On Leaving Google and Joining edX

Hello,

Mostly I have used this blog to detail my life updates and travels, but I am switching gears here as I want to update everyone on my recent career experiences. Please note as you read this post that you are reading my personal truth and experiences. I am happy to share more with friends, womxn, and POC but largely uninterested in explaining myself or proving the truth of my story to people who are suspect of my experiences.

Last year I graduated from Wellesley and moved to Seattle to start work at Google as an Engineering Resident. Engineering Residency is marketed as an incredible opportunity to “kickstart” your career, but what I found in my work there was an apparent diversity program with discriminatory recruitment practices, an egregious wage gap, and condescending treatment of their employees. As a woman in software engineering it’s difficult enough to feel valued, seen and heard in the room without a company creating a second class community for you to work in. Each day I went to work at Google I felt less and less valued until I realized that I was crying in the bathroom most days and so stressed I’d developed stress-induced medical conditions. Google claims that being an engineering resident builds confidence and sets you up for career success, but my confidence took a massive hit as my mental health deteriorated working for a company that did not value me or most women in general.

Luckily for me I have a wide network of friends and connections in New England who connected me to opportunities and helped me find a new role in Boston. I’m thrilled to be rebuilding my confidence as an engineer at edX and to continue growing in my expertise as an engineer. I know that I have always been smart and hard working, but we all need to work somewhere where we are valued for being smart and hard working. Google was always doubtful of whether I was smart enough or hard working enough and it was insulting. Embedding a fundamentally condescending nature in an educational program is another misstep Google has made with their residency program. It’s high stress with little reward when engineers could work in places that value them and their identities from the beginning.

I know first hand as a woman in tech that I have to prove myself over and over to be taken seriously. Even in high school when I made perfect scores in my CS courses, and many of the boys failed, I was bullied for out performing. Sometimes when we’re clearly good we’re still damned. It’s a tricky game we’re all playing to build a community that is truly diverse and inclusive. All I want to share now is my story, experience and feelings as a backdrop to help you consider which environment you want to work in. Ask yourself if you’re being valued, if you’re being paid equitably, and if you’re happy.

There’s a lot more I could say about my ten months at Google, how we rallied people to fight against the injustices we were observing, how we gathered support from engineers outside of Engineering Residency, and how we gathered evidence to support our claims and experiences so that we could enact institutional change. However, I am legally bound against sharing many of these details publicly and I would like to protect all of the people who worked with me on our movement to ask Google to do better and treat us better. You do not have to believe that Google discriminates against people or that I had a negative experience there, but if you are a past, present or prospective engineering resident and you ever want to talk I’m happy to share more about my experience and help you get out of the fire.

Now that I work as a software engineer at edX I am still struggling with what it means to be an underrepresented minority and how to navigate advocacy with self-preservation, but I am also feeling valued and happy with my work. My health and happiness have improved dramatically and all it took was a workplace where I was an equal human to my peers. I know that no workplace is a perfect workplace, but many workplaces are not worth the suffering. Realizing when and where to move on was an important lesson for me. I hope all the underrepresented minorities out there in their respective industries will value themselves highly, and take what they’re worth. Trust me; it’s worth it.

The Summer From Middle to End - A Recap

Note that I wrote this over the course of weeks starting with July 30, 2016 and ending the day it was published. It's largely unedited.

Now as I leave Indonesia I realize I haven't written a blog post in weeks. I've been so busy that I haven't found the time, and so distant that I haven't really found the words. After my last post I've been mostly busy with work in Jakarta, but I did manage to visit the national museum one day.

The national museum wasn't the best museum I've been to, but they had some cool china, models of traditional homes across Indonesia, and a giant map of Indonesia that I got a picture in front of. Ega and I went to the museum with her friend Stephanie and Stephanie's family who are all from Oklahoma but live in Jakarta. Stephanie and her husband Anthony are missionaries who run a church for Afghan and Iranian refugees in Jakarta. They also helped work with the people who established the school for refugees that I visited a while back. It was really wonderful to meet them and their family.

After another week MIA exploring Berlin and Budapest and then working in OK I am finally writing this giant combination blog post. Time to fit the world onto a page; wish me luck.

After spending almost two months in Jakarta, with a brief trip to Singapore, Ega and I escaped to Bali where we worked/played for a week before flying to Lombok where we would take a boat trip from Lombok to Labuan Bajo over four days stopping to hike and snorkel along the way. We booked our trip through the company Wanua Adventures and initially got scammed by one of their websites since they have two and one of them is being used by former employees-turned criminals. So, if you're booking a boat trip in Indonesia don't use this site: wanuaadventure.com (although it looks like the site was finally taken down so maybe they've fixed it).

