Women in Engineering: Where Software Meets Hardware | Olya Royall

0:00 hello everyone and welcome to builder

0:02 nation where your favorite engineers

0:04 share their tips and tricks in the

0:06 industry

0:09 [Music]

0:09 [Applause]

0:14 [Music]

0:20 i'm alisa and i get to speak with really

0:22 cool engineering leaders creating real

0:24 change within their fascinating

0:26 companies today as part of our female

0:28 power initiative where we get to know

0:31 inspiring women in the industry i have

0:33 the pleasure to speak with oli ariel

0:35 engineering manager at drone deploy a

0:38 cloud software platform for commercial

0:40 pros hi olia and welcome

0:43 hi thanks for having me and let me give

0:45 you a little bit of context guys oya has

0:47 four years working teams to drive

0:49 product usage and growth and basically

0:52 we're gonna talk about your professional

0:54 background olea your experience as a

0:56 woman in the industry some challenges

0:58 some role differences anything that you

1:01 can share but oh yeah since we have it

1:03 here we have a lot of questions and i'm

1:05 super excited to get to know you so i

1:07 want you to tell me

1:09 what is all like what is being a

1:11 software engineer all about if you can

1:13 tell us a little bit of your experience

1:16 when you start in this industry

1:18 i'll take it back a little bit because i

1:21 have over a decade of experience um in a

1:24 non-inter role i didn't have sort of a

1:28 traditional career path um

1:31 i have spent most of my career working

1:34 in some

1:36 various sales business development and

1:38 operational rules

1:41 and then i

1:43 ventured into biotech briefly

1:47 and i decided it wasn't the right path

1:49 for me

1:50 i

1:51 pivoted into software engineering in

1:53 2016.

