One of the best pieces of advice Aishling Meyler has ever received in her twenty plus years working in data and technology is ‘put your hand up’. Always volunteer to get involved, even if you’re not entirely confident about the task in question. Taking on responsibility for projects can be career defining for women in STEM related industries.
In this podcast Aishling, who is Senior Director, Software Engineering, LexisNexis® Risk Solutions, Insurance, UK and Ireland will discuss the importance of stepping outside of your comfort zone to get further in a tech career, know that knowledge comes from making mistakes.
Working for LexisNexis® Risk Solutions, Aishling was fortunate to be involved in a Women in Tech mentoring programme set up by the business. She will cover how important mentoring has been for her career and one of her earliest mentors gave her this invaluable advice. Advice that has stuck with her to this day and still very much holds true.
Aishling will explain how taking this approach can mean employees will learn faster and the work they are given will be more interesting. She will stress that women should try not to worry too much about a title or money in the early days – they should just say ‘I can do that or I can learn to do that’ and career progression will almost certainly accelerate – even if there some failures along the way. Aishling will discuss her own experiences of pulling back projects from the brink and why they were also some of her biggest successes.
Aishling will conclude that the technology sector is facing major challenges in attracting women to apply for roles and it is therefore vital that employers go further to make roles appealing and support women coming into the sector. Mentoring is one way but so too is being part of initiatives to educate and communicate to women the opportunities that exist in technology.
hello everyone thank you for tuning in I am Katie batesman the content director at she can code and today I have the
fabulous Ashling Myla who is the senior director software engineering at
LexisNexis Risk Solutions Insurance UK in Ireland to discuss the importance of
stepping outside of your comfort zone knowing that knowledge comes from making mistakes welcome Ashley
thank you and thank you for having me today I’m really excited for the for the chat good thank you so much for joining us
this morning um because it’s a topic that we haven’t had uh before on our podcast we’ve talked a little bit about
how ladies can gain confidence and but we yet to talk about um you know volunteering putting yourself forward
and stepping um outside of that comfort zone to kick off today’s conversation can we hear a
little bit about yourself and your background please yep so as you said I’m asking Milo and
I’m a senior director of software engineering at Alexis Nexus with Solutions so my degree many many years ago was in
computer science and from there I moved into development so over 23 years ago and I’ve spent about half that time in a
development role and then from there I moved to team lead to to where I am today and so today I look after several
teams of Engineers who develop software solutions for the insurance industry is specifically looking at risk did you
when you were at school did you think I I want to go into technology or is it
something that you kind of fell into I think I fell into it I didn’t I didn’t
know nothing yeah I knew nothing about computers I liked maths maths was my thing and so my career guidance teacher
was saying oh if you like maths this computers should be good so I was kind of like okay great we’ll give that a go
and and even start in college and you know there was a small number of females
in the class but we had to go get a floppy disk to save our projects on we hadn’t a notion we were going into the
shop asking for a floppy disk and wondering what it even looked like so had literally hadn’t a clue when I
started off we hear it often um and we uh we do like to hear the
routes that people make into technology on here because occasionally you do get a lady that says yes I had a plan and I
wanted to go into yeah um but as as we hear so often on here there are so many routes in
um and we find that really encouraging that ladies uh you know find their way into Tech
um in in all different paths um you’re a big advocate for putting yourself forward for things how do you
think this has helped your career so I think I wouldn’t be where I am today if I hadn’t started doing that and
I know early on in my career I guess for a couple of reasons I was in startup companies where
where you do a bit of everything anyway but didn’t put my hand up but I think it was because I didn’t realize that other
people were so I guess if you’re in a situation where people are putting their hands up when you’re not people aren’t
perhaps considering you for some of those roles um and it was
um several years ago I was part of um a woman in Tech mentoring program that that was kicked off in the company and
it was that first Mentor that kind of said you know you need to put your hand up even if you’re not sure you can do
something even if you’re not sure it’s for you she said you need to put your hand up and say you’re interested
because otherwise the opportunities don’t always come like you still do get opportunities but I think you don’t get
as many opportunities so I think that putting my hand up on I literally do end up putting it up in the air half the
time and is really important because otherwise people don’t know that you’re interested they might think you’re happy where you are so I definitely wouldn’t
