In this podcast episode, Londonne Corder, Chief Marketing Officer and Ramya Kanlapuli, Associate Engineer for Motion Planning, at Outrider, discuss their experiences in getting and keeping a seat at the table from vastly different disciplines and stages of their careers.
They’ll cover ways to navigate the tech industry, combat imposter syndrome, lean into your superpower, and activate support within your company. You’ll takeaway more ideas to be heard, grab opportunities, and avoid pitfalls – all in pursuit of advancing your career.
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Speaker 1:
Hello everyone. Thank you for tuning in Again. I am Kayleigh Bateman, the content director at she Can Code. Today we are discussing what a seat at the table at Outrider looks like. I’m lucky enough to have not one, but two incredible ladies from Outrider with me today. I have London and Ramya, who are here to share their own experiences and to offer advice on how to secure a seat at the table and to keep your seat at the table in a mal-dominated industry. Welcome, ladies. Thank you so much for joining us on Spilling the Tea today.
Speaker 2:
Hi, good morning good afternoon.
Speaker 1:
It’s a pleasure to have you both. Thank you both for taking time out of your busy day. Can we kick off with a bit of background about both of you, your roles at Outrider and how you got into the tech industry? Ramya, shall we start with you?
Speaker 3:
Sure, I am a software engineer on the Motion Planning and Controls team at Outrider. I’ve been in STEM my whole life. I got an aerospace engineering PhD and after my PhD I was looking for a job that was exciting and fun for me and I wanted to be specific and pointed about finding a job where I would be a good fit. I had a couple internships, fellowships type things, and I came to Outrider on my first tech internship. I really liked it. I think it was fun, exciting, fast-paced, I was never bored and I think that was big for me. I decided to stay and so now here I am. I also want to add that I was a part of the Local Women in Robotics chapter and that’s where I met someone at Outrider Mallory who introduced me to the company and how things work. She helped me get a foot in the door, which is so important because you always need to know someone to get a job.
Speaker 1:
I am really grateful for women’s groups local women’s groups that helped me break into tech, our listeners are going to love the fact that you come from a STEM background, and the fact is, though, that you said you love your job and you are never, ever bored that STEM and the tech industry has this really bad PR issue, where everybody thinks a job in tech is going to be very dry and boring. I would love it, on spilling the tea, when our ladies say they come from a STEM background and they absolutely love where they work and what they do. You, coming from a STEM background, what was that? Was that someone at school or someone at home? What kind of encouraged that? Did you take things apart at home? Were you that child?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I guess I’ve always been like a science math-focused child. I wanted to be an astronaut when I was younger, which is what everybody wants to do when they’re five. I feel like you just fall into things. When I went to college, I decided I would do an aerospace engineering major and I just stuck with it. I got my bachelor’s, master’s and PhD because I enjoyed research and I enjoyed learning about new, exciting things. That’s what I’ve been looking for. My whole life is just continually being challenged and being excited about my job or my studies or whatever it is. I feel like I’ve been interested in it my whole life, yeah.
Speaker 1:
Amazing London yourself. What was your journey into tech and your journey?
Speaker 2:
into Outrider. My name is London Quarter. I run marketing here at Outrider. That includes both marketing and communications activities. My job is to not only build the category of yard automation but also build the brand of Outrider. We have a very strong and impressive brand. I want to continue that as we grow as a company and as an industry around yard automation.
Speaker 1:
Amazing. We see you have quite a background in marketing. Did you ever think I mean when you were young, did you ever think I’d be working in the tech industry? Is that something that you thought as a young child I’d love to work in that particular industry or what were your thoughts before you fell in?
Speaker 2:
Well, my career started in consumer public relations, which is a far cry from technology. In the exciting time of the e-commerce boom in the late 90s, early 2000s, I got the technology itch. I used e-commerce as my bridge from consumer PR to technology. I never looked back. I love B2B marketing. It’s exciting taking what the engineers are building and the complexity behind that and making it simple and easy for salespeople to sell and buyers to buy.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I’d like to add that I think being at Outrider and having my relationship with London because we have such different backgrounds has really helped give me perspective on how industries operate and how this specific company operates, which is really cool because as engineers, we’re normally heads down in code or research or whatever it is. It’s very nice to look up, see the bigger picture and see all the work that is needed to make a product and have it go to market. Yeah, I think that’s really cool and I’m really grateful to have had that experience, to have more perspective at Outrider.
