understanding how the endpoint worked. End of the day, you know they still were looking for some of the skills, so I showed my transferable skills and I also had some experience working with GraphQL and Postman.
Speaker 2:Not necessarily at the level.
Speaker 3:You would think you would need it when you join a backend team, but because of my transferable skills, I think it helped me to secure this job and also helped me to transition into this role, and Danelm has, in the last 10 months, I would say, given me a chance to prove myself, and there’s always plenty of support available when needed. The people here are very supportive and willing to help me and others, and one of the great things about working in tech at the Nelm is that they use very modern stack and the latest technologies. The team I joined use heavily AWS, which was new to me. I had previous experience at Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure, but not AWS. And again, I think, having some transferable skills, you don’t necessarily need to know every single application that is out there.
Speaker 3:If you have something to show that you worked previously somewhere, like with Google Cloud, even it could be for a couple of months or even a year, you can then use these transferable skills with other tools and I think this has been an absolute great opportunity for me to learn something new and exciting at the at the Nelman, especially like again emphasizing the back-end team because this was completely new to me. I’ve only been officially part back-end team for the 10 months previously. All my experience have been front-end team, heavily front-end team, because I think that’s where my strength has always, always lied. And I chose to take um kind of like leap and decided to join a back-end team and wanted to see what is it like on the other side, how they say yeah.
Speaker 1:And what’s interesting about your journey. There is a lot of ladies in our community say they don’t always apply for jobs because they don’t tick all of the boxes, um, and sometimes that you know it, you, sometimes you just need to take that leap of faith and think there are some good companies out there who will see something in you and see those transferable skills and think you know what, we’re just going to grab hold of her and train her up into things that we need to train her up in. And that’s exactly. It sounds like what daniel um did did with you that you you had lots of skills that they thought would just, you know, train you up in the areas that we think that you don’t have at the moment.
Speaker 1:But is that a feeling? I mean, you took that leap of faith, but is that something that perhaps you felt in the past, where you’ve read job descriptions and you thought you know what? I don’t tick all the boxes here, maybe I won’t go for it? Or perhaps you’ve gone for that interview and that company has turned you away and said no, you know, you don’t, you don’t hit all of our bullet points. Is that something that you felt in the past?
Speaker 3:I personally. So this is something I learned from my mentor along the way in my journeys that apply for a job even if you do not fit every single bullet point on that CV. And I did this very early on in my career. I remember it was the start of my journey, I think it was back in 1010, when one of my mentors were reviewing my CV and he said to me and I remember this very well, reviewing my CV and he said to me and I remember this very well, he said to me, you do not need to tick every box.
Speaker 3:But adjust your CV, think about what transferable skills you have and just go for it. And ever since that I have not looked back and I am here because of that, because of this approach that helped me to use that and not tick every box and just go for it and be confident when I go into that interview, because I know I am great and I have some great skills to show and I can do that.
Speaker 1:If I get past that CV, that blank page of CV, yes, yes, because you’ll never move forward and progress if you don’t keep going for something where there is a slight gap where you can learn those skills, um, as as you are, and you went from the front end to the to uh to a back end team, um, and took that leap of faith, and so far, so good. I wanted to talk to you, ladies, on that note, about challenges, so could you share some specific challenges you’ve encountered in your roles and how you’ve overcome them? Harj, should we start with?
Speaker 3:you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course. So I’ve alluded a little bit about it. Regarding, like, where I was in my PM role, which is relatively easy in comparison to the role I’m doing now, as the majority of the skills I have I already lived and breathed, such as the organization, the planning, the coordinating I did find it extremely challenging. Moving to the new role, I had to learn about entire technology landscape, which had a little bit of an idea about but didn’t really worry about it much, and then had to learn how all the systems integrate. This was difficult because there wasn’t just one source of knowledge and had to reach out to different people in various tech functions and then work out how to easily map all this out. So it’s easy to read and understand. Because of my pm skills, it really helped me because I had the people skills I could talk.