be I might be further along the path but I don’t think I’ll be as far as I am now if I hadn’t done that yeah I suppose as
well um you’re right if you don’t put your hand up ever I think perhaps your team or your manager would just always assume
that you’re not up for any opportunity yeah yeah that you’re happy where you are yeah and you’re content yeah I’m not
saying put your hands up for things that you really don’t want to do you know don’t put your hand up for everybody you
really don’t want to do um but yes occasionally just showing that you’re willing to come out of your
comfort zone a little bit um can’t can’t hurt obviously
um putting yourself forward especially early on in your career it can be very daunting
um so do you have any advice for anyone who is feeling overwhelmed probably a couple of things I think one
have more confidence in yourself I think we’re all really really bad at kind of having confidence in ourselves and and
putting ourselves forward but I think as well what’s really important is kind of having a little circle around you be
that your manager colleagues peers so I can kind of encourage you as well I
think it’s really important to build that little kind of almost like a little village around you where you’ve got people that can kind of you can talk to
you can kind of say hey I’ve seen that come up or you can have those open and honest conversations even if it’s just
the people around you or if it’s a mentor but I think having that Circle can give you that confidence you need to
kind of you know put yourself forward then do you find as well um
things have got easier for people working from home and being remote I
think sometimes I used to think before covid if if I didn’t want to put my hand up for something or or even you know
just um voice my opinion in a meeting even sometimes things got a little bit
easier after covered and working from home and being able to feel you know
you’re on equal ground with everybody in a meeting because you’re you’re on Zoom or you know whatever it is that you’re
using and have you found that a little bit easier perhaps to have the confidence to step forward and and and
put yourself forward for something because you know you’re remote I think for me it hasn’t made any
difference I guess um as part of Alexis Nexus with Solutions and in the UK and I we have
you know about four different locations so a lot of our work was a little bit remote before anyway you know I’d be
working with people in different offices and so while we would have people in our Dublin office
I’d be working remotely and my managers in some cases would have been remote so for me I don’t think that had a
particular difference and sometimes I think people remotely are a little bit
slower to put their hands up because you can’t in some cases see their face you know it’s easier to sit behind the
screen and not put your hand up whereas if you’re sitting in a room and you’re looking around at people people can almost feel the pressure to volunteer
yeah yeah so I think in my teams I probably
see less putting up a hands now we’re more virtual and but for me personally it hasn’t made it hasn’t made a
difference yeah it’s always found it different um uh interesting with the way that the
Dynamics changed I worked at an office at the time where I went in five days a
week and we were responding and it was it was a nice atmosphere anyway um but like yourself going home didn’t
seem to change too much for us um but I I did think actually in terms
terms of just the dynamic of the team might be those that were slightly more quieter seem to get a little bit more
air time than they would of when we were in the office and everybody was sitting together and you’ve got the noisy sales
people that seem to pitch in with everything and then we we had um a couple of very quiet
um very talented developers who might not pitch in on on certain things or
um so that they had enough air time to speak sometimes so put themselves
forward yeah um so I suppose it depends on the team really doesn’t it what you’re used to
yes yeah yeah it does and the people some people like that when they’re when they’re not face to face they do have a
little bit more confidence sometimes yeah and do you have any tips on feeling more
confident or projecting confidence I suppose that can be harder if you’re not
in a room and you don’t have that body language do you yeah again probably a few things here I think from speaking to
people about this I think you come across way more confident than you realize and I happen
to be speaking to someone yesterday and and she was saying she didn’t like presenting and we were talking about an off-site where we were presenting and I
was really surprised I was like oh you always come across so confident and she was like no no I hate it so I think people do generally come across more
confident then you appear so I think try not worry about it as much and be really prepared
I think the more prepared you are on your material whatever it is you’re talking about better presenting you will
be more confident because if you know your stuff you’re happier to talk about it and practice practice practice if you
don’t you know practice do the presentations speak up on the calls
you need it to become normal and part of what you do so the more you do it you will become more confident kind of
naturally even though those first few times oh everybody’s listening or everybody’s looking or I said something stupid do it
anyway because the only way you’re going to learn is by maybe making the mistakes you know and then the next time doing it
