Welcome back! Today we have Wei, Rachel, Jen, Virginia and Anusha sharing their experiences. Wei is an engineer on the consumer team and she brings amazing user experiences to our customers. Rachel and Jen are both engineers on our international team, bringing the power of Yelp to all of our international communities. Virginia works as an engineer on our partnerships team and Anusha is an engineer on our infrastructure team.

Overall, we all had a blast getting to know each other, meeting other amazing women in the industry, hearing some great stories from inspiring women role models, and sourcing some future talent for Yelp. If you missed us at the career fair and are interested in working at Yelp,  check out yelp.com/careers. We are always interested in talented women engineers to grow our community.

Wei W.

Software Engineer, Mobile Site

I was very inspired by Yoky Matsuoka’s talk. She reminded us to constantly evaluate our level of passion and engagement with what we’re doing, and to change courses if we find those levels waning. As a professional tennis player turned robotics professor turned VP of technology at Nest, Yoky is proof that our interests may lead us on many different paths throughout our life and that, it turns out, is actually okay.

Rachel Z.

Software Engineer, International

My time at Grace Hopper was split between interviewing and attending talks. I was a bit overwhelmed by the volume of students coming by our career booth everyday but I was also really glad that we got to interview some strong women engineers while at the conference. It was great to see the interest in technical as well as future leadership possibilities.

Jo Miller’s talk on Winning at the Game of Office Politics was fascinating. I always viewed office politics as evil. Her talk provided a way to look at it from a different angle and assured us that it’s possible to navigate office politics without becoming a political animal.

Some other personal highlights: speaking with industry folks during workshops, eating ice cream, dancing at the parties, and reconnecting with friends. A couple things I hope the conference improves upon next year are to have less scheduling conflicts between interesting talks, and increased availability for the more popular talks.

Jen W.

Software Engineer, International

I have been working in the industry for over 10 years, always in male-dominated workplaces. What struck me the most was being surrounded by so many women. It was inspiring to meet people from such a wide diversity of experiences and backgrounds, all of them bright, eager, and happy to chat (Hi Yenny! Hey Kanak!).

Those who are in school or looking at career growth will truly benefit from attending future Grace Hopper conferences. For the rest of us, it’s still a great opportunity to meet new people, attend the amazing (in more ways than one!) plenary panels and learn what’s going on in tech in the rest of the world.

Virginia T.

Software Engineer, Partnerships

For me, the most useful and interesting workshop was “The Dynamics of Hyper-Effective Teams.” I loved that there was role-playing involved. For instance, do you know someone on your team who’s an “Airtime Dominator,” someone who speaks at least 20% of the time? Or a “Silent Expert,” the one who has all the knowledge but rarely speaks up? What about “The Naysayer” who constantly refutes others’ ideas?

The workshop concluded with volunteers sharing their stories and advice on working with these personalities. Having personally been through some similar experiences, it was an eye-opener to learn how these (sometimes clashing) personalities can effectively work together. Can’t wait to experiment with it!

Anusha R.

Software Engineer, Infrastructure

I loved attending Grace Hopper for the first time this year! There were a bunch of inspirational speakers at the conference. Just like my co-worker and friend Wei, I also enjoyed Yoky’s talk about how her passions led to her finding her career path. I was also inspired by Barbara Birungi, one of the award winners. Her non-profit is helping women in Uganda get involved in  technology through mentorship and coaching.

There was a good mix of technical and career building talks and workshops. I attended several career building sessions and enjoyed the workshops on office politics, difficult conversations and building hyper-effective teams.

But most of all, I enjoyed talking to the students who visited our booth at career fair. Many of them had interesting projects to talk about. I was excited to see this level of talent and wish them the best in their careers.

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