The boat trip was rough sometimes, but really pretty great. We slept on this small upper deck, but it wasn't too crowded since there were only about twenty of us. The company on the boat trip was pretty amazing since there were people from all over the world, well mostly Europe. It was fun to sit on the boat and hear people speaking Bahasa, French, Spanish, and Dutch all at the same time. Of course all of us spoke English too which made it fun to get to know each other. So many of the people on the boat with me were crazy world travelers who had been to the most interesting places. They had stories I wasn't sure I'd want to experience, but was interested to hear about traveling all over south Asia and getting themselves into rough spots. I'm not sure after a year of traveling to more places than I ever thought I'd go in a whole lifetime (one year, ten countries) that I still want to be a crazy world traveler, but I also dream of all the places I want to go and think that maybe I'll never stop.

Overall my favorite part of that boat trip was certainly getting to meet so many new and delightful people. I had a great time learning about where they were from and hearing their stories. My only regret is being the only American on that boat since I had to explain our gross political issues to everyone. Luckily they understood that Donald Trump's presidential campaign and the number of shootings in the US weren't my fault.

Another really neat part of the trip was getting to see the Komodo national park and a few Komodo dragons. They were a little scary to me, but I enjoyed getting to see them. I also enjoyed just being out in the middle of the ocean and seeing more stars that I imagined even existed.

After we landed in Labuan Bajo we took much-needed showers, and then found our way to the local fish market for dinner. At the market Ega and her friend Vera talked with a woman who ran one of the little stalls there about the fish and then picked a couple of them out. We also got a fried squid. It was honestly the best fish I've had in my life. We ate it with our hands and made a great big mess and I loved it. Writing this now that I've left Indonesia makes me miss the delicious food I tried there. Ega says there's an Indonesian food festival in Boston, so I think I'm going to have to attend.

Being in Indonesia wasn't always the easiest experience for me, but it was life-changing and unforgettable at every moment. I wasn't so sure I'd make it that far east again, but thinking about how Padang food tastes may just help me buy another plane ticket...

After I left Indonesia I headed to Berlin. It was a long trip with one 8 hour flight to Abu Dhabi and another 6 hour flight to Berlin. In Abu Dhabi I ate pizza for breakfast and tried to adjust myself to a new timezone. Then I had security in Berlin and a crowded baggage check to survive before finding my Hungarian friend Balázs waiting for me at the gate exit. We headed together to find bus tickets and then to begin our adventure for the next few days around the city.

On our first day we took things a little easy and just explored our neighborhood eating dinner, drinking wine in a park while the sun set and then finding ourselves in an "American" diner where these Canadians posed as southerners playing old country songs. I joked with the Canadians, and laughed at the decor realizing the place looked just like Ada's Blue Moon Cafe with a less good jukebox. It was quite a night.

On Sunday we woke up early and made our way to the city's museum island to start our adventure of seeing roughly 15 museums in one week. Berlin was exhausting and amazing and beautiful and rainy. When I left I realized that I just had to go back again soon. There's too much to see in that great big city

The adventure continued with our flight to Budapest. We went to the opera (Billy Elliott is so good in a foreign language that I'm gonna have to see the English version), picnicked at Margít Sziget, went to our favorite bars and clubs, and stayed in an adorable flat. It was such a great week and a wonderful way to make my way home.

Home is a place I go so rarely these days, but it's always my center point. It's like I leave America and go all these places that shock, challenge, and intimidate me and then I just fly back to where I can cut the g's off my gerunds and drink the best sweet tea in the whole wide world. Oklahoma calls it's self the heartland of America but it's really the heartland of my heart too. My center of the universe and I'm always so thankful to stop in for some ice cream, a good burger, and a bunch of naps every now and then.

This post was long overdue, and now I'm back at Wellesley. Trying to keep myself from being "too busy" for everything. And decidedly making an effort to keep blogging through my senior year. Here's to the end and an adventure in nostalgia, job searches, and many many lessons.

Underground:
I'm too tired to really really write this right now, but I wanted to confirm that yes this "Hungarian friend" is actually my dear dear boyfriend. Also, he's the same Hungarian friend/boyfriend I've been dating since Budapest. We never really parted our ways, I realized relationships of convenience are a way of lying to yourself about being afraid to let love be love, and I dove in. Call my life a romantic comedy, make a movie about me (looking @ you Christine), or just ask me about it some time. Long distance is an interesting life experience, and love is an indescribably good one.

I went to a lot of Hindu temples in Bali, and I felt a little out of place, but they are very beautiful!

I think of lángos as the Hungarian version of Indian tacos.

These beer boots get even bigger. Thank you America. Also, shoutout to Jack and Christine for being cute.

The best cheese plate of my life.

Gorgeous Hungarian countryside. Probably gonna run away and live in an abandoned castle one day soon.