Speaker 2:You know I’m quite a friendly person. I was quite approachable, so I was like knocking on people’s doors saying that I need some help. Come and help me. You know I’m quite a friendly person. I was quite approachable, so I was like knocking on people’s doors saying that I need some help. Come and help me. You know that really helped. So you can’t be shy, you’ve got to go out there because I didn’t know the information.
Speaker 2:It’s only me and my team, right, and it’s a hot I don’t know. It’s huge, trying to learn all, trying to learn all that. I’m still learning. Every day is a learning day. It’s always a work in progress. You know I’m not going to say, oh yeah, today I know everything. Of course, not Every day. Things change, systems leave, systems come on. You know, integrations change, interfaces change, new things get added on, new systems get added on. It’s a changing landscape. So I’ve got to keep on top off, did all my stuff, talked to people, delegated, ran the projects, delivered it moved to my next one. Now I’m like, wow, this is such a different thing. I’m still in tech but I don’t code, etc. You know.
Speaker 2:But, um, I don’t need to with the role I’m doing, I just need to talk and, yeah, I need to understand and just basically work at how you know things kind of like fit together. I also help, like in the test management side of things, where we have like large projects. I work in the QA chapter space with a quality assurance team, right, so when we’ve got huge projects and there’s large amounts of testing involved, I’ll help to run that delegate, put test plans together, talk to talk to the colleagues. You know the little teams, right. So I’m still doing like around the house pm role anywhere in the role, because there’s very transferable skills. I’m just learning as I go along.
Speaker 2:That has really helped me in evolving the career I’m in now. If I didn’t have that, I would have struggled. I think I couldn’t talk to people, couldn’t delegate, couldn’t coordinate, I’d be stuck. I might think what do I do now? But that’s really helped me get more confident because that’s made me confident. I can actually reach out to people and when they see me coming think oh, here she comes, here she comes again. What do you want? Now, you know, but it’s nice to have that vibe. Everyone’s so friendly, they’re so approachable. In denial, no one’s ever said I can’t help you, I’ve got time. They’re willing to help and that has really helped me. If I was in an organization where they didn’t care, they weren’t helpful, I wouldn’t be where I am now. So, yeah, good off to all the teams out there. They really are helpful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, to be in that culture where you feel like you’re, you can keep knocking on people’s doors and keep asking and not feeling like you’re, you’re almost a nuisance, going to find out things from people. That is not a nice culture to be part of, whereas I thought I was thinking I can’t do it again.
Speaker 2:I can’t ask again. You know how many times they’re gonna get sick of me, but you gotta keep doing it. You gotta carry on. Before you know it, they know who I am. They know I’ll always lodge again, right, they know what I do. I need help. So when I need help, think guys, girls need some help, please. I’m stuck here. I’ve got the system here. I’ve got a system here. How do they connect? What’s what’s connecting between them two? That’s what. That’s what live and breathe now. I never thought I’d ever do this.
Speaker 1:I never thought yeah, that’s a misconception as well. Isn’t it about working in tech that you work quite siloed, whereas you don’t? You work with everybody? Did you think that you would be on your own? Was that something that it doesn’t sound appealing?
Speaker 2:it doesn’t sound creative yes, when the role first came up, I was like, oh god, that sounds very technical, like like Joe was alluded to earlier, ticking every box, no way. I was like, um, yeah, I can talk, I coordinate, can delegate environments. What the hell’s an environment, you know? Is it? You know? Like it’s like I knew what it was but thinking what do I need to know about that? Oh, my god is it’s a whole different ball game.
Speaker 2:But I went in there, literally in the deep end. I thought you know what, if I don’t go for it, I’ll never learn, you know. Uh, so that that’s just the way how I kind of progressed my career, thinking right, it’s new journey, new thing, I’m learning. I was very scared, of course, very nervous, thinking I don’t know all these criteria, I don’t, I can tick, tick, tick. Thinking no, no, no, like what do I do now? Right, but then I went into it eyes wide open. You’re right, okay, I’m letting myself in here, go in the deep end. You know what can go wrong. You know I’m working in a company that are supportive, so if I’m stuck, I know I’ll get help. And that’s what’s happened, because I didn’t know it all.