1:54 i went to a dev boot camp and

1:59 we gathered sort of a team of close

2:02 classmates and started

2:05 getting into hackathons and just

2:07 building up portfolio and developer

2:09 skills

2:10 and then i landed a job at drone deploy

2:13 in april 2017

2:17 where

2:18 it just felt like the right fit you know

2:21 i never

2:23 had experience sort of the state of flow

2:27 as i did when i first started working as

2:29 an engineer it's

2:31 one of the most frustrating things to be

2:33 an engineer sometimes you're trying to

2:35 solve a problem and you're

2:38 sitting there and it's

2:40 you're just beating your head against

2:42 the wall and then it's suddenly things

2:44 click and it's like a very

2:47 uh

2:48 high highs and low lows

2:51 trying to figure something out

2:54 uh but it's it's very exciting and i

2:57 really enjoy working as an engineer as

3:00 an individual contributor

3:02 initially um it just

3:05 felt like the time would pass by so fast

3:08 um

3:10 you're solving interesting problems

3:12 you're trying to make something work

3:14 it's a very creative endeavor in some

3:16 ways

3:18 so i

3:19 really enjoyed it and i mean i have to

3:21 tell you i did a little bit of research

3:24 in your past experience and i did see a

3:27 lot of recommendations

3:29 from your past teams saying like olia is

3:31 such a big leader and olia knows how to

3:35 how to lead the teams and how to work

3:37 correctly and how to motivate people

3:40 and how do you feel being the leader in

3:42 the industry i still have a bit of an

3:45 imposter syndrome

3:48 uh you know

3:49 i am a senior engineering manager now

3:52 and i manage two teams i manage the

3:54 growth team

3:55 which

3:56 our mission is to help expand existing

3:58 customer base and drive monthly active

4:01 users and basically just drive

4:04 general user engagement

4:06 and now i also manage another team

4:08 that's

4:10 in charge of

4:12 internationalization we're actually

4:14 expanding into

4:15 spanish and portuguese so

4:18 pretty exciting but a completely new

4:21 greenfield project

4:24 so

4:25 it's been really interesting experience

4:28 because i got to build both teams

4:30 basically from the ground up i

4:33 went for managing four people to

4:35 currently managing 12 people and

4:38 some of them are located in poland i

4:41 have a qa engineer who's in the

4:43 netherlands

4:44 and then the rest of the team is spread

4:46 across the united states

4:48 so it's a very interesting challenge

4:51 being a remote manager and trying to

4:54 do only remote activities and figuring

4:59 out ways to communicate across different

5:01 time zones and

5:02 kind of build trust and

5:05 lead the teams but

5:06 we have a lot of support add drone

5:08 deploy because

5:11 initially when you become manager you

5:13 have to go through like a series of

5:16 management leadership training that

5:19 spends everything from how to properly

5:22 coach people how to have good

5:23 one-on-ones how to

5:25 interview people how to

5:28 do feedback all of those really

5:30 essential skills in general this topic

5:33 of psychology and leadership and

5:35 organization and

5:37 how to build good processes in

5:39 engineering is really interesting to me

5:41 so

5:42 i read a lot on my own

5:45 there's a bunch of publications but the

5:48 most

5:49 valuable ones that i found are from

5:51 first round review

5:52 software weed software uh lead weekly

5:56 uh harvard business review and then

5:58 there's this

6:01 kind of like

6:03 cliff notes for business books called

6:05 blinkist you need to figure out how to

6:10 communicate what others need to do in

6:12 such a way that makes sense to everyone

6:15 and how to delegate some of these things

6:18 and how to

6:20 switch your mind shift from

6:23 thinking oh i'm just putting off work to

6:25 somebody else to no i'm actually

6:27 providing opportunities for for

6:29 leadership and growth to others by

6:32 delegating some of these tasks so that i

6:34 could focus on a larger picture

6:37 and

6:38 bigger sort of more longer term

6:39 initiatives the key i think is building

6:42 psychological safety and trust

6:44 i believe in leadership by example and

6:48 enabling

6:49 my p my team

6:51 by providing appropriate tools and

6:53 frameworks and opportunities to them

6:55 give people the knowledge of why they're

6:57 working towards something like why are

6:59 we building something the business

7:01 context i think empowers them

7:04 very much to be able to do the best work

7:06 that they can because they know why

7:08 they're building something and

7:10 how it it helps the company

7:14 to grow and and then

7:16 how it affects them

7:18 if they're just building stuff for the

7:20 sake of building stuff it's really hard

7:22 to keep motivated if you don't know why

7:26 you're doing something

7:27 you don't have much of a purpose totally

7:30 it makes total sense to me i mean

7:32 making sure that you know the why are

7:34 you doing what you're doing how you're

7:36 doing it and especially yeah building

7:39 the trust within your team sounds really

7:41 really important the key to a successful

7:43 team now when it comes to being a woman

7:45 and to be in a directive role and having

7:48 to handle teams you started having like

7:51 five people and now you have 12 people

7:53 and you're working with different sides

7:56 of the organization what do you feel

7:58 that it's the biggest challenge for you

8:00 being a woman in the industry at drone

8:02 deploy i haven't

8:04 felt like it's a challenge

8:06 but you know

8:08 i am

8:10 one of

8:11 the few

