 Thanks for joining us in day two of PiconIndia 2021, and this is yet another experience sharing session. In this session, we have Manaswini Das with us, who would be speaking about women in tech careers, taking that extra leap. Manaswini is from Bhuvaneshwar and is currently working with Red Hat Middleware team in Bangalore, India. She's an active open source user and contributor since 2017. She has participated both as a mentee and a mentor in various open source programs, including GCI, GSHawk, and RHOSC. She's an outreach alumnus and a processing foundation fellow. She loves sharing her knowledge and sketching. By the way, she's also the chapter lead of Pileadies Bhuvaneshwar. Welcome Manaswini on this experience sharing session. Over to you. Thanks a lot, Sukanya. Thanks a lot for the warm introduction. I hope I'm audible. So first of all, apologies for the background. I can't really help it and StreamYard doesn't have a full-fledged, covering the background stuff. So kindly put up with that. Cool then, I'll be starting since we are already at the top of the art. So thanks a lot for tuning in for today's talk. So I've been there at your place as a student until two years back and I understand your problems about getting an internship, landing your first gig and how do you know about opportunities and stuff like that where students, they tend to constantly struggle and come across difficulties and come across that loophole, the infamous loophole called, you need to get an experience to get an internship and unit and vice versa, of course, like that. So if you want to be a self-taught developer and want to land a job, this is like just the right platform for you. I hope you get some tips and tricks from here. So I wouldn't say that I'm a subject matter expert but I'll try and share some tips just because I've been through all of this. So I'd like to share some tips and tricks that worked for me. So there were times when I didn't even land interviews but I kind of refined my whole approach to it so that it could be, how do you call that? It could be, I could be presentable in a good manner and I can improve and interviews and maybe make the best out of the whole interview journey. So yep, I hope this is of some help to you. Cool, whoops, I think my, okay, yep, there it is. Cool, so you can be anything that you want to become, of course, unless you're willing to learn. So I'm not really a subject matter expert when it comes to other streams of engineering apart from computer science because I majored in computer science. But yep, I cannot speak for them but for people who are looking to venture into the software technology, I can obviously share some tips and tricks. So you can choose any of these just in this picture like it can be into management, it can be data science, it can be systems engineer as well. You can dive deeper into operating systems. You can also be a cybersecurity specialist, maybe a database administrator, network specialist, any of that, maybe you can venture into software testing as well, all of that. So I was amazed at the spectrum of jobs are the whole engineering industry can provide. So I'm going to focus basically on the software industry because I majored in computer science, so cool. So where does it all start? So I would say it all starts as a student because you all agree with me that the software jobs market is pretty evolving all the time like frameworks come in and out. I wouldn't say languages are replaced by languages because languages stay the same but the frameworks are kind of changing all the time. So I know many of you think that the theory that you study isn't that important, okay? And that may be less interesting to you as well. But what if you try to make it more interesting for yourself? Like, suppose you're reading the OSI model and computer networking, which is a very important topic, by the way, if you're interviewing and you will definitely get a question, like guaranteed you'll get a question on networking if you're looking to any technology job, I would say. So it is very important. So yes, theory is important, but try to correlate that with your day-to-day stuff, like the transport layer and OSI model that we have. So pretty sure that you might have come across that preparing a TLS handshake thing in the bottom left corner of your screen when you're trying to open your Gmail, right? So yeah, try to understand how that works because many a times even I was surprised when I first appeared for interviews. I was asked the questions that I used in my daily life and I was almost surprised, like, okay, I know this works this way, but I don't know what works, like how does it work under the hood? So that's what they ask, okay? So yeah, be prepared for those questions. So yeah, try to be curious and try to learn the background stuff of everything, like how message queuing works, how broadcasting works, things like that, how YouTube works under the hood, right? So try to be curious and always feed your curiosity, by the way. So pretty sure once you dive deeper, you'll be able to understand that, you know, there's more to learn than whatever you have discovered. Okay, so there is the sea of knowledge, okay? So I have added this picture for some inspiration. So if you're thinking to start a company of your own as well, that's completely fine and you can go ahead with it, but make sure that you have your feasibility study and your market research before you get started. So I think being an entrepreneur is like a pretty tough job because it's like wearing a lot of hats and doing everything on your own in the beginning. So good luck to that, by the way, hats off to all the entrepreneurs who are doing this. Cool, if you ask me how to get started, then I would say get started as a student. So of course it's your engineering life, it won't come like twice or maybe thrice, but make sure you enjoy it. But I think you