Speaker 2:I still don’t know it all you know I probably never will know it all you know, right, but it’s this journey, it’s just, it’s because the landscape’s so big, there’s so many things to learn. One day I might say, maybe, like in 20 years time. But yeah, you know, what I know done I’ll know. Then I’ll change again the next day, yeah, yeah, it’s one of these roles that you can’t get bored in.
Speaker 1:There’s always something you know and just the space, the space to be able to, to learn and grow, and that you don’t. You don’t have to know everything as well and at first you know. It’s just having the ability to learn instead of thinking I have to, I have to know everything and everybody’s going to ask me everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the, the almost like a safety um zone to learn you know, once you do the direct very heavy diagram base, once it’s done, thinking oh wow, this, this is good. I did that and it’s you have like a proud moment because I use like a platform called lucid charts, you know and my stuff right. But the things I’m doing on there I never thought was possible because I used to use vizio before and I thought I need something better. Another tool sets I’ve learned different tool sets, it’s drawing, but diagrams like, quite like technical diagrams, right. But that’s why I started small, a little box. Then I branched out.
Speaker 2:If I see the big drum and I think what the hell is that you know, right, but doing it small, understanding yourself. That’s how I learned, because I’ve got box here, I’ve got box here, I’ve got box here. That’s how you connect here, that’s how data’s going in and out, and I slowly built that up over time. I think I understand, like I can understand it, I can tell other people about it. That’s how I did it. So really slow, really small, and then you just, you just evolve and the diamonds going bigger and bigger and bigger.
Speaker 1:It’s quite good, jo. What about from your side? Um, it sounds challenging, marsh, but she, she’s overcome those challenges. Um, do you have any specific challenges on your side that you’ve encountered, and how have you overcome them?
Speaker 3:so, yeah, I I actually so, as I said before. Um, I knew that I’m joining a backend team, so for me that was already a challenge on its own, and before I joined.
Speaker 3:Danelle, I actually emailed the team to ask which topics I should be looking at before I joined and they were great at it and they actually came back with some of the terminology, like AWS, lambda, api Gateways, typescript and service architecture, and what I did with that it was I created a plan and I used a Trello board to keep a track of the topics I wanted to cover before I even joined the team. This is kind of my own personal way of dealing and preparing for a new, exciting roles, because during my time at Danelle, I identified, even before I joined, you know, I had a plan and I followed it, but obviously during this time there’s even more things to learn, more more things to do. So what I did is I identified the areas where I had less knowledge of and I set a plan to get myself where I want to be. It was challenging for me because it was absolutely new to me. Everything was new, even though I had those transferable skills. The first few months it was like whoa. And when I joined the backend team straight away, in the first few weeks I felt like I’m an imposteroster, you know, thinking that my skills wouldn’t be enough, you know. But what I did right. I focused on areas where I identified it to be a weaker spot for me, such as integration tests and TypeScript, and by writing integration tests, it helped me understand how APIs work meaning I’m more comfortable being in a backend team and, by writing a good test, taught me a lot about the systems that APIs interact with, therefore learning a lot about what my team does and therefore making me more comfortable.
Speaker 3:And the same similar journey for TypeScript.
Speaker 3:I was creating a small JavaScript functions and then I converted them into TypeScript.
Speaker 3:I used YouTube a lot to learn about more complex topics, such as creating my own dummy server and using JSON file as my database, and often on my learning days at the Nelm, as Harald mentioned. The Nelm is great at giving us a chance to learn during our work hours and, once a month, in the afternoons. What I try to do is I try to work on a small but achievable hands-on project, to be more comfortable with concepts that I’m still using on a daily basis or to help me actually spot a new opportunity to implement them into the team when a challenge or when a new challenge comes along. And you know I always say at the end of the day, we all face challenges and fear that we’re not good enough or haven’t learned enough. But with a tangible plan, like I’ve done and I’ve used it for many years now we can overcome anything over time and, as you can see from me and Harsh talking about it being in tech, you’re constantly learning and if you enjoy that, then this is the career for you.