8:12 women engineers and i am i'm the only

8:15 engineering manager who's who's a woman

8:19 but i don't

8:20 find it as

8:22 challenging i feel like we have a

8:24 diverse enough background

8:26 on a lot of the team members i don't

8:29 feel excluded

8:31 let's say

8:32 i did earlier on when i was trying to

8:35 kind of push through to

8:37 the leadership role and kind of

8:40 grow in my individual contributor role

8:43 have gotten some pushback and

8:45 a few individuals have expressed concern

8:47 of me not being technical enough

8:50 which kind of cut me pretty deep

8:54 but the majority of my engineering team

8:56 has recognized that i do have good

8:58 problem solving skills and technical

9:00 skills and trusted me to be the mentor

9:02 and the tech lead and eventually promote

9:05 me

9:06 so

9:06 a lot of like a few of these kinds of

9:10 sort of like concerns of me not being

9:12 technical enough

9:13 have gone away just because i've proven

9:16 myself

9:18 and maybe this is the challenge i always

9:20 feel like i have to prove myself and it

9:24 could be my own

9:25 personal

9:26 mental

9:28 challenge but

9:30 maybe it's also a bit part of because i

9:33 feel like i'm the not coming from a

9:36 traditional background in computer

9:38 science but in general overall i feel

9:43 like i'm pretty well supported and i

9:45 don't have to fight an uphill battle

9:49 how do you feel that we can

9:50 get more women in the industry and how

9:52 do you feel that we can make them feel

9:55 secure it's a tough question you know

9:56 that's a million dollar question and

10:00 how do we get them working

10:03 in the industry it's changing the

10:05 landscape and

10:07 kind of

10:08 the type of cultures that you have and

10:11 and drone deployment

10:13 is a really good example of a good

10:16 inclusive and collaborative and

10:18 supportive culture

10:19 maybe

10:20 having

10:21 opportunities at startups

10:23 that provide support for

10:26 for varying different backgrounds the

10:29 research that i've read

10:31 talks about how a lot of women won't

10:34 apply for a job for example if it has a

10:37 very specific

10:39 job description so if you have like

10:42 a thousand different

10:43 requirements

10:45 where really only five of them are

10:47 really important

10:49 maybe don't put the whole kitchen sink

10:51 in your job description

10:53 so that people can

10:55 feel like they are actually qualified to

10:58 apply

10:59 there's a stark difference between how

11:01 men apply to jobs and how women apply to

11:03 jobs

11:05 in terms of

11:06 a lot more under qualified men will

11:08 apply for a job whereas women will only

11:12 apply for a job if they feel like they

11:15 are exactly qualified for all of the

11:17 requirements

11:19 so only put the requirements that are

11:21 truly needed on your job descriptions or

11:24 most of the times it's us who keep like

11:27 putting these barriers you know or

11:30 creating these barriers these mental

11:32 like blocks instead of just saying like

11:35 hey i'm a woman i'm capable i can do it

11:37 i can be a manager of team you know yeah

11:40 engineering is so much more than just

11:42 problem solving it's

11:44 it's very communication driven and women

11:47 are generally pretty good at

11:49 communicating

11:50 we have talked about women in the

11:52 industry you talk about your experience

11:54 and drone deploy what is your everyday

11:57 like routine what is your everyday at

12:00 the company oh it's quite different as

12:03 an engineering manager from when i was

12:06 an individual contributor but

12:08 i have some time in the morning where i

12:11 do planning and kind of map out

12:14 what i need to do and prepare for the

12:16 week i have

12:18 a lot of meetings where um

12:22 i'm part of sort of like team

12:24 discussions so i could have all of the

12:26 context uh and bring it to my team

12:30 i try to protect our time

12:33 as much as possible as i know that even

12:36 15-minute meetings can

12:38 be a total distraction from

12:40 your

12:42 getting into something and trying to

12:43 solve a problem talking about drone

12:46 deploy can you share a success your

12:48 favorite success story from a company

12:50 that started using drone deploy uh my

12:53 favorite success story is

12:55 actually not from a single company but

12:57 uh dronedeploy has a dot org uh arm

13:01 where we work with non-profit

13:03 organizations and it's uh the story that

13:06 i love

13:07 is from the disaster relief efforts uh

13:10 my company has helped out uh during the

13:14 campfire in 2018 and it was one of the

13:17 most devastating fires to that date in

13:21 california

13:23 where over three days

13:26 16 teams of public safety professionals

13:29 from various different

13:31 regions

13:32 had to um

13:35 complete 500 plus drone flights and they

13:38 captured

13:39 a ton of imagery uh surrounding the

13:42 areas that suffered from the fire i

13:43 think was

13:45 um

13:46 the result was 500 gigabytes of drone

13:49 data

13:50 which

13:51 drone deploy helped process and turn

13:53 into

13:56 15 000 acres of high resolution aerial

13:59 maps

14:00 and it was

14:01 enabling um state agencies and the

14:04 public to assist in the recovery efforts

14:07 um

14:08 it it helped

14:10 search and rescue operations it assisted

14:13 the planning

14:15 and the response for potential mudslides

14:17 it helped with relief fund issuance

14:21 and it helped a bunch of the people that

14:23 have lost their homes

14:25 to process the insurance claims so much

14:27 faster because

14:29 they have photographic and aerial

