For a long time, tech culture has focused too narrowly on technical skills; this has resulted in a tech community that too often puts companies and code over people. Greater Than Code is a podcast that invites the voices of people who are not heard from enough in tech: women, people of color, trans and/or queer folks, to talk about the human side of software development and technology. Greater Than Code is providing a vital platform for these conversations, and developing new ideas of what it means to be a technologist beyond just the code. Featuring an ongoing panel of racially and gender diverse tech panelists, the majority of podcast guests so far have been women in tech! We’ve covered topics including imposter syndrome, mental illness, sexuality, unconscious bias and social justice. We also have a major focus on skill sets that tech too often devalues, like team-building, hiring, community organizing, mentorship and empathy. Each episode also includes a transcript. We have an active Slack community that members can join by pledging as little as $1 per month via Patreon. (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode)
178: Data Science and Sponsorship with Emily Robinson
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02:30 - Emily’s Superpower: Finding all the dogs to pet.
05:05 - Emily’s Data Science Journey
- Organization Behavior
- Qualitative / Quantitative
- Research: Women in STEM Fields
08:21 - The Idea of Passion
- Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing
- Gatekeeping
10:46 - Defining Data Science
- Analytics
- Decision Science
- Machine Learning
13:48 - Emily’s Book: Build a Career in Data Science
16:11 - Dealing with Failure
18:30 - Sponsorship
- Emily’s Post on Sponsorship: The Importance of Sponsorship
20:08 - The Spread of Data Science Roles
- Strengthening Job-Critical Skills
27:09 - Sponsorship (Cont’d)
- Sponsorship vs Mentorship
- Having a Solid Community / Network
- Capital
- Smaller Acts of Mentorship
- Sponsorship and Mentorship Work Best When There's a Concrete, Stated Goal
- Mentorship Should Be Part of Our Formal Career Ladder
36:20 - Themes Learned From Writing Build a Career in Data Science
- Communication Skills
- Proactivity
- Community (Network is Important)
40:02 - Companies Should Train People to be Mentors
43:07 - Measuring Productivity
- Thinking Fast and Slow
- How to Measure Anything
- The Tyranny of Metrics
- Engineering Career Development at Etsy
45:48 - External vs Internal Data Science
- People Scientists
47:18 - Women and Diverse Representation in Data Science
- Groups & Resources
- Why Women Are Flourishing In R Community But Lagging In Python
Reflections:
Avdi: Mentorship does not have to be a huge commitment to be useful and sponsorship is often as important -- or more important than mentorship.
Chanté: What are the things that we’re willing to do for people who need an extra boost or push or support?
Jacob: Mentorship is possible without the mentors knowing they’re even doing it.
Rein: If you’re a mentor and your mentees aren’t coming to you with well-formed questions, it’s your job to coach them into that as a mentor.
Emily: There aren’t enough resources for senior engineers on the non-technical side of things.
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Special Guest: Emily Robinson.
Sponsored By:
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