have ample time to enjoy and ample time to discover everything and explore things on your own and come across topics that interest you. So okay, it's completely fine if you don't choose this, of course, but I would say that this is my journey, this is just my experience. So this is what helped me further my career. So it is very difficult to land your first internship or your first gig, as said earlier. So you have ample time to explore and try new things. You can try everything. So when I first started, I would say that I ventured into everything. Okay, I thought it was very late. I was just a sophomore and I didn't know get, I didn't know anything. I was just simply attending classes blindly and not even wondering about all of this stuff that we surrounded with works, okay. So yes, it was, but I made it a point to attend some meetups, local meetups from Google Developers Group, Women Techmakers, I'm pretty sure it's happening all across the country, by the way, DeafFist is coming soon. Be on the lookout for that. So I think I attended that and I joined a club that was there in my college. I was lucky enough to have a club, I would say. So I joined there and then I met a lot of people who were just starting off. Then I got to learn, get, then I started with participating in hack the buffets, participating in competitions and applying to fellowships and scholarships that I didn't get through, of course, but that did pave the way for the things that was coming by. So I, at beginning, in the beginning, you won't believe. I even tried Android programming. I tried data science. I explored into everything, okay. So then I started developing things on my own, learning about networking, learning about, building some stuff on my own, how JQuery works, why React came into the picture and stuff like that. So, yes, so I first, I gave my first interview, like first interview ever. So for a startup in Pugneshwar, so then I, they gave me three coding questions as far as I remember. And since I was just exploring, it was followed by an HTML CSS quiz as well, but I have a Goldfish brain, so I don't have a very good memory as well. So I wasn't able to exactly answer the classes and all that stuff that comes along with CSS. So I wasn't able to answer that, but I was able to answer two of those three coding questions. And then that was my first experience that I gained ever. Thank God they had faith on me as a fresher. And also I got to build projects on message queuing and writing some scripts here and there. So that was my first, you can say, my first gate that I opened to development. So that's how it all started for me. So once you start exploring, you get to build projects of my own and simultaneously when you build projects, your concepts get clearer. And, but I would say one thing that I would like to add here, one tip is don't just blindly follow tutorials, okay? So even if you follow tutorials and just treat it as the base of your project, okay? Build things on top of that project and bring in your own ideas and how you can improve it and make it as close to the industry standard as possible, like as close to the other apps that you interact on a daily basis. So I would say basically build a roadmap for your project. And if you're looking for project ideas, then I think hackathons are the best place to start because they get very nice, very cool problem statements and you get to tweak things on your own, come across some last minute changes as well. So I think participating in hackathons will give you a lot of room to develop projects, bring your own ideas into practical implementation and obviously it improves your problem solving skills and also meeting deadlines I guess, yes. So I also participated in a 24 hour hackathon which didn't last 24 hours, I would say lasted for 36 hours but the development was all over by 24 hours but we had to wait for some certain reasons. But yeah, so that was my first ever hackathon experience as well. I think you should get that experience, you should go to hackathon at least once in your life if you're thinking to become a developer, I think it will be an entire new door for you, entire new door of opportunities. So then once you get to grasp of it, you can start contributing to open source, I think it's a good place to start if you're looking to learn best practices in coding because it's used by people all around the globe, right? So yeah, so open source is a good place to start if you want to know the best practices in coding, all the industry standards and everything because they have widely known, well-known projects so I'm pretty sure that they follow the best practices. Also, if you can join a local meetup or confidence or club, it's a good to have and of course, if you don't have access to any of these you can always build your own study group, so cool. So if you ask me why open source software, I included this in my talk last year, that is, you know this, right? Why open source? Because Windows is enterprise as you must all know, we need anti-virus software to use Windows and when I first switched to Linux and I guess late 2017 or so, I was like searching for anti-virus software for Linux because I was so used to using anti-virus software and then the people around me, they started like, okay, what is anti-virus software? First of all, if you're looking for Linux. So yep, talking about Mac OS, I think the security level lies somewhere between Linux or Windows, but yeah, this is some food for thought for you. And I also included this in the last year's talk, like if you're looking for opportunities, you can go for mentorships or fellowships, maybe you can try Outreachy, but you have to be an underrepresented group in tech to apply for it and you needn't be a student, first of all, that's a good thing to note. You can also apply for Google Summer of Code, I think it's the most popular open source program out there and