better but I think to get more confident it really is practice you’re not going to be confident the first couple of times but with the practice that that
will come over to him yeah you’re absolutely right as well it’s that worry that everybody’s watching Everybody
might think that yeah not only might I make a mistake in my presentation but people might think actually I don’t look
confident or you know perhaps I don’t know what I’m doing and I think sometimes as well that it as you say
practice and I’ve found practicing in front of somebody that will give you very honest feedback almost brutal
feedback because you’re right you don’t always know how you come across to other people and if somebody says to you
actually you come across um you seem quite nervous or there’s something about you
um that perhaps you could tweak a few things um I remember doing recordings uh when I
became a reporter um years ago we did we recorded our interviews so we could watch them back and I remember that is
when you know my editor started pointing out to me you fidget and I was like
right I hadn’t even noticed it and I was walking on you know my heels or I was
sort of fidgeting in the chat and and when you’re sitting with somebody in person trying to make them feel
comfortable and interview them I’m clearly feeling nervous on the inside and it was showing on the outside and it
wasn’t until somebody you know quite honestly said to me you look nervous because you’re fidgeting sit on your
hands I don’t care what you do but you know just just be mindful of how you come across and yeah and you’re
absolutely right though it is um sometimes you you don’t realize you have no idea you’re worried so much
about your presentation whatever it is you have to say and that you completely forget to to notice you know any sort of
body language or the way that you talk or anything like that um unlike that even for presentations
it’s not good enough I’ve realized now it’s not good enough to stand in front of your computer and say it out loud to
yourself grab your friend your husband your children whoever it is and just get them to sit there and listen and they
will pick out those things that you’re doing that are a little bit odd yes well that doesn’t make sense or
um uh I used to go for a phase of um forgetting to say my surname so I sounded like Madonna where I would just
say my first name and not even realize that I you know hadn’t said my full name and until somebody pointed it out oh my
gosh actually yeah yeah I’m not a pop star I need to introduce myself
um but yeah little things that you you just don’t notice um absolutely right and and children would give you great
feedback very honor feedback very honest that’s a great tip
um why did you put yourself forward and the project fails how do you move past
that so my my biggest failure ever and I
still remember it very clearly to this day was it was a huge project that we were doing and but I would still say I
wouldn’t be where I am today if it hadn’t been for that project you know it was a huge project
and it was a huge failure in terms of timelines getting the work out the door and we did bring it back on track we
brought it back on track and but it almost felt like you know in the space of six months I’d gained like four years
experience you know so that failure you know you you hear it I’ve heard on you know listening to other people talk
about their careers that you know there’s no mistakes there’s only ways to learn but definitely if I look at that
project you know over those six months I grew so much I learned so much and even during those failures I still remember
as well um some of the more senior people in the company happen to be around
and they took the time came over and told me about their favorite projects you know their big project that failed
which was really really nice to kind of know actually yes things have gone wrong we’re being in a back on track but
nobody was you know there was a variety of reasons why it failed but nobody was kind of looking at the failure they were kind of looking
at right how are we going to come out of this what are the lessons he’s going to learn and I do say that to my lead sometimes they get a project I go look
this is going to be hard but trust me the learnings that you’ll get out of it it’ll be worth it because you’ll you’ll
you’ll grow so much quicker if you don’t get those challenging projects and don’t get the failures
you don’t get those lessons to learn you don’t realize what to do better the next time so it’s hard it’s daunting and
particularly when you’re in the middle of it it’s really bad but to try and remind yourself
um and other people like if you’re working with someone else who’s going through that try and remind them that these failures are actually what’s going
to help you grow if everything goes you know I tell my kids that true if you get everything right how are you going to learn and it’s the same if you don’t
have those failures you’ll grow but I don’t think you’ll grow as quickly I think they really kind of push you to kind of grow yeah and and
being on a team that allows you to to have that feeling yeah I think I’ve been
on teams where you know something goes wrong and you know it it has consequences obviously things have
consequences but not to the point where the team is just completely put down and then you you immediately think to
yourself well I’m not going to put myself forward I’m not going to do anything again I’m not going to try
um we’re not going to grow as a team and and then on the opposite end I’ve been on teams where you know
