International Women’s Day is an opportunity to celebrate successes women are achieving in the workplace. To mark International Women’s Day 2022, we asked our women in tech what they most enjoy about their roles, how they have dealt with and overcome challenges in their careers. Here are their stories.

Tell us about your role and what do you most enjoy?
As a Salesforce Consultant I enjoy being able to explore the system’s capabilities. There’s always something new which makes life easier (sometimes worse, when a functionality expires without a replacement, but it’s part of the learning process). Knowing the client’s industries, patterns, and their uniqueness is another source of joy. Like when you talk to a banking industry they don’t want the word ‘Closed’ in the Opportunity because they associate it with a ‘Closed’ Account which is not a good thing for them.

What unique challenges have you faced in your career as a woman? How did you overcome them?
I’m not sure if it’s unique as a woman or because of my race or my age, no one has really told me. But I felt that the client won’t trust me from the start. There are clients that I have the feeling that I need to prove my skills first before they listen to my insights, they will even complain or do the solution design. From previous experiences, I was able to overcome it by sticking to my core values; being transparent with them, showing that I understand them but trying to make them understand my point of view as well. By the end of the project they know they can rely on me.

Have you received any opportunities you are grateful for?
Joining Destined is a great opportunity for me that I’m grateful for. It’s an organization that fosters positive vibes toward work. It’s a bit challenging to connect with everyone due to the different locations, time difference, etc. but in general our team is very welcoming and you’d rarely hear negative comments.

What advice would you give to women entering the tech field? Anything you wish you had known?
It’s okay if you don’t know everything. I entered the tech field (by cluelessly choosing my college course) without knowing what “programming” is and wondering “Why do we still need to code ‘Hello World!’, can’t we just type it?”. I’m still not good at programming but Voila! There are other roles in the tech world where you don’t need to know codes such as being a Business Analyst or Project Manager. You go girl!

How do you balance work and life?
I allot time for work and ‘after work’. During work time, I keep a list of the things I need to do and focus on them. Then ‘after work’, I enjoy doing different activities. I decided to learn something new that I’ve always wanted to learn. I enrolled in a piano lesson that includes practice after work and then a session on a weekend. This piano school also uses Salesforce by the way. 🙂

Who supports you to feel like anything is possible? Who inspires you? Who helps you see the world through new eyes?
I’m blessed to have a very supportive boyfriend. He has been the one who keeps on encouraging me and we serve as each other’s sounding board. He’s the first person I thought of upon reading this question.

Tell us about your role and what do you most enjoy?
I am a Salesforce Developer here at Destined. My role involves unit testing, building applications and modifying existing applications. The most interesting thing I like about my role is to play around with different technologies in order to implement automations. Everyday I get to learn something new which keeps me ahead.

What advice would you give to women entering the tech field? Anything you wish you had known?
I wish I could have known about my passion at a little earlier stage which would have helped me gain more insights about different technologies which I find very challenging now. But these challenges shouldn’t put a barrier in your career to move forward.

My advice for women who are entering and advancing in tech careers is that they shouldn’t be intimidated just because they do not have enough technical knowledge. One just needs to spend some extra time to teach themselves the required skill set when you start a career in tech, find a good mentor and advocate for yourself. No matter what field you choose, remember to never give up on your dreams and always keep a positive attitude and no matter what roadblocks may come, women should never let anyone limit their potential.

How do you balance work and life?
It’s not always easy to balance life equally but if you find the right company it becomes pretty simple to manage both the roles. I find myself working late quite often not because of the pile up work but because I enjoy what I do and it doesn’t feel like a chore. To find a balance I have started assuring myself that I will do my best and give my full focus and attention to what I do.

Have you received any opportunities you are grateful for?
The most amazing opportunity I had in my career was getting accepted into the 500 startups accelerator in Silicon valley. I was one of only 5 female founders in our cohort of 44 startups from around the world. It was the most intense, challenging and rewarding three month experience of my life. Some famous startups that went through this program include, Canva, Talkdesk, Udemy, Grab just to name a few. Being surrounded by smart like-minded people who want to make a difference in the world and the friendships/mentors I got out of it are what I cherish the most.

What unique challenges have you faced in your career as a woman? How did you overcome them?
I’m not sure where to start. I think the one that was the most profound was when I was fundraising for my startup. Pitching to Venture Capital firms in SE Asia and Silicon valley which were 90% male dominated was a massive hardship and I felt I had to work twice as hard to prove myself. I’d already raised $350KUSD in pre-seed capital at a $3M valuation and was trying to raise another $500K for my seed round but VC’s in SE Asia wanted me to have a male co-founder. I ended up getting a term-sheet for the 500K as a sole female founder but I was so burnt out by that stage and therefore needed to re-evaluate my career goals and what I value most in life.

What advice would you give to women entering the tech field? Anything you wish you had known?
As a minority by gender, it might seem useful to adapt to your male peers’ behaviour and preferences. You expect to blend in order to find more acceptance. First, this rarely works out. Second, it hurts you if you try to be somebody you are not. But most important, it is proven that diversity in a team leads to the best results. So being your best self will highly benefit the product or service you are building.

My advice for women in tech is:

• Find a Good Mentor. You don’t have to navigate your career trajectory on your own.
• Be Confident. Don’t let self-doubt get in the way. Your voice matters.
• Embrace what makes you different. Show up as yourself every time. Conformity is an overrated virtue.
• Learn from failure. This is where the lessons lie. Not successes.
• Execute. Walk the talk and get shit done. Don’t let your gender define you.