you can also apply for Girlscript Summer of Code if you are into competitions and you can just get started with Hacktoberfest as well. It's right around the corner, like you get to submit, I guess, four pull requests. I think it was increasing to five or six at a particular point of time, but I think it's constant now. It's for like all around the month of October, you'll be creating pull requests, but if you manage to create four valid pull requests, not just for the sake of creating pull requests, then you get to get a limited edition Hacktoberfest t-shirt. So yeah, I think that's a good place to start, even I started with Hacktoberfest. So yep, and also, participating in open source projects and participating in hackathons, it makes way for new ideas, okay? And who knows, you can even start your own startup, maybe on the base of that idea or maybe start a product or maybe a service. Also, you can be a mentor or a maintainer in any of the projects and you can take the power of the community forward. And you also get to speak at conferences just like we all are right now, like meeting in a conference and meeting like-minded people. And obviously, as mentioned earlier, you get to learn the best practices in coding. Followed by that, if you're looking for a paper issue or paper contribution kind of benefits or single contribution economic benefits, then you can go to GitPay, like there are issues and pay for that issue as well. You can go there, but I think it's pretty saturated. I mean, as soon as an issue comes, it gets taken away right away. There is GitHub sponsored as well. So, and also, if you're into cybersecurity or into quality assurance or testing, then bug bounty programs are the way to go as well. I think it's pretty popular on LinkedIn. I see a post every day for people reigning bug bounty programs. So, yes, if you're looking for open source programs, I think this is a very exhaustive list from Tabashini Pathak, so yep, you can go to this. And if you're not into competitions, if you don't want to give yourself that much stress, that's completely fine as well. I have attached some links for blogs and some projects, if you are looking to get started, if you're looking for language-wise open source projects, then I've attached this link as well, the first one. And then if you're looking for other projects, you can read these blogs. And there are even projects listed by Google open source as well. Cool, moving on. Once you have created that whole skill set and your own level of experience with your skill set, then you can go ahead with job search and interviewing. So it is very important to have a public profile on any platform like GitHub or any other open source platform that is available publicly. So, and also if you're into competitive programming, you can replace this with your code forces and or any other platform that you're using, just like we have in GitHub, I think a lot of other competitive programming platforms like code forces have this whole contribution, kind of heat map kind of thing, that we have green dots and also yellow dots during Halloween and stuff like that. So, yeah, you can make sure that your profile is public and everyone is going to kind of go to that profile every time you send your resume and stuff like that and link that to your resume, yes. So often some interviewers ask you to walk them through some past code that you might have written on GitHub. That has happened to me as well. So also just putting the tutorial projects won't help. So because if you just put the tutorial projects and don't understand how it works under the hood, then it is going to be a huge problem for you because you won't be able to maybe answer the questions and tackle what they wanna know. And they may ask for optimized way of rewriting that code or maybe refactoring. So, yep, I would say that play around the code, even if you're using a tutorial that's completely fine but play around the code and try to build in some things of your own because many a times I've faced this question many a times like what are the challenges of what is the most difficult challenge that you have faced as a programmer. So, yep, have something in your mind if you're willing to say that. I think I got this question the most. So, yep, and also if you're looking for jobs, try cold emailing, I mean just write mails but make sure that you invest some time in all of the emails, okay? So, don't just copy a template and because that will make them feel, everyone wants to feel special, okay? Because no one wants to feel ordinary, okay? So, that is human nature, okay? So, they get thousands of these emails and all messages on LinkedIn as well. So, try to give the review of a product or maybe a service that they have developed and you think that you connect with the service a lot. So, I would say that try for a company that has developed projects and or developed services that you're interested in or might have used on your own. I think that provides a good place to start as well. So, the same applies to LinkedIn as well. You can reach out to your alumni as well. That's where having a peer club helps, by the way. So, yep, that helped me come across a lot. That opened a new door of opportunities for me. I would say definitely be in touch with your alumni and let them know of your troubles. I'm pretty sure they will help because they have been in your place. So, also keep a tab on all the jobs and interviews. I didn't used to do that. I used to completely blindly apply on jobs and every time we used to get a call, I was like, okay, I applied for it and stuff like that. But again, nobody wants to feel ordinary. So, I would say keep a tab on all the jobs that you're applying to and also keep a tab on the interviews. Like, create a sheet, I would say. Once I started this, my interview life became a bit easier. So, I would say this is like a very good point that you can