Speaker 1:
Aranya, in your experience, how did you find it breaking into the tech industry? Because companies are always saying they’re frying out the talent. What was your experience when you tried to get into the industry? Realistically, bio-оссying industry was something powder and therefore would’ve to do with how the eye disengages from making.
Speaker 3:
I think that’s an interesting question. I think, because I’ve been in a STEM background my entire life, I didn’t. It seemed almost like a parallel path that was easy to take, breaking into tech. I think it was really helpful to have peers that gave me perspective and insight into the tech industry, like what I would, what I could expect as I broke into tech right, and also I mentioned this earlier that I was a part of the Women in Robotics chapter, which was really helpful because I was able to meet women in Boulder and Denver and talk to them about what it means to work in tech, like what the day-to-day looks like. And I think for me, I want to be pointed about the opportunities that I’m pursuing and that I’m interested in, and it just seemed like a good fit for me. So I think it would have been difficult if I didn’t have a foot in the door with the people that I knew. So I think that’s really important to build community in the place that you’re living in or online and gather more information about what tech is.
Speaker 1:
And it leads me on to what obstacles did you navigate as a woman in your field of expertise? You mentioned a little bit there about sometimes, say, you went for an interview and you found that the interviewing panel perhaps didn’t look like you or couldn’t relate to you as a female. Is it those types of obstacles that you had to overcome and anything else along the way that you found?
Speaker 3:
So I feel like, as a woman, it sometimes feels like you’re being evaluated on a different set of rules, right, which is heartening and figuring out these rules.
Speaker 3:
That’s just hard if you’re not already in the industry, and even when you’re in the industry it’s a lot of work and also it’s hard not seeing people like you around. Most people feel comfortable being around people they look like, and so it’s really difficult when you are the only woman in the room or if you’re being interviewed by just people, just men. I think it’s just difficult to feel comfortable, and speaking up was never something that came easy for me. I feel like just general societal expectations. There’s been a lot of mixed messaging that gets put on women and that makes it really hard to be assertive in the corporate world, and all of this together creates this multi-dimensional barrier to entry and barrier to success, because you have to be very specific and pointed about identifying and seeking opportunities. You don’t necessarily tend to fall upwards right, and I think that was kind of my general experience as a woman the obstacles that I had to navigate, just being very mindful of what’s happening around me, what my rules are how I behave.
Speaker 3:
All of this together creates this multi-dimensional barrier to entry and I feel like that was kind of my experience as the different obstacles that I had to navigate in my specific field and just learning new rules and learning and understanding and absorbing the environment to figure out how I would exist or behave or be productive in the environment.
Speaker 1:
Yes, yes, I agree In terms of those obstacles. Do you think they are changing? Do you think they’ve changed over the years or have improved slightly for women? You would hope.
Speaker 3:
I mean, I’m very early in my career so I think that’s a difficult question for me to offer, but I harbor just a lot of optimism around the people that are entering the workforce right now. Like this is a new age in the corporate world, right, we have a lot of younger, millennials, gen Z people in the workforce who are just changing the status quo, changing what it means to be workers in the corporate world, what it means to be professional, what it means to be, just how people work, and I think that change is for the better, right, and I’m hoping that this radical new energy opens up all of these different avenues for all people to feel welcome, whether they’re women, whether they have a different style of working. That isn’t acceptable Like currently acceptable right. Like everybody deserves to feel like they have a place in the tech industry or wherever the corporate world they need to be.
Speaker 3:
And I feel like just having more women in the workplace, having more diverse people in the workplace, creates this environment where everyone benefits, because I feel like I’ve noticed that having women just makes, like women give space for everyone to speak. Women are very mindful about, like letting everyone share their thoughts, which is really nice just for the team in general, right, like having diversity of thought and having like having different ideas and different people. Speaking makes everyone feel valued and you are very productive as a team because you’re getting these different perspectives. So I feel like I am just very optimistic about what’s going to happen.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and surely as well you stay you stay longer as well You’re. When you find yourself in a company that is like that you’re not job-hopping you’re thinking, actually this is a team that really listens, this is a team that really works well together, so you’re going to stay there longer. And good companies that are doing that can work on retaining their talent a little bit easier than companies that are just not thinking about it at all.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I totally agree. Like you want to be happy at your job, you want to be excited at your job, and that’s where your intrinsic motivation comes from, or else you just get bored and sad and you don’t want to work anymore.