um mostly American teams funny enough who are always kind of trying new things and do things you know put yourself
forward um and those those sort of teams you know you really just you you come up
with ideas and and you try new things um because you know that if it does foul
it’s as you say they look at it as um you know how how can we learn from
this um instead of making you feel like you’re an absolute terrible person yeah
yeah and even that was a really tough project for everybody there was a lot of late nights and stuff which you know we
don’t really like to do but during that project nobody left the team everybody was on the same page of
right we can turn this around we can get there and we did and then after it was kind of like a two year long project
then people start moving on to other companies other places within the company but it did feel like you know
there was a huge accomplishment when we got to the end of it which was lovely yeah so failure is good even though it
doesn’t feel like it no he doesn’t feel like it at the time um it’s so interesting as well to see
the dynamic of your team when something goes wrong as well and to see you know
if you’ve got colleagues um well suddenly you notice people if you’re a manager and you notice and people on
your team who uh throw each other under the bus and it’s so interesting to see
you know it wasn’t me you know whether or not you group
together and you help each other out and you just you just get through it and like you said without that mistake you
never actually get to see you know how you work in a crisis um and all together instead of uh
blaming other people and you know yeah yeah it doesn’t get you anywhere and I think
even that I mean it’s a leader making sure that people feel safe to fail because you know otherwise people cover
up mistakes or they’re not maybe pushing the project of themselves far enough so it is important for people to realize
that you know if you fail you’re not in trouble it’s kind of right okay that happened how do we resolve it
now how do we learn from it how do we kind of fix it and stuff so yeah it is important for people as well to get that
support when it happens and definitely in that case I got lots of support and I still remember it now I remember the
failure but I remember the support that came with it as well which is nice yes which makes you want to start that
company no longer do more for them you know you get far more out of somebody and where you’ve really supported them
rather than than putting them down and they immediately start renewing their CV
um yeah I’m I’m off um we talk a lot about burnout and uh
mental health um is there a fine line between being good for your career or and volunteering
to match yes I think there is um I think for me you know there’s a
very kind of clear difference between work and personal life you know I’ve got a family I’ve got you know young enough
kids and the work-life balance for me is everything so if I don’t have that
work-life balance I’m not going to stay where I am and I know that about my teams as well so you know if you’re
already overwhelmed um you know you should be letting your manager know you’re overwhelmed and you should be kind of getting that support
but if you’re overwhelmed and you know put your hand up to say actually I need help as opposed to hey
give me more stuff you know taking on more stuff because you’re not going to be able to do it kind of properly and it is really important and we were at an
off-site last week actually and one of the presenters we had was kind of talking about his career Journey
and talking about it in four areas like that you need to want to do something the skills to do it but also you need to
have that work-life balance which is really important so the not working late consistently there’s always times that
you might need to put in some extra hours to get something done but you know having that work by balance making sure
you’re finishing on time and making sure you’ve got your phone you tell them you’re making the
important family events and for me I think once I feel I have that balance then then I don’t feel kind of overly
stressed or I don’t feel kind of burned out but I think it is important for people yet you can’t be kind of putting up your hand and then suddenly work
until midnight to to get stuff done because you can’t work effectively that way so yeah putting up your hand in that
case is to put up your hand and say I need help um as opposed to hey give me more stuff yes and then as well you stop
enjoying the things that you do don’t you yeah I think I’ve got myself forward for too many things I’m not enjoying it
if you’re working till midnight um it’s a it’s a balance isn’t it and
you’re involved in uh women in Tech mentoring program um at LexisNexis Risk Solutions and how
important is having a mentor for your career and it’s really good
um I think in LexisNexis Risk Solutions we’re really really lucky in so many ways and Lexus Nexus Risk Solutions are
part of a much wider relics group so there’s lots of other companies involved so when they run any of these programs
they run them across the whole group so when I first on my mentorship um in that pilot program when they
started it years ago my mentor was someone from a different part of that group so they knew nothing about me they
knew nothing about my managers the people I worked with nothing about the business so it felt like that really safe space where you could have those
honest conversations and not be worried about who you might have said or you know it was a really really good and