take away from here. It's like, keep a tab of what companies are reaching out to you and to what level of interview you were able to qualify and stuff like that. So, that will help you keep a tab of all the interviews that is going on and also don't repeat the same mistake that is while interviewing, try and make a note of all the questions that you weren't able to answer, okay? Or maybe the topics, cool? So, yeah, and try and educate yourself and be a better version by the next interview so that you don't get stuck on the same interview time and again, like same question time and again. And by the way, another tip that I would say about interviewing is that develop a habit of continuous learning. You'll obviously develop a habit of it once you get started, but once you face a few interviews, you may feel at ease, but also one more thing that if you're just trying to remember some terms on the internet and putting that in your answer, it's most likely that the next question is about that term. So, be prepared, don't use any other term that you're not aware of just for the sake of throwing jargon. Don't do that. I have paid a big price for it, even I failed a lot of interviews for it, so I would say that don't repeat that mistake, cool. So, here are some resources if you're looking to get started and prepare for interviews. Interview bit is a very good platform in order to clear your concepts. And also it provides the provision of mock interviews. If you are too nervous to get into a real interview then you can always have mock interviews with other peers and improve yourself. The next thing is obviously lead code. I think you have heard this a number of times. Even Anusha yesterday, she mentioned about lead code. So, you needn't necessarily be a competitive programming expert to do this. You can just learn the concepts like database and SQL relational database, all of that because you get a lot of those questions. So, it also is a very good platform to prepare for interviews, cool. Moving on, so yeah, I forgot to read that quote. That is a job interview is not a test of your knowledge but to your ability, but your ability to use it at the right time. So, even if you don't get through interviews just believe that there are better interviews and better companies ahead and go ahead because I have been disillusioned and disheartened as well. I thought that I'm not, you know, maybe not carved out for this sort of a job because I went for the hard stuff. I went for off-campus interviews and I failed a lot of interviews and I went into the slush as well. So, I would totally say that, you know, hang in there, you have hundreds like you and, you know, they understand you. So, all the best. So, yep, talking about interviews like interviewing is a lot like talking but you have to guide the conversation. You have to know what you want and go about getting it. So, again, that is the key because as I said earlier, if you're just throwing to throw jargons and things that you have marked up or maybe memorized and you don't know the concepts, then it's you're going to pay a huge price for it. So, cool. That's all about interviews. So, after you land a job, what do you have to do? Of course, keep up-skilling and then keep exploring new ideas. And I wouldn't really recommend to stick to a particular framework because frameworks keep changing. You can stick to a particular language like Python or JavaScript but the fundamental stuff always remains the same. So, getting a grasp of those fundamentals is going to help you in the long run. And also, keep sharing your ideas, maybe watching videos, keep sharing ideas and also getting new ideas. Like, maybe watch some talks on YouTube or maybe attend conferences like this or maybe write articles of your own. So, also you may have to rebound to job search if you're not happy with the job so be prepared for that as well. So, life is full of surprises. So, it can throw anything at you. So, yep. So, nowadays software engineers, that's what I've noticed that, nowadays the job descriptions, they mention everything, starting from testing, to DevOps, to development, everything. So, keep a tab of the state of the art trends that's going on and, you know, try and learn things on your own. So, that is going to help you a lot. And of course, pay it forward because try and help other job seekers because I was helped by someone who was not even job seeking at that point but I thought that he's a good person and he's very more experienced and you know, have someone to review your resume and or your emails and or your messages because that's going to help a lot. And, you know, pay special attention to every job application because that's going to help as well. So, yep. Don't forget to do that. Pay special attention to all the job interviews. I mean, the emails and other messages because that is gonna decide whether you are gonna land an interview or not in the first place. So, here is some inspiration for you. The first picture is of Ada Lovelace. She's considered to be the first programmer who explained how the notion of a specific engine could transition calculation to computation. So, yep. She's one of the most famous women in technology and every second Tuesday of October is kind of celebrated as the Ada Lovelace day to celebrate all women in STEM. And again, coming to Grace Hopper, I'm pretty sure you have attended Grace Hopper celebration and YAR, maybe Grace Hopper celebration that happens in the US. So, she's the person who this conference is named after. So, she designed a compiler which translated programmers' instructions into computer code. So, that's when we hadn't realized the power of computers. So, yep. Learning about them gives a lot of inspiration and it helps because they paved the way and obviously this helps. This will help you. Learning about them and reading about them will help you get some inspiration as well as keep