Who supports you to feel like anything is possible? Who inspires you? Who helps you see the world through new eyes?
It was my stepdad who instilled in me that anything is possible when I was in high school and playing up. He sat me down after I got my report card and said “you’re way too intelligent to be self-sabotaging” and told me I could achieve anything you want to if you just put your mind to it” He has dyslexia and was told he would never amount to anything but proved them wrong to become an engineer with Qantas.

This resonated with me and I guess was what inspired me to start my first company in a foreign country years later. Because of his belief in me, It never crossed my mind that I couldn’t do it. I also did the Landmark Forum and one of the key learnings is to think and act beyond your existing views and limitations.

Tell us about your role and what do you most enjoy?
I have recently taken on the role of Marketing Automation Practice Lead. I love my role as I get to work with a really passionate team of really clever people who all want to help their customers to get the most out of their marketing automation platforms. The other element of my role that I really enjoy is my advisory role as this means I get the chance to build trust with the customers and create a solution for my team to execute on.

What unique challenges have you faced in your career as a woman? How did you overcome them?
I would say, like many parents out there, Covid19 brought me one of the biggest challenges from a work perspective. This is obviously not unique to me and affected many people worldwide but just thinking back on the situation raises my anxiety levels

I live in Melbourne Victoria, which as most of you know is the city that was in lockdown for the longest time in the world over the 2 year period. The day the kids came home from school and home schooling started was one of the biggest challenges I have ever faced.

The lessons all of this taught me were:

• Being super organised and being a step ahead of everyone always helps but it is really tiring!
• Be creative in your problem solving. There is always a solution for everything.
• Take care of yourself as you cannot be a good mother or wife when you are not looking after yourself.
• Do not be afraid to speak up and let people know that you are battling.

Have you received any opportunities you are grateful for?
In 2019 I was given the opportunity to attend Dreamforce. Little did I know that that would be the last Dreamforce as we knew it!. This opportunity opened up so many doors for me as I got to network face to face with so many key people in the Salesforce ecosystem. This I believe was a tipping point for me in my career.

Covid brought me a few opportunities too. At the time when the world was panicking about the unknowns of Covid and people were worried about losing jobs, I was given two amazing career opportunities. I was invited to sit on the Salesforce Pardot Advisory Board and I was asked to take on a leadership role at Destined.

What advice would you give to women entering the tech field? Anything you wish you had known?
You are equal. You are more than capable of doing an amazing job. In fact, as a woman you may stand out in your role in tech when you tap into your nurturing, more femine side as it can make the customer feel at ease and in safe hands.

How do you balance work and life?
Now this is a tough one… Being a wife, a Mom and a career woman means I need to be very careful about striking the right balance. The one thing I have done since my son was born was to work four days a week. I do not work on Mondays. This is a day for me I call it “Me Monday”. I also always try to do something for myself on Mondays. I am really strict about staying offline on this day.

Who supports you to feel like anything is possible? Who inspires you? Who helps you see the world through new eyes?
My husband is a big supporter of mine. He is always so proud of what I have achieved. When I am going through a tough time he often helps me by giving me another perspective of looking at the problem. This is helpful as it makes me consider all the different perspectives before acting.

The CEO of Destined, Andrew France, is someone who really inspires me. I often look at the amazing business that he has built and the way he conducts himself as a true leader and just wish that I had the same ability. He always shows up as cool, calm and collected. He is really practical in the way he thinks and behaves and he is able to string his thoughts together in such a logical understandable way. He can also put his thoughts onto paper in such a clear way.

The other person who has made me look at the world through different eyes is our son. He has probably been the biggest challenge given to me. I was always told that I would make an amazing Mother. Truth be told, I am really battling with being a mother. My son has taught me that I cannot expect him to behave and be who I want him to be. He is unique and has other amazing qualities that I need to recognise. My job is to help him to become the best version of himself by tapping into his unique qualities and skills.

Tell us about your role and what do you most enjoy?
I am a part of our Sales Team and look after Bid Management and Sales Enablement.

Getting our processes and enablers to deliver on the required outcomes consistently is what excites me.

What unique challenges have you faced in your career as a woman? How did you overcome them?
Technology and Consulting are often seen as Men’s playgrounds. As a competitive and decisive individual, I would sometimes need to just stand my ground and convey to a room full of men that I was not going to simply “change my mind” because that would suit them and because that’s what they expect.

I think what worked for me was that I continued to work in my own way to deliver consistently good and reliable results, irrespective of whether those ways and means were deemed as masculine or feminine, till the time that the people around me just learnt to associate those traits and outcomes with “Pooja” as opposed to a woman or a man.

Have you received any opportunities you are grateful for?
I was raised to just go out and carve out my own world. I think that has been the biggest opportunity and gift for me.

What advice would you give to women entering the tech field? Anything you wish you had known?
I wish for everyone to believe that no matter who says what, only you decide whether you “can” have something or not.

Also, life isn’t all that grim and so I grin and look forward to whatever happens next.

How do you balance work and life?
I have a wonderful partner who was brought up well by his mother. He brings balance into my life without me having to think about it.
Otherwise too, Destined places a lot of importance on their employees’ well-being, myself included.

Who supports you to feel like anything is possible? Who inspires you? Who helps you see the world through new eyes?
I do all that and more for myself. I firmly believe that I am in charge of what happens to me and that my life is a sum product of what I do or don’t do in any given situation.