that Mentor program started as a pilot and still exists today and now is open to there is a women in tech one but
there’s a general Mentor mentee program across the company but it’s really good to be able to kind
of get that perspective from someone who’s not involved in what you’re doing and so that that relationship that you
can be really open and honest but also the piece that I find really useful is you can get those mentors from other
parts of the company who may be doing similar things you can take your lessons from them oh how are you doing that and
you can kind of actually get information that can help bring what you’re doing on your side of the company forward as well
and so I think it’s really important to kind of have those mentors outside the company but not just one you know if you
can if you don’t have a mentoring program in your company you can still kind of go and ask people you know I’ve gone and asked people hey you’re doing
this I’m interested in it can you take an hour a month to spend time with me and people don’t really say no they kind
of you know they’re happy because they get something from it as well they can learn something from you so I would
advise anyone to go and get at least momentary if not you know different you can have ones for different reasons if you get me you can have ones from maybe
your personal development or you might have another one who’s helping you with if you know they’re in a particular
in a similar area maybe to what you’re working in and you want to learn from them but and we’re really lucky here as
I said that we have that program and that it’s run across all the companies which gets us that um you know different
perspective and so it’s really yeah I think the mentor stuff and that was the one that taught me to put my hand up so
um you know I’ve only good things to say about it yeah and that’s great advice having somebody that isn’t involved in
the politics of your company yeah yeah it’s that person and they have that bird’s eye view and and you’re right
even if there’s um you know if just people knowing people and then talking about that
particular person you think actually yeah somebody might have a different um view on things and and there might be
some bickering involved and you think I really don’t need that I just needed to tell me you know what you think I should
do in terms of career where to move forward next um so that’s that’s um great advice you know finding somebody
um outside of your company but do you have any advice on finding a mentor then if if you know whether they’re outside
your company or internal I suppose you kind of have to look at when I looked for that first Mentor the
things I wanted to improve on what I was working around was around process you know we were you know we were four kind
of smaller companies acquired by Lexus Nexus and we were kind of coming together so we needed to get some good
processes in so I think when I was filling out we had like a form to fill out and what we were looking for I was
looking for help in kind of defining processes now if I was looking for a mentor I’d be
looking for something different so I think you need to know what is it that
you want to improve on what is it that you want to do next and kind of almost like look up a little bit and go oh that
person’s doing what I want to do I can have a chat with them to see what are the steps they’ve taken to get there so
you do need to have an idea of what you wanted the mentor relationship because when you go into those calls you need to
be able to tell them I need help with with this or with this they’re not gonna I don’t think I’m into the call and
suddenly giving you loads of advice because they need to know where it is you kind of want to focus on because you do need to focus on an area so I think
if you’re looking for Mentor you need to work out what is the what’s the next thing you want to work on and then look and see who can perhaps
give you that help and ask your manager as well your manager will know people as well or should know people you know
across the company or even externally and be able to kind of guide you well actually you know I think if you want to
work in that area so and so will be a really good person to help you with that I mean it’s um a mentor is in invaluable
obviously and um finding one I think can be incredibly difficult you don’t want to be that
person that just kind of walks up to somebody that you’ve only met you know once or twice and say would you be my
mentor um slightly forward and as you say really using that time
um as well to the most because nobody wants you know a wasted phone call with somebody yes kind of an hour a week
where where you know neither of you really achieve anything so it’s been setting that agenda and knowing what
what you want to get out of it and we’re on the topic of mentors do you have any uh amazing female role models as well
for me that’s Michelle Obama but she’s not going to be my mentor
um I don’t know actually um I don’t you know I work with some amazing women and have done and continue
to do um aspire to be someone I don’t know I think if I look back
maybe on my family my roots where I’ve kind of come from I feel my mom my grandmother my aunts they’re really
strong women if something needs to be done you get on and do it there’s no limits or anything um but also you know
always there to help um you know being just really really kind of kind and I think for me it’s
that that roots that I want to kind of stay true to because I think it’s really important as you kind of work that you stay true to those