Speaker 1:Amazing and I love the fact that you mentioned that you had that feeling of I just feel like an imposter, and that comes up so often on this podcast.
Speaker 1:How many people have felt that imposter syndrome? They’re going to find me out, they’re going to know that I don’t know everything, and we’ve all had that feeling and um, you followed it up there, though, with just learning that you were you, just you know, knuckled down and thought I’m going to learn and um, I’ve been told on here by some um other incredible ladies before that sometimes, just, they just say know your stuff, just know. Just learn and know and be confident that you have learned it. If you don’t know it, learn it. And then, um, and to not always have that imposter syndrome feeling, um, because sometimes it can help, sometimes that can help a little bit. It’s nice to have that a little bit so you’re continually learning, um, but sometimes it can hold you back as well if you’re always thinking I’m gonna get found out, they’re gonna know. So, yeah, that’s amazing and I love the fact that you you said you use Trello boards as well.
Speaker 1:It’s incredibly organized to figure out what you want to learn and to to always just to tick off all the things that you have learned, um, so you know that you’ve ticked all of the boxes. Um. Both of you have very different experiences um working in daniel, um so we wanted to ask you both a little bit about what are some exciting tech trends or innovations that you’ve seen emerge within daniel recently. Um harsh, so we go to you yeah, of course.
Speaker 2:So one of the exciting things we actually have is in the warehouse we have automated pallet movers, which is basically driverless forklifts which move pallets around the warehouse. There’s no human interaction at all required to pick up the stock for dispatch, so the machines move back to a parking position once they’ve done the tasks and then they recommence, they’re charging and once ready, they go back out again. That is like amazing. I’ve seen them. Actually I’m like, wow, there’s no people, there’s no humans driving that house. But yeah, so I’ve seen that and I’ve I’ve heard that.
Speaker 1:So we actually, um, just jumping in there, we, we have a client that does something similar and on the surface, that sounds like quite a boring role in tech. I think it sounds like, oh you know, just moving things around, and actually when you get into the people that work in those roles, they have the coolest jobs and all of their jobs are just like, oh you know, we work in autonomous vehicles and robotics. And all of a sudden, this whole world opens up and like, actually that’s super cool. That’s not just, you know, talking about forklift moving around, um, that actually the people that work in those jobs have always got really cool jobs and always love what they do. So, um, I was only talking about that earlier today with someone actually, so it’s interesting there’s another example there that you threw in of all of the different aspects that you can work in in tech.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it’s just amazing seeing thinking there’s no one there. It’s like when you talk about like driverless cars, you know you don’t need drive thinking would I really, would I really own one of those if I just drive by itself, when you’re not? You’re just sitting, I don’t know. I think. I think I’m there, yet the warehouse is probably all right. You can get out of the way.
Speaker 1:You’re not gonna get knocked over in case it goes right, but yeah, on the street probably not so, but so so cool to be able to work on such a project as well, to really move the company forward yeah.
Speaker 2:So myself personally I didn’t work on that project it’s just literally it’s happening the way it has at the moment. You know it’s there with another team but it’s just literally so exciting seeing that evolving it. We actually got that in Dunham. It’s amazing. So for myself, with my my, because of my project stuff, I’ve just done lots of stuff regarding we were a heavily paper-based company, you know right, so as an organisation moving from paper to tech, so I like implement that e-payslip. You know that system I’ve put in, you know, which is a bit exciting where everyone just now gets paid on. It’s just literally payslips, all electronic. It’s quite old um, it’s just literally pay slips, it’s all electronic, it’s quite old. It’s not in the recent um things. I don’t really do anything as like delivering stuff now because of the role I’m in now. So exciting projects I worked on before are no longer there because I don’t run that anymore. So with me, just past stuff I’ve done. If you still want to go through that stuff I’ve done already or it’s not recent.