Speaker 1:
Exactly, exactly London. I respect a little bit about breaking into the industry, but what happens when you’re actually in and you’re at the table? You know, as a woman, how do you make your voice heard in a mal-dominated industry and how do you feel like you can keep your seat at that table?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so in my early career it was full of strong female leaders all the way to the top, so really didn’t have to think about that all too much. It wasn’t until I moved into tech, and especially when I’ve got into the more senior VP and director roles, that I really started to notice the glass ceiling still existed and in technology. And that was a moment where, you know, I really re-energized my commitment to helping women grow into leadership roles, and that involved getting involved in Elevate, which is a professional women’s group. You know I ran several women’s groups within companies and I’m the executive sponsor of Outriders Women’s Group, and so it was just really, how do I catalyze not only my own momentum to get to a senior level, but also bring others along, and that’s where we really see the gap.
Speaker 2:
You know, on a macro level, we have a lot of women coming in in our entry positions and very few in our middle management and even fewer in our higher level executive positions, and so how do we create growth paths for those folks? Coming back to your original question, once you have a seat at the table, I think there has been, for me personally, two big challenges in being heard. The first one was constantly being interrupted by my counterparts, and so I started in meetings just saying Michael, you interrupted me, I will finish my thought, and that was really powerful.
Speaker 3:
I love that.
Speaker 2:
I just looked right in the person’s eye and said that. And second, was people taking credit for my ideas, my good points, et cetera. So I started using a phrase my executive coach, julie Holonga, taught me, which is I’m so glad you agree with me, joe, and it was so great collaborating with you. We made a great team, you covering X and my contribution on Y, and so it’s sort of like taking back ownership of things in the room in the presence of others, without diminishing the other person, and that takes when you first start. It takes courage, it takes confidence and the more you do it, the easier it gets. I know there’s a lot of controversy around how scientifically valid Amy Cuddy’s power positions are, but as I was making the transition into a higher level role, I would go into the bathroom and do my power positions.
Speaker 2:
And it just takes some deep breaths, give yourself some great self-talk and then go in strong. It can be really intimidating being in a room of investors and executives and being the only woman in the room, and you just have to be able to hold the room.
Speaker 1:
Yes, I love that. I mean, you started off by saying actually I didn’t feel that until I went into the tech industry, which is for those of us that work in it, for the ladies that work in it, because we know there are fantastic jobs within here and I hear that constantly to hear ladies that come in and feel like suddenly they get here and they think there is a problem, and also, though, that you remembered to not pull the ladder up behind you and actually think back. This is how I felt when I joined the tech industry. What else can I do for other ladies coming in? Because it’s so important that ladies, once you are in and you find that you had an experience with yourself that you help other ladies going forward. So fantastic that you was part of so many groups to help other ladies there.
Speaker 3:
I think I just I kind of want to add that the whole mentorship aspect of things has been really helpful for me as someone who’s in their early career, because all I’m trying to do is gather as much information as possible to make decisions about my career, about my projects, whatever it is, and it’s really helpful to have someone in your corner, especially someone like London, who’s so higher up right, and it’s really helpful to have her give me advice, like, hey, you should do this, and so just being just having that community is so nice, like I think, as someone like earlier in their career, like hearing London talk about having strong, powerful women all the way to the top, like I am having that experience with London and it’s so nice to see someone so you can be like, okay, I want to be there, right, yeah, and a great sponsor as well.
Speaker 1:
I mean, a mentor is one thing, but somebody to have your back or name drop you as a great person. When you’re not in the room, you know that senior person that’s always there saying you know, well, actually this person on the team is great. You might want to consider her, which I know. A lot of ladies really struggle to find great sponsors because sometimes you’re not lucky enough to have that senior lady above you anyway. So so that can be quite difficult in itself. And London you mentioned a little bit about when you went into the bathroom and you think about power poses and then you sort of talk to yourself about that self doubt. I wanted to touch upon that. How did you combat any imposter syndrome and and stop those thoughts of self doubt?