14:31 evidence of um

14:33 of their houses which

14:36 were completely unrecognizable a lot of

14:39 that fires just

14:41 low visibility there was trees that were

14:44 kind of melting together you couldn't

14:46 recognize what the street names were

14:49 anymore and

14:51 i'm just really proud to work for a

14:53 company that enabled such a massive

14:56 effort we had to work through

14:59 the weekend and

15:01 and the next day we delivered 75 maps

15:05 it's like

15:07 we spun up this whole area and um

15:10 it was all like stitched together nicely

15:13 and you not only had a aerial 2d map

15:16 view from the top but there were

15:19 markers with video footage and 360

15:21 footage i think that was that was really

15:24 cool

15:25 and one of my favorite

15:26 stories and how you could use drones for

15:29 good i mean at the end of the day it's

15:31 something that makes you just like you

15:33 said it makes you feel proud of what

15:35 you're working on of your team you know

15:37 like i'm pretty sure those extra hours

15:40 that you worked on the project you were

15:41 like i'm super tired but i feel

15:44 oh overall i feel satisfied i feel proud

15:48 i feel

15:49 thankful of being working for a company

15:51 that not only helps

15:53 clients to solve their necessities but

15:55 also i'm helping people just like you

15:58 said my favorite stories are coming from

16:00 a lot of the non-profit organizations

16:02 that we work with like i said emergency

16:04 response and rescue teams

16:06 there's a lot of companies that use

16:08 drone deploy for forest restoration

16:11 uh there's one really interesting one

16:13 that did a

16:15 mapping of the coral reefs and it's

16:18 quite a different

16:19 challenge than doing ground uh mapping

16:23 but it helps that a lot of the places

16:25 where you have coral reefs the water is

16:27 really clear and still so you could

16:30 actually see under the water pretty well

16:32 and something else i mean last but not

16:34 least i want to ask you any advice that

16:37 you can give to your to our audience the

16:39 engineers ceos managers who are

16:41 listening to this podcast treat your

16:44 people that you work with as human

16:46 beings and they will treat you back as a

16:49 human being and they'll they'll give the

16:51 best that they can

16:53 and trust that they will do the best

16:55 that they can that's the only way to

16:57 work we can no longer treat

17:00 people as

17:01 numbers and employees i mean i'm sure

17:04 it's harder to do at a larger company

17:07 but i feel like most successful

17:09 companies

17:10 not even just in engineering but in

17:12 general treat their people

17:15 well and in return they get people that

17:18 are happy

17:19 people that are loyal and people that

17:21 are giving as best as they can you could

17:24 try to make the most amount of money as

17:26 fast as you possibly can but

17:29 you can't do it without a team and

17:31 i don't know if it should be the goal of

17:34 a company to maximize your profits like

17:37 maximize your people and the profits

17:40 will follow they may not be i don't know

17:42 like a billion less from like your 10

17:45 billions that you're making it as as a

17:48 company it's not going to matter that

17:50 much if you have a workforce that's

17:52 that's happy and continuously supporting

17:54 you the longevity of everyone matters

17:57 more totally totally it doesn't matter

18:00 if you i mean at the end of the day

18:01 you're not gonna be able to make any

18:03 profits if you haven't if you don't have

18:05 a great team or a good team at least or

18:08 if they're not happy if they're not

18:09 motivated the amount of work that they

18:12 will they will build at the end of the

18:13 day it's not going to be

18:15 the same it's not going to be as good

18:17 and you're probably going to have lots

18:18 of turnover and i think most

18:22 people realize that the turnover

18:25 is

18:26 what kills the companies because you're

18:28 constantly having to throw resources at

18:30 hiring people training people and that's

18:33 it's it's difficult it's

18:35 expensive thank you so much for

18:38 this it's not only one advice it's like

18:41 thousands of advices from you

18:43 thank you so much we're super happy to

18:45 have you here and to have the

18:47 opportunity to talk to you and to learn

18:48 from you especially do you have any

18:50 social media handles where can we find

18:52 you i'm on linkedin like uh only a royal

18:56 on linkedin so if you want to find me

18:59 there that's probably the the best way

19:01 um

19:02 i checked that once in a while and i

19:05 tend to respond to people that reach out

19:07 for advice or you know i'm

19:11 one of my favorite parts of the job is

19:13 to to help people

19:15 um grow so you know i

19:18 generally am trying to be responsive to

19:21 people that are looking for advice or um

19:24 asking questions or how they could grow

19:27 in their career i'm happy to help

19:29 oh thank you so much julia thank you for

19:31 your ability

19:32 and remember guys that you can also find

19:35 more information interesting articles

19:38 really interesting interviews like this

19:39 one directly on our website

19:42 controlhub.com

19:43 builder dash nation

19:46 so thank you so much for being a part of

19:47 this community we'll be seeing each

19:49 other we'll be hearing each other soon

19:51 with more stories to share an exciting

19:54 guest to introduce so thank you so much

19:56 olea for your time and we're super lucky

19:59 to have you today thank you so much

20:01 elisa appreciate it

20:04 [Music]

20:11 you