Speaker 2:But it’s like we also implement a system called DocuSign where before there was paper sheets being signed off by different people in the organization from different managerial levels. So I implemented something called DocuSign where it’s all automated a manager would sign it, it’d go to someone else, it’d go to supplier, go to another area. It’s like a, like a workflow. That was all implemented. So there’s a lot of stuff that’s that’s been going on, like even from platforms, what we use, like our laptops or Windows 11, MacBooks or latest Mac OS systems. For our colleagues In the stores, we use iPads with chip and pin units so customers can place, like web orders on the iPad and payments taken on a pad. You know that’s attached to the iPad. So all these little things are evolving as we speak.
Speaker 1:It’s just there’s lots of stuff going on yeah, yeah, and loads of different aspects to to work on just within one company. Um, loads, loads of different things. I can see why you’ve been there 10 years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it’s a lot. It’s a lot of these projects uh, not run by myself, it’s threatened on that. There’s so much going on. We, which we are quite a large organization, so I might get a little pin in the haystack what I do, but. But all this stuff is happening around me, what I’m thinking, oh, that’s quite good. Oh, that’s quite good. Sometimes I think the role I’m doing is quite boring because I’m not actually showing who wants to know our system’s got a connection, that’s got interface it. Wow. But you know it’s, it’s something I’ve learned to like, learn to love. Now, back in the day, I’ve never thought I’d be here caring about a system, how a connects to b. Why would I care? But now I do care. It’s part of my role, you know. So for me that’s just literally. Yeah, it’s an eye-opener for me. I’m actually enjoying the role I’m in thinking, oh my god, I’m actually techie now good, good, that’s good to hear.
Speaker 1:Um and Jo yourself, have you from? From your side of things, have you seen some exciting tech trends and innovations? Uh, within daniel recently?
Speaker 3:yeah, absolutely. And I think again it is worth mentioning aws amazon web service, which has been part of the company since 2018, give or take, and I swear I do not secretly work for them, but just love using their service, which is why I’ve been mentioning AWS throughout this whole podcast and I’m still going to give some more examples later on.
Speaker 3:And the way AWS has helped us improve our website and in-store operations is by making them more flexible and resilient, and it has also supported innovation to create a better customer experience and resilient. And it has also supported innovation to create a better customer experience. And worth mentioning that we are one of the biggest users of AWS serverless capabilities in Europe, and this is important because it allows our engineering teams to focus on their work without having to worry about infrastructure or load issues. It has completely changed what we can deliver to the business and our customers. Recently, there has been a move towards using micro frontends short for MFEs and move away from monolith, and let me explain a bit more on this to the listeners who may have not heard the word monolith. A monolith is when you make a change to the frontend, such as adding a new feature, and you have to test and deploy the entire application at once. This carries a high risk and can affect any parts of the website. It also makes it difficult to scale up when multiple teams are working on a website simultaneously and, as you know, the Nelm has quite evolved in recent years and our engineering capabilities and teams has grown and this leads to uncertainty and more time spent dealing with unexpected problems. And then the Nelm realized that micro and architecture was the best option for us.
Speaker 3:Another great innovative tool that the Nelm uses is LaunchDarkly, and for those who have never heard of it, it’s a feature flag system that basically allows the Nelm to release different experiments to targeted user groups and allow engineers to turn code on and off in prod environment, test their code in prod and have a more progressive delivery Meaning.
Speaker 3:You can release how you want your code, be it 10% only desktop users, or go 50% with a new node upgrade and see how that performs. And also, I think worth mentioning is that we also organize internal tech hackathons. That encourages innovation and power engineers to solve real life problems using any available resources. On that day, everyone is welcome to participate in these hackathons, regardless of their coding abilities. It could be a PO, ba, it could be anyone, even if you want to go to the store and speak with the store people and see how you could help them. And the topics can vary on the hackathons, including how to enhance the store experience and even leverage the latest technologies, and that is a very great way and again showcasing that the Nelm gives you that chance to try out new things and not necessarily what you do on a daily database that’s cool.