Speaker 2:
Self doubt is probably the most common characteristic that I run into with all the women that I work with at every stage. And the most important thing is to have a trusted person in your life that you can go and and and run things through my. I said I had an executive coach at one time, julie, and she would always tell me, like, is that a story you’re telling yourself or is that truly what’s happening? And every time I question myself and my capabilities, I ask myself that question. So that’s like level one, level two having somebody to bounce things off of is really important, you know, it’s. It’s sort of like hey, you know, are my, am I thinking about this right and have someone be able to respond. And then, thirdly, I think women can be very self-critical and that holds them back. Or they just don’t want to jump right in and take the reins because they don’t think they’re good enough or don’t have an experience enough or it’s not the right time.
Speaker 2:
I feel like it’s my job to push a little bit and question those assumptions that our women have and think about something from a different perspective. Sometimes I get myself in trouble, sometimes I push too hard, but I had people push me and I have never regretted that happening. We had one woman here who one of her growth areas was speaking in front of a big group and she had told an amazing story to our women’s group and I thought, oh my God, the whole company needs to know about this. In a matter of 24, 48 hours she was at our all hands speaking to 200 people about her accomplishment and why it was significant to the company. If I’m willing to throw it out, I just need to make sure women will catch it.
Speaker 3:
I love that. I feel like, well, this comes back to having someone in your corner and I love that. London was very clear about having a level one, level two, level three. I might be a little more hand wavy and add to London’s level one comment that it’s always. I think, personally, it was really helpful for me to just have hard evidence. Speaking to yourself when you’re your own enemy is just hard. Just clear, neutral thoughts about your accomplishments, about anything that you’ve been told in the past that would support what you’re doing right now. Like, hey, I have X degree or I was told X by my past manager and that’s like you can’t really dispute that. Just treating yourself that way and just being like, okay, so here’s hard, neutral evidence that I belong here and that I deserve to be here. Yeah, I do think that’s helpful. Just tying it back to the level one step of what London said, I think that’s helpful to further reinforce that thought process.
Speaker 1:
Surely that must happen as well more often now because we have the opportunity to work hybridly and remote, and you might have those moments where you think, actually, if I were in an office and I could just chat with somebody about how I might be feeling when you’re at home, sometimes on your own, that can really sink in anything, just mere my thoughts, and you do have those. I love the advice you gave London about just checking. Is that just a story that you’re telling yourself? And you’re right, ramiya, just thinking actually, do I have hard evidence of something that is happening or is it just me not being very kind to myself today?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1:
I’ve spoken a little bit about having a voice within the company and I wanted to talk to you both a little bit about when it comes to your superpower. What is your superpower when it comes to taking up space in the company? Have you found something yourself so far?
Speaker 3:
I think superpower is a very complex, heavy word. I’d like to and just speaking about, like imposter syndrome, I’d like to think very little about my specific qualities and more about like, how do I reinforce what I’m bringing to the room right and I think, and how do I feel comfortable in a room? Because I think for most women, if they feel comfortable and if they speak up, that’s the barrier to entry and then they’re good, and then everything they’re saying makes sense. It’s clear, concise, good questions adds a lot of value to the discussion. But I feel like that initial like not feeling comfortable in a room, not feeling like you belong, really affects like what, how you speak up right.
Speaker 3:
And I think for me it’s just this enthusiasm and positivity, even when I don’t feel like it just convince yourself to be like I am enthusiastic, I am positive and I’m going to lean heavily into the things that I am good at.
Speaker 3:
So if those are the things I’m good at, those are the things I feel comfortable doing, I’m going to do it, even if that’s not necessarily what is quote, unquote, like expected, because, like, I feel like there is a certain air of, like you know, seriousness sometimes in big rooms where you’re like, oh, should I even say this?