you going forward as well. So, some of the inspirations, we talked about history. So, why not talk about something, some women who are acing it in the present, right? There's Rishma Sojinni, founder and CEO of Girls Who Code. Then there is Suzanne Wojcicki. Not sure if I'm pronouncing it correct. She is the CEO of YouTube. So, yeah, there is inspiration everywhere. Of course, I wasn't able to include all the list, everything in the list. And if you want to learn more, you can always read their books, read content, read blog posts about them to get an inspiration. There is Indira Nui too. And if you're active on Twitter, you may, if you're into JavaScript, then you may know Alice Pitil and Emma Burstian, the founders of the Ladybug podcast. They create contents, books, projects, podcasts, and also put posts on Twitter that can help you. Following them, following the right people on Twitter will get you closer to where you want to be. So, and also help you connect with like-minded people, by the way. So, make the most of Twitter. Cool. So, again, this is a picture for your inspiration. I would say hang in there. You'll be able to do it. Cool. Time for some questions. I hope I didn't bore you and you were able to sit through it. And hopefully you get some instructions, get some help from my experience. Cool. Thank you, Manaswini, for this amazing and interesting session. When we are almost close to the top of the hour, maybe we can take one or two questions at this moment. Well, we have a lot of inspiration. I'm going to bring it up. So, cheers to these STEM years. Thank you so much for this. Okay, so we have our first question. How to handle job search fatigue from another person? Okay, so that is going to happen a lot, I would say. You wouldn't land your first job in the very first interview, okay? So, be prepared for it, first of all, because the world is hard and you're going to face a lot of stuff, but keep improving yourself in every interview. Just as I said, keep a tab of the questions that you're getting and you're not able to answer, because the ones that you're able to answer, at least you have some idea about it, but the ones you're not able to answer, you have no idea about it. So, it is going to, if you don't get that doubt cleared and if you don't feed your curiosity on to that, I'm pretty sure you'll get that in the next interview and you're gonna be stuck there. So, I would say keep a tab of the questions that you're not able to answer and obviously ask about feedback at the end of the interview. Like, what do you think about this feedback? How can I improve myself? I'm pretty sure some headhunters and the interviewers concentrate enough to tell you some tips and tricks to improve, so be on the lookout for that. Just don't go down to the cell and don't ask and don't be shy, just ask whatever you can and because then I'm pretty sure that you may not meet that person again if you don't have an interview. So, what's the harm in asking, right? Thanks. We have our next question from Anshika Rajiv. She asks, how to make an impact in workspaces when you join it? I would say being active and being consistent because when I joined, don't think that you're a junior developer, okay? There are senior developers. There will always be senior developers, okay? The ones that you hire. Try to learn something about them. Even if someone is junior to you, try to learn something from them as well. So, how to make an impact, I would say, if there is some local talk that is happening, try and organize that. Try and maybe write some blog posts that the company blog can feature about, right? I would say that helped a lot in creating an impact. I would say I'm very active when it comes to organizing any talk or maybe, you know, I'm the one, I'm pretty sure that that is the reason why they always look up to me to fill in in such cases. And I think earlier I thought that, okay, this is just, you know, normal stuff. I'm just being myself and stuff like that. But I didn't realize the exact impact when unless, you know, my manager started contacting me for representing Red Hat in Grace Hopper Celebration India and stuff like that. So that's how we can create an impact. Like even if there is an event that's taking place, you know, share your ideas openly. You never know, they may come across some idea that they haven't thought of at the first place. So be very free and you can say, be very true to yourself and, you know, try and be outgoing and friendly. I think that helps a lot. And also help the other new joiners. I think that is what the workplaces appreciate as well a lot. Thanks, Manjwini. Maybe we can just take one more. How to know about opportunities like fellowships and or scholarships. Okay, this is a tough one. I would say that is scholarships.com. That is scholarships for women.net. And, you know, other such resources where you can look up to and always, even if you are, you know, I'm pretty sure that if you are in a club or maybe if you're attending GDG and WTM, you may come across such scholarships a lot. And they often share and also join the flow group. I think they have a flow group in Facebook. Join that. They also share opportunities there. And they also have a WhatsApp group, by the way. I subscribed to that when I was in my, you know, when I was a sophomore. And they also shared very good fellowships and or scholarship opportunities. I would say, even if you come across it, don't just, you know, think that, okay, I'll put it for later. You're not going to go back to it later. I'm pretty sure. Try and, you know, save that link somewhere, you know, bookmark it and try and, you know, write the proposal and or the abstract and or the, you know, letter of motivation way before the deadline because that is going to get refined over time and eventually, you know, increase your chances of getting the fellowship and or the scholarship. Thank you. Thank you.