Speaker 1:It’s cool that you hold hackathons, we, we hold hackathons and we find the same thing that we love a mixture of experiences, because suddenly it’s like people realize, actually I can do this, I didn’t know I could do that, and just again, being in a safe space where you can try something a lot of our ladies that come along never been to a hackathon think. Actually I thought that was going to be really scary, but it wasn’t, and you’re right. You just get to help, um, you know whether you you work on a project that helps, uh, somebody in store, for instance, and then you get to see the the um difference that that makes. I loved as well that you said, um, about just being able to focus on what you need to focus on.
Speaker 1:It sounds like between both of you that Daniel um really tries to make changes where it needs to to ensure that you can just focus on your job instead of worrying about other things. From both of you, um, you, uh. I would love to know what would be your advice for other people that are thinking um about a career in tech, particularly if they’re thinking about joining Dunelm. Do you, do you have some advice for people, um, if they’re considering that um harsh yourself yeah.
Speaker 2:So for myself, like, uh, looking at my own career journey, um, to have a career in tech doesn’t mean you need to write, code and build software. I don’t, and I’ve been here for a long while. There are many different avenues you can explore, especially at Dunelm, like in my role. For example, I manage our test environments. I get to work along so many different people, different roles, different skill sets. It allows you to. It allows you to talk, socialize, meet people. It gives me a great opportunity to constantly learn and develop my own breadth of technical knowledge and skills along the way, opening up future opportunities. So just a constant learning journey. You know it’s nice talking to people, especially post-pandemic, where you know it’s nice talking to people, especially post-pandemic, where you know everyone’s working from home most of the time, right, but these all teams calls, video calls etc. Just keeping that bond together. I still don’t find it difficult to reach out for help. I still get the help before you’d walk to a desk and say you just hover over them, can you help me, and you don’t move until they help you, but you just ping someone a message like on slack, say you know, that’s what we use in tech. It’s like a just a version of whatsapp, just for tech, tech people. It’s like I need some help here. If you’ve got two minutes right and like nine times up and ten, that was one straight away or it might be while, but you will get the help and support.
Speaker 2:So denelm is a really um a helpful company that I don’t think I met anybody within the now and then say no, I’m not going to help, you haven’t got time. They will make time. We all make time for each other. We all busy people, but we all realize we’re all learning every day as well and someone’s stuck. They’re not saying they’re stuck for the fun of it, they’re actually need help. So it’s quite, it’s quite great, especially the chapter I’m in, which is a QA chapter, which Joe’s part of as well.
Speaker 2:We’ve got like a lovely family community where we’ve got a massive slack channel where anyone can ask anything. We have a bit of banter, a bit of joe. Obviously the workers were, but it’s nice having that um, lovely, healthy, friendly environment where no one is scared to ask a question because you know you’re not going to get head bitten off. That really, really helps, because when I first joined, especially you know, I was like I was a newbie into this role, I was like there’s so many questions I had, I think, oh, that’s a stupid question. It’s a stupid question. But no question is stupid. Everyone’s got to learn somewhere.
Speaker 2:I think I’m not really going to ask that. I think I’m going to say well, you know that. But you don’t feel intimidated, you don’t feel like answer, but so and so will help you. So I’ll go. That’s where I do my merry-go-round, chasing people think, oh, they don’t know, no, they’ll help you. So sometimes I don’t get answers straight away. I’ve got to literally graft and work out which person it is I need. But I’ll eventually get there, you know right, but it just just carry on. Just carry on just doing what I’m doing and yeah, it’s all good.