Speaker 3:
But yes, like, I think that kind of adds to the self doubt aspect of it. As long as you’re like, this is my thing. I like being exciting and open and loud and enthusiastic. I’m going to stick to that and that really helps me feel like I can, you know, take control and speak and provide my thoughts on the situation. I think also someone kind of in there in my early career I want to be very mindful about like listening before I speak to, because I just I understand that I don’t have all the information that I would probably need to like make a lot more cohesive thoughts about a project or about a certain situation, and so like just being very mindful about listening and then responding to comments or responding to what you’ve just listened to in a very clear, neutral, assertive, concise way. So I think those are two things that I tend to focus on.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I have a. I have a saying that speaking up and feedback is not optional. It’s expected, and the thing about that point of view is that you have to be at the right company that embraces that mentality. It took me a long time to find out. Writer. I consider the executive team that I’m on my tribe and you know we emulate that and we we try to make sure that that trickles down to the entire company, and so that’s really important to be able to be. The environment is inviting you to be heard, listened to, respected, open to feedback. Applying that feedback is probably the more critical part by directional coaching. So, my team members, we give each other feedback all the time, we give each other advice and we lift each other up. I think you can get into companies that are very political from the top down, where you know would each other. You’re trying to tear each other down rather than build each other up, and that doesn’t really happen at the executive team level and, again, it’s something we hope is trickling down through the organization.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I love the fact that you both mentioned there about speaking up and how you speak up because London, you touched upon that earlier about how you respond to somebody in a meeting and and to have at least something in your back pocket to be able to come back with a response and not seem like it was just a reaction that you just, you know, said something out of anger. I was speaking with a lady recently. She works in tech sales and she said being in a male dominated department in a male dominated industry is very interesting because when she speaks up, she said I’m always called direct and I’m always told I’m direct compared to everybody else. But she said I don’t think I’m any different, but it’s just being a lady sometimes speaking up in the room and thinking like you’re reacting to something and she, you know, she just she said that’s always interesting to work in sales as a woman as well.
Speaker 2:
I think, as you get earlier, later in your career, you start to run into this concept of the double bind which is, you know, on one hand you’re getting the message, you know, take credit for all the stuff you’re doing, and then, on the other hand is like no, you need to be inclusive and it needs to be we, we did it all.
Speaker 2:
But you know, and so you have these conflicting messages coming at you, particularly in your middle career, where you’re trying to, you know, you’re trying to, you know you’re trying be the individual contributor, but you’re also trying to get into management, and you’ve got all these conflicting messages and I just I have my heart goes out to women in their middle career for lots of different reasons, because it’s just, it’s a tough part of your journey. I thought my early career, like your, as Ramya, was hard, but when you reach that transitionary point it’s tough. You’re traveling a lot of things and you have to find a company that is gonna respect what’s going on in your personal life, what you wanna achieve with your professional life, and how do you find that balance.
Speaker 1:
And that is it really. So many ladies say that it’s finding the right company and then feeling like you can stay with that company and grow with that company.
Speaker 2:
Early on in my career, you had to really not be yourself in order to move up, and what I mean by that is you had to be able to relate to men in order to get to the next level in your career, and that sometimes meant doing things that weren’t natural for you. So one of those was like I learned to play golf and I started following American football and so I could have these proverbial water cooler talks and relate to those folks who had power and influence over my career. Also, I went the extra mile. I always prepared meet conversation topics for dinners and all kinds of like extra things that I thought would help me influence these folks. And the nice thing about today’s world is that you don’t have to be something you’re not, and that is super refreshing. You don’t have to pretend.
Speaker 1:
I think that’s like as a direct result of people like you in the exact team Like we could not emulating everything that you saw, because then you get stuck in that loop of just that masculine energy in being a manager and you’re like just being authentic.
Speaker 3:
London means that things change Exactly, yeah, just like having that mentorship not even mentorship, but it’s just like, yeah, just having people tell you it’s okay to do what you want to do, it’s okay to have girly interests, right, Like it’s okay to have like a pink desk mat and like and just and I’m sure like I did not exist during this time in the corporate world, but I am sure that that wasn’t like something that was super acceptable and women were like told to fit a mold and all the other things London said. So I am optimistic and very grateful to people like London who have created this environment where I can do what I want to do and still have big managerial leadership goals and be able to manage a team, hopefully in the future that way.