Very very cool exhibit in Szentendre where all the keys are hanging from tangled red string.

Taken in Budapest's Opera House. So beautiful!

This summer wore me out!

Finding Dory and Snorkeling at the Coral Reef

On last Thursday night Hans, Ega, Ega's friend Adam and I went to the Grand Indonesian mall for dinner and to see Finding Dory. Hans and I ate delicious Javanese food and then got these waffles with ice cream for dessert. Then we went to the big theater in the top of the mall. The movie tickets were less than $5 USD which is insanely cheap, and the theater is really nice and new.

The movie was so funny and cute and wonderful. Everyone should see it. How does Pixar manage to constantly out do themselves?! It was fun to watch it with Indonesian subtitles as Hans and I were able to pick up a few words.

On Friday Hans, Ega, and I did our work in our favorite coffee shop and then Hans and I cooked dinner together. I attempted to make tacos but ended up making really ridiculous and pancake-like tortillas. We still ate them and they tasted fine. Hans even brought black beans from the US, but we realized we'll have to find a can opener now before we can eat them.

I also finally caved and bought some cheddar cheese for the tacos. Unfortunately the cheese tastes "false" to put it in Hans words. I'll still probably eat it and be happy to have real cheese again once I've made my way back to the western world.

On Saturday Hans and I woke up at 3:45 AM, ate some avocado toast, drank some guava juice and then took a taxi to to north harbor Pelabuhan Kali Adem where we would catch a boat to Puala Harapan, the island where we would explore this weekend. Once the taxi got close to the harbor there was a lot of flooding so he kicked us out of the car to walk. The water was gross and deep so Hans and I got in this man's little cart and paid him about 30 cents to take us across the flooded area. Once we arrived at the harbor we found our boat after a lot of pointing and showing people our trip information text (very few people spoke English).

Once we were on the boat we got a text from the number we were supposed to call when we arrived (we called them before and they did not answer), so we texted back in English and contacted the organizer who helped us arrange the trip. After tons of back and forth and getting hung up on we finally confirmed we got on the right boat. Through this I realized how terrifying language barriers can be. We could've ended up on a boat to anywhere and not known how to get back. And so many people were just spewing streams of Bahasa at us that we couldn't possibly comprehend. It was rough.

Once we arrived at the island someone fetched us from the boat and brought us to a little house where we would stay. And after settling in we ate some food and got on a boat to begin our day of adventuring and snorkeling around the nearby islands. Snorkeling was pretty fun and the coral reef was neat to see in person. Of course it's sad to see the obvious damage that has happened to the reef, but it's still so beautiful and fun to swim with the fish.

After snorkeling and watching the sunset on the dock at one of the islands we went back to our cabin and ate before falling asleep. We woke up to attend a fish barbq that night, but ended up leaving in order to sleep more since we were so exhausted.

On Sunday we woke up to tour around more islands (fun fact there are 179 little islands included in Indonesia's Thousand Islands outside Jakarta and only 7 of them are inhabited). On Sunday we went to a couple special islands as they were owned by the family of Suharto, the second president of Indonesia. It was a little weird to explore the islands, but also kind of neat. After exploring we packed up and got on the boat to go back to Jakarta.

Sunday night Hans and I reunited with Ega, grabbed dinner from our favorite Warung and headed to sleep to get ready for the work week.

On Monday we spent the day working in a cafe with Hans and then I made some good old American food for dinner (pasta, mashed potatoes, and broccoli).

On Tuesday night I got brave and tried some street food. Ega and I bought chicken and goat sate and some fried noodles. The sate was good, but not my favorite. Turns out goat meat is really chewy...

Now I'm looking forward to a quieter weekend full of a bit of work, board games and sleep.

Bad news is I still haven't found a post office. Maybe I will this weekend, but I'm sorry if it takes a while.

Underground:

My current name for Jakarta is Jankarta. Not that clever of a pun, but a necessary one. After watching kids swim in dirty trash water next to the harbor on Sunday I lost it. This city is the grossest place I've ever been and I can hardly tolerate it. I am not too happy about the mosquitoes or the ants everywhere (in the shower and my water and my bed) either. I really wouldn't recommend that any friend visit this insane place unless they're sure of what they're getting into.

I feel a little bad for hating it here and mildly culturally insensitive, but then I realize that it's actually costing me years of my life to survive in this polluted hell hole so I'm not that sorry. I'm happy to enjoy the culture and the food but when it comes with stinky, trash-filled streets I'm ready to run away.

At least I can play frisbee tonight with some nice ex-pats and pretend that this place doesn't suck.

I don't have a poem for this city yet, but I'm not sure it's gonna be a sweet one. It's complicated here and it makes me guilty and sad and angry and grossed the fuck out.