Speaker 1:Especially working from home. You don’t want to be sitting there drowning thinking. I don’t want to reach out and put a question in that Slack channel because I know how people are going to respond or people might just ignore me. You really don’t want that feeling, and it can be quite lonely. It’s quite a lonely experience if you work on a team that feels like that. It can affect everything in your life. If you’re not happy in your job, yeah, no, definitely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like for me being for so long, you know, pre-pandemic, during the pandemic, post-pandemic, I’ve seen a lot. The one thing that hasn’t changed is how helpful people are. If anything even more helpful because we can’t even talk, we don’t even see each other on a day-to-day basis, but they’re still there. You see new faces all the time, thinking, I mean, when I do go to the office I see a face thinking, sure, that’s a person that helped me on team to the day. You know right, because you don’t know who they are, because we don’t see them. But it’s nice to put you know, like names to faces etc. So it’s quite nice, it’s. It is a helpful bunch, can’t stress it enough. Yeah, it is a very good company to work for yeah, and joe yourself um, would you?
Speaker 1:would you echo, um what harsh said there? And if you um could share some advice on? You know, if somebody’s considering a career in tech, particularly at daniel what, what would be your advice?
Speaker 3:yeah. So I think recently in the last few years, um, I would say for people to wanting to get a career in tech, wanting to have a feel for it, I would recommend looking into events specifically for women in tech, such as women in business and tech or expo or aws summit, with more hands-on workshops, and I think at these, industry experts will give talks or have stalls where they would be available to you and talk to the attendees, give insight into their experience and industry and provide support and advice, even if you feel stuck sometimes. And remember you don’t have to meet every requirement listed in a job description, as we discussed before, but you should showcase your skills. So write down any skill that you have and be proud of them. Highlight any relevant experience, such as a three-week internship or participation in programs like Chic&Code. Make sure to provide examples how you have demonstrated these skills, no matter how small they may seem at the time, and, if possible, ask someone with technical knowledge if that’s what you go after to review your CV.
Speaker 3:And as you might have heard me saying AWS a few hundred times in this podcast, I would want to mention them again and their resources available that might come in handy when considering a career at Danel. You can create a free account on AWS and have access to their resources for 12 months. Just please remember to remove your credit card information or close your resources after 12 months period to avoid any charges. This experience alone can be a valuable learning opportunity, but maybe not just from your personal wallet, please. So just to bear in mind and also, aws and any other type of tool that you’re going to be using is probably going to be a large, some sort of large enterprise and you can feel very easily overwhelmed and how to navigate. So with aw, aws and probably other tools as well.
Speaker 3:In AWS, they recommend starting with their cloud essentials knowledge badge, readiness path. I have done that myself. It was very useful before I joined Enel. It includes a scenario about a coffee shop and how AWS helped them to succeed, and once you understand the basics, you can start getting a hands-on experience as well. They also offer a ramp-up guide for more advanced topics and also I think it’s great if you have a knowledge of one or more of the following, like JavaScript, TypeScript, graphql, react, nextjs and Nodejs.
Speaker 3:Of course, again, it depends on the job description of the role you’re interested in and don’t be afraid to still apply and showcase the skills, even if you do not have every single thing I just said on the CV. It’s just something, an example of what I’ve done recently myself with these events, because it really has motivated me. I think pre-pandemic and during pandemic we kind of lost not necessarily when I was in a denial at that time but we lost that human touch. I lost also that motivation about women in tech and everything. And after the pandemic finished I started attending more events and that really really got me excited and be happy to be in tech again, because when I went these events I feel like I’m part of a great community and I just want to stay here and don’t leave.
Speaker 1:Yes, I love that. Yes, finding a network that you can really connect with and share your stories and yes, it can definitely re-energize you if you need to but but also just to reach out to other people with similar experience and hear their stories is so, so valuable. Ladies, we’re almost out of time, but I wanted to ask you one last question. Do you have any final thoughts or reflections that you’d like to share with our listeners? Is there anything that you wish you’d been told before you came into tech? Is there anything you’d like to share with our ladies? Um harsh, should we go to you?