Speaker 1:
Yes, and, on that note, I wanted to talk a bit about how Outrider supports and uplifts women’s voices and a little bit about your company culture and how you empower your female employees, cause it doesn’t sound like you have that problem. Do you have groups where ladies can share their experiences? How does that work at Outrider?
Speaker 2:
So at Outrider we have a ERG group called the Women of Outrider. It’s open to anyone in the company to participate in. It’s been going on, I think, for about four years it was. It started out more as a loose knit group and just recently we’ve formalized it and Ramya is actually one of our co-presidents, which is very exciting to have her in that leadership role, and she’s done a phenomenal job, like finding the right balance of work of the committee, always having a growth conversation in those meetings, and right now we’re focused on emotional intelligence for a four meeting series on that. And then I love that. Ramya also said hey, we don’t really connect with each other more on a social individual basis. So Ramya instituted these Women of Outrider Friday Happy hours Happy hours, thank you. Women at Outrider really do have each other’s backs. That’s one of our cultural pillars and it.
Speaker 2:
I think that my role in it is that I want to get to know these women so that I can help be an evangelist for their career trajectory at Outrater. The more I know about what they want to do, what they’re accomplishing, et cetera, I can be a voice from the executive level down to get them in positions they deserve to be in. And so we had one woman who is just an incredibly talented engineer early to mid starting her middle career, I think and I got to know her and I finally went to the CTO and I said you have got to take this woman under your wing and mentor her into some higher level positions. And he did that and they’re working together closely and she’s getting more and more visibility in the company and leadership roles as a result. So I want to use my proverbial power and influence to get our women where they deserve to be.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I think Outrater really succeeds in being mindful of creating welcoming spaces and the women of Outrater group was one of the main, like one of the deciding factors for me to join Outrater, because I was an intern here first and I was still like looking and I had a couple offers.
Speaker 3:
So Outrater really succeeds in being mindful of creating these welcoming spaces and, as I was weighing my options for jobs, I think one of the reasons I came here was because of the women of Outrater Employee Resource Group. I think it’s a great way to develop skills that you’re not taught and I feel like all of these quote unquote, insider knowledge that you just don’t know. You don’t know how to be in a leadership role, you don’t know how to lead, you don’t know who to talk to or how you bring up that conversation, what point in your career you bring up that conversation, all of those things that I feel like men tend to have these groups right that I’ve never been a part of, but somehow everybody seems to know what to do and I don’t. So I think it’s really helpful to have that and be like okay, someone’s telling me what to do and so I can also move on to, like London said, middle and upper management executive roles, and know the magic formula to do that.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, because I wanted to touch upon that and how your colleagues and managers have invested in your own successor, outrater, and some people some managers I have heard before they almost don’t want to invest in certain ladies success because they don’t want them to go on to another level or they don’t want them to go on to another company and do well, which is just bizarre to hear. But great companies know how to invest in their employees and even if that lady does move on, she’ll always think of you when she’s moving jobs again, because great companies always have employees come back to them at some point when they’ve moved on and got new skills and new experiences. They always come back and I worked for a company that did that and so many people would leave for a few years and think, actually I want to go back to there now I’ve learned extra things. So I suppose it’s creating that culture, isn’t it, where you all help each other along the way instead of trying to stunt each other’s growth? I suppose yeah.
Speaker 2:
I think that there are a couple of things that have just bothered me over the years on what was holding women back, and two of them are you don’t have the soft skills and you’re not strategic enough and those you kind of go like. What does that even mean? And who’s going to teach me those things where men have been groomed with those things?
Speaker 1:
their whole career.
Speaker 2:
And so you have to find people who can define what those are for you and then emulate and give you tools to start using them.
Speaker 2:
And I think, ramya, you’re spot on. We have to have these communities where we can go figure these things out, because no one has taught us those things and when you don’t learn those things upfront, like soft skills, emotional intelligence, strategic thinking, it elongates your career trajectory or your ability to move from level to level gets longer where men have been groomed for those things, so they tend to move quickly. And caveat, I know we’re making some pretty global statements about men and women here and that’s not always the case. One of the things that elated and excited me is that, even though there are only two women on the executive team of seven, there are. Men have daughters, young daughters, and I think they know what their daughters are going to come up against. So they’re always actively working to make the corporate world’s particular outrider, welcoming and inviting to women, because they can see in their minds eye the place they want their daughters to work, and so that’s really been refreshing for that point of view.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I like that way of thinking. I almost in a very like I wish that people didn’t have to have daughters to think about it that way you know, Like. But I think London’s very correct in that Outrider does a good job of like having executive leadership, especially because I think it has London and London makes like a big effort to like do all of these things.
