Women Engineering Life at CircleCI

Hello everyone!  Recently, I interviewed one of our engineers who belongs to CircleCI’s global product engineering team from Japan, Vivian, and would like to share our engineering life and career path at CircleCI!

Hope you can get insights of working as a woman engineer in CircleCI. Let’s get started!

Introduction

Vivian Lin

(Senior Software Engineer , One Year at CircleCI ) 

Can you Introduce yourself?

I am a CPA-turned-engineer from California who moved to Japan 3 years ago.  Before CircleCI, I’ve worked at B2B2C companies as a frontend engineer. 

What type of turning point (trigger)  that you got interested in an engineering career?

I’ve always been interested in engineering, but chose to attend business school for the opportunities it opened up. I relied heavily on Excel formulas to transform data while I was an auditor, and about a year in, I discovered Codecademy, an online portal for learning programming. It was at that time that I discovered how much I enjoy coding! I then left my job to attend a coding bootcamp and to pursue a full-time career in engineering. 

What made you decided to join CircleCI?

I’ve used CircleCI at my previous company and preferred its simplicity and UI over other CI tools, so when I was looking for new opportunities and saw CircleCI’s job posting, I got very excited and knew I had to apply! I think the most exciting thing about working at CircleCI is that, as an engineer, you’re building for other engineers like yourself. It’s much easier to relate to the software you write if you yourself are an avid user. 

What type of interview process have you had and how does it seems like?

The CircleCI interview process was efficient, and the average turnaround was around a day! I applied through the online portal and got an email the next day from my current manager to schedule a chat. In the past, my image of online portals is that that’s where resumes go to die. I was very impressed by the speed at which feedback was given at every stage of the process. The whole process wrapped up in about 2 weeks! 

Tell me about the day-to-day tasks or projects ?

My workflow depends on the project the team is currently working on. In general, I’ll let my team know when I start my day, grab coffee, and come up with my todos for the day. Then, halfway through my work day, I’ll sync over Zoom with my team to give updates of what I’ve done so far and what I plan to do for the rest of the day. Sometimes the engineers will mob or pair after the sync. 

How do you collaborate with your team members globally?

CircleCI is remote-first, which means we strive to reduce friction for cross-timezone communication. When we have half of the team in APAC, and another half in North America, we rely on a lot of recorded meetings, documentation, and clear hand-off points for any code. We don’t expect anyone to work outside of their self-designated hours just to join a meeting. 

We also have alternating all-hands to ensure that every other one will be timezone-friendly for folks across the globe. 

How does your working style like?

I would describe myself as an autonomous person who enjoys heads-down time paired with the occasional mobbing. I like to bounce ideas off of my teammates and am often inspired by the conversations we have in syncs. 

When I am stuck, I cook or take coffee breaks. More often than not, I will get an epiphany in the middle of hanging laundry and rush back to my desk to write my ideas down.

What type of technologies you have experienced at CircleCI?

As I work mostly in frontend, React is the main framework I work with. However, there’s plenty of technologies we use at CircleCI. Notably, some other ones I work with are Next, TypeScript, Kubernetes, AWS, and Clojure.

How often do you use English and how do you communicate with engineers from other countries? 

English is the main language I use for communication on a daily basis. I also speak Chinese and some Japanese, so if the situation arises, I could switch up the language. 

What do you like about being engineer at CircleCI?

When I read the articles from CirlceCI’s Engineering blog, I was immediately drawn to its culture. The company is incredibly inclusive and strives to always do better. As an engineer, I feel that my input is valued and my wellbeing is cared about by my team. As a result, I can focus on delivering quality work without sacrificing my life outside of work. 

Another plus about engineering at CircleCI is the absence of restrictions for the kind of work you want to work on. I was hired as a frontend engineer, but there’s nothing stopping me from taking on devops-related tasks or proposing product features. 

How was the onboarding process when you joined CircleCI?

I joined CircleCI in October 2020, in the midst of the pandemic. Although I’ve already had a few months of telework experience under my belt, I was still a bit nervous about onboarding remotely. 

To ensure a smooth onboarding, HR and my manager prepared a list of todos that included administrative tasks and readings. I also had a buddy who is also my teammate assigned to me to be my main point of contact if I ran into any problems setting up my environment. My manager repeatedly assured me that it’s perfectly okay to take ample time just to learn and settle into the new environment.

What type of career steps do you want to achieve?

I am in an exploratory phase in my career right now, and whichever path I choose in CircleCI, I hope that I can continue utilizing my background in business and engineering.

Currently, engineering as a career choice for women in Japan is still in the beginning stages. What do you think are the benefits/good points about being an engineer as women? Do you also have any recommendations for the women candidates to give some advice? 

The reality is, software engineering is a male-dominated field. 

I was very lucky that my first offer out of boot camp came from a company that valued mentorship and did not see my experience in business as a minus but as a plus. With that said, I’ve had to put in tremendous effort to fight my imposter syndrome, and to stand by my opinions even if they differ from those of more senior engineers. 

To attract talent and to boost productivity, it’s more important now than ever for companies to embrace inclusivity. This means giving everyone a voice in meetings, regardless of seniority. As engineers, no matter our gender, we can create such a workplace by being kind to one another. 

There is definitely a growing community of female engineers world-wide, and I would love to see that growth in Japan as well. To all the future female engineers out there: believe in yourself! We’re here to lift each other up and to make our own paths. 

#ilooklikeanengineer

Do you have any last comments for the audience?

We’re a friendly bunch! Please reach out to learn more and connect with us :) 

How's your thought? Hope you can get the picture of our engineering team culture at CircleCI!

We are actively looking for energetic engineers who are interested in joining our brand new projects from Japan! We provide full-remote environment with good tech stacks so your interests in our career is very appreciated!

Here's our latest openings and I am looking for your applications soon!

Thank you for reading!