and so I probably don’t have someone I want to Aspire to be I guess I want to be me but keep reading I suppose and
keep to those roots that you know you can do whatever you want there’s no blockers but do you remember you know to
be that nice kind of person help others so um yeah probably not an Aspire but yeah
something I just want to stay true to I think yes yes um yeah that’s uh I know that feeling
um Your Leader team of software engineers at
um how do you keep them motivated when when you’re working on challenging projects for the insurance industry
it probably depends on the project so you know everybody in technology wants to work on the latest and greatest and
that’s not always the things that you know we have to work on sometimes these Legacy things that bring in the revenues so
I guess it’s about making sure they’re aware of the bigger picture you know while you might be working on
this today and it might not be what you want to work on or like that difficult projects I talked about you know showing
them the bigger picture showing them the end game showing them what’s next and I think is important and I think making
sure you’re not asking people to do anything you wouldn’t do yourself for me is kind of key like that to my core kind
of values of you know you don’t ask someone to do something I might not be I might not have the technical abilities
today because I have encoded in some time to do it but not asking someone to do something you wouldn’t do yourself
like I remember in that project that went wrong I wasn’t coding at the time you know I
was leading but still making sure I was there when they were working late if there was anything I could do to help removing the
blockers so I think just making sure they know you’re there you know that they can fail that it’s not their fault
if they fail at supporting them showing them the bigger picture and making sure
you’re having the conversations of okay if this isn’t you know if this is a challenging project this is probably
what’s coming next are you interested not interested and trying to make sure that they can see a way out of the
challenging project you know because you can stay in a challenging project for forever there has to be kind of an end point so just making sure they’re aware
of that and what’s coming I think is important oh gosh yes finding an end point or showing them that there’s like
yeah yeah there’s light at the end of the tunnel yeah exactly yeah yeah because I think people are happy to work
hard and people are happy someone’s to work late for a particular reason and knowing the reason but you can’t kind of you can’t
um you can abuse that kind of niceness so that you have to show well actually there’s an end point here and we’re
going to fix it or make it better or move on to something else this isn’t your everyday life that this company is
this you know this is how we deal with hard times occasionally and yeah yeah absolutely it’s so important to
somebody’s mental health um we are nearly out of time so I’ve got one more question for you
um how do you encourage members of your team to put their hand up so a bit like some of the other stuff
having those conversations with them what is it they want to do what is it they want to do next what is it they’re
interested in and having those conversations I suppose consistently so when those opportunities
do come up you know oh well we didn’t have an opportunity for that person then but I think they might be interested in
this next one and having those conversations again and making people realize that you know
just because you put your hand up for something you know even in my case it doesn’t mean you always get it but at least people know you’re
interested and they can help you to go well actually this time it didn’t work out for for whatever reason but let’s
you know whether it’s skills or time you know let’s change things so the next time it can be okay so I think that’s
all around communication conversation and and making sure that you’re having the conversations of what is it that you
want to do and what you know where do you want to go yeah especially people will pick up on a
vibe from their manager don’t they you know whether or not and they they feel from what they’ve seen happen to people
in the past whether or not I can book myself forward um and it’d be okay or whether or not
you know that that person is going to go off on one if it all goes incredibly wrong yeah and I said we’re a really big
you know Lexus necessary Solutions are part of a much bigger company and there are those kind of just lots of jobs and
supporting people to go well actually if you put your hand up and if it’s not on my team that’s okay because everybody
has to grow themselves and if that growth isn’t available here I’m happy to support someone to do it it’s somewhere
else as well because we all need to do what’s right for us um at the end of the day because you have to be happy so making sure to
support people that you know if their hand goes up and it’s not within your team and it’s somewhere else is still
supporting them and kind of getting them to their goal and their dream is important as well yeah and good
companies as you said they know how to hold on to good talent so why why wouldn’t you help them in other areas
um Ashley thank you so much we’re already out of time um so thank you for joining us today it’s been an absolute pleasure thank you
I’ve really enjoyed it as well and I’m more than happy to be here thank you thank you very much and to everybody listening as always thank you for
joining us and we hope to see you again next time