Speaker 1:
But also setting that example as well to everybody else to follow suit, even the Mao allies.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, and I think like, and I think two things that I kind of want to add to that is like you’re right, having a good manager like makes or breaks everything, Like another reason I came here is like my manager has been really supportive and helpful in like finding ways for me to grow, being my advocate and just pushing for that, and I think like finding someone who’s in your corner is like really really helpful and really crucial to like career growth. And also, like I think, like everyone at Outrider is like a girl’s girl, you know, Like we’re all like it’s community right, Like no one’s like tearing each other down and honestly I would even put like a lot of men in those category where like their allies, and I think it’s helpful for women to use these allies, especially in situations where they don’t have other women which is like a lot of places.
Speaker 3:
So, being asking for support from these allies, like being very clear that like, hey, this is the situation I’m in, this is the support I need you to give me in X meeting, in X project to help me succeed and move forward, and just being clear and open, I think like has worked for me in the past and I’m hoping will continue to work for me in the future. So, yeah, use your allies, all kinds of allies, and make them and educate about, like, what it means to be like a woman in these situations Most of the time, I don’t think anyone’s actively being ignorant.
Speaker 3:
I think it’s just not something that’s crossed their mind, which is fair because, like humans go after experiences that they’ve had right. So that’s not an experience you’ve had, it’s just hard. So just educating, being vocal, and if a company doesn’t serve you right, maybe it’s time to move on to a better manager and a better company that will support you in the way that I think I’m being supported here, right.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, love the fact that you mentioned managers, because you are right and the saying is people don’t leave jobs, they leave managers, because if you don’t get on with your manager, then you are going to go elsewhere. So you are absolutely right there. So, on that note, how does Outrider differ from other employers?
Speaker 2:
As I mentioned earlier, I think finding a company that is the right fit for you is the most important thing. Outrider might not be the best fit for someone, right? If someone is looking for a big corporate environment where it’s very methodical, very pragmatic those kinds of things Outrider would not be the right place. If you’re looking for high intensity, hard driving, dealing with ambiguity at times, that is for other people. My advice would be get really good at screening for fit when you interview at companies and it’s not easy, it’s one of those really tough things. But make sure you get questions like what does your day look like here? Or what do you do outside of work, or what is the social atmosphere like at your company. In addition to just asking you have these values on your website. Give me a couple of examples of how you’ve seen those demonstrated, and then you’ll really start to be able to dial in. Is that a good place for you? Is this a good manager for me? So, at the end of the day, screen for fit.
Speaker 3:
I like that and I think, as someone who recently joined Outrider, I said in the beginning that I like excitement and Outrider has a lot of excitement. It is a little chaotic sometimes, but I think chaos breeds good leaders. Right, Because it’s not people to lead someone through the chaos. And I think it’s helpful for me to be in this environment because that’s kind of what I want to do and where I see my career going.
Speaker 3:
But I think London’s very right that everybody deserves a place where they feel comfortable, confident, where they feel like their personal life balances their professional life and just generally happy with the work that they’re doing.
Speaker 1:
So I think it’s very, very smart for your own mental health and for your general productivity and the value you add to a company that it works both ways, that you like them and they like you, and I think that’s kind of your secret there, which has really changed since the pandemic as well, and that companies know that they have to meet people halfway, at least on certain things, because good talent, as we’ve said before, will just go elsewhere nowadays and find a company that I think works for them. So it’s about finding those ladies and retaining them as well, and the trick is just finding a really good company. I could talk to you all afternoon on this subject and we are already out of time. So, ramya and London, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day, for coming in and have a chat with us. It’s been an absolute pleasure. Thanks, kaylee, and for everybody listening. Thank you so much for joining us, as always, and we hope to see you again next time.