Speaker 2:yeah, of course. So mine’s quite simple just don’t be afraid to join tech. It’s just a word. Like you’ve heard what I’ve been doing my journey. I don’t code and I’ve been in tech for over 25 years. I’m enjoying it, I’m loving it. Every day is a learning day. It’s fun. Yes, tech is fun.
Speaker 2:You know, like, like joe was saying, like it depends what you’re doing because, like I am not a coder but I did do a she Can Code course. I did a bit of coding at university. It’s not that I don’t like it, it’s just that I’ve just chosen my career path to be. In that journey I found other things that I actually enjoyed more, but tech it can be anything from a business analyst just looking at you know that’s an interesting role A tester, pm you know there’s lots of things that you can do. That’s still in tech but isn’t code heavy. So it depends on what you want.
Speaker 2:If you see a job advert there in any tech industry role, have a look at it, see what it’s about. And I can probably guarantee you that if you didn’t have tech in the title, you thought you’d go for it. Don’t let the word tech scare you. Just just, it’s just a word. You know, if I knew all techs like this thing. No, I’m not doing that because, like when I like, I was saying at the very beginning, when I, um, was trying to choose my career path, what I want to do when I grew up, I had no idea. So I did this degree, bit of business, bit IT still didn’t know what I wanted to do did a bit of accounting, got my results. I think, oh, actually. That made me think, oh actually I’ve smashed my degree. Let me go into this tech world, let’s see what it’s all about. And it was scary at the time, but literally when I set foot in it I thought, oh, this is it.
Speaker 2:It’s just a department called tech. I couldn’t be sitting somewhere else, you know, like in a bakery, and I’ve got daughter doing the same role, kind of thing. So it’s um, it’s all cool, just don’t let it scare you. It really isn’t scary. Just please don’t. It’s um, yeah, like I said, only if I can do it, anyone can do it you are right as well.
Speaker 1:If, if, sometimes, if a job says tech in the title, that really does brighten people and we just love for more people to to know it’s like a like the world, the best hidden secret of coming into tech and then really enjoying it. Why, why, you know we say on here that, um, the tech industry has uh as a pr issue that more people should just know that it is a really good industry to work in and there are some really good companies uh out there. If you’re lucky enough to to fall into one, um joe yourself. Final thoughts and reflections for our listeners, if you please. Yeah, enough to to fall into one, um joe yourself. Final thoughts and reflections for our listeners, if you please yeah.
Speaker 3:So for me I would say build your confidence and and trust yourself when you begin learning the code, wherever it’s through a course, workshop or youtube video. Remember that you do not have to be expert right away. Enjoy the process of learning and improving and remember that success is not a straight line. It’s a journey with ups and downs. Some days are good while others are tough. There will be good days and there will be bad days, and you just have to sometimes accept that. Accept that sometimes. You have to accept that. Sometimes you may question why am I even doing this, thinking you’re not good enough? But when you reflect on your progress, you you realize how far you’ve come. You are better than you were yesterday or a week ago. Keep going and you will reach the top and feel accomplished, just like climbing.
Speaker 2:Everest.
Speaker 3:Well, at least that’s how I think it would feel like if I ever climbed an Everest. That’s for you, that’s my final thoughts on being in tech.
Speaker 1:Amazing, thank you, yes, I think you are right. Between amazing, thank you, yes, I think you are right. And between both of you you both you know really hit the nail on the head today and it’s just being confident and thinking you know what, I’m just going to give it a go and it’s hoping that people you know see tech as a really great career and falling into a really good company and can really just set you on such a successful path. Um, which we can see see from both of you from 10 years through to just over 10 months. We can see that you’re both really flourishing at Dunelm. So, ladies, thank you. I could keep talking to you all afternoon on this topic, because you are both a world of knowledge on what it is like to work in the tech industry, but we are already out of time. So, thank you so much, ladies. Thank you, joe and harsh, for joining us today. It’s been an absolute pleasure absolutely.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for having us yeah, thank you very much and to all of our ladies listening as always.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for joining us and we hope to see you again next time.
