Rupa Dachere's guest appearances

Rupa Dachere

OVS Orbit

Larry Peterson

Alex Ellis

Dave Hunt

Josh Bailey

Peter Phaal

Brian O'Connor

Jesse Gross

Greg Ferro

Nicholas Gray

Kyle Mestery

Chang Kim

Cloudbase Solutions

Dave Neary

Frederick Kautz

Simon Horman

OwlTail

      This episode's guest is Rupa Dachere, an engineer at VMware and the      executive director and founder of CodeChix, a 501(c)3 charity dedicated to      education, advocacy and mentoring of women engineers in industry and      academia.  Rupa founded CodeChix because she found that, regardless of      where she worked in the computer industry, she was the only woman on the      team, which led to difficulties in advancing and keeping up with      technologies that continue to pop up.  The organization started out with      small group meetings at Rupa's house, grew slowly through meetups and      regular meetings, and now boasts over 400 women engineers as members.           The topic of this episode is primarily DevPulseCon, a two-day      technical and educational micro-conference focused on women engineers,      developers, users, administrators and geeks working in industry and      academia.  The conference began in 2015 as Coder[xx] with about 100      attendees, grew to about 120 in 2016, and this year's edition has already      sold over 200 tickets.  DevPulseCon takes place April 20 and 21, at the      Computer History Museum in      Mountain View.  It is sold out, except for a number of tickets reserved      for students, who may use discount code STUDENT-FREE to register      for free tickets.           DevPulseCon has three components: technical talks, panel discussions, and      hands-on workshops.  The full agenda for      DevPulseCon is already posted.  For those unable to attend in person, the      technical talks and possibly some of the panels will be recorded and made      available through the DevPulseCon and CodeChix YouTube channels,      alongside the videos that are already available from 2015 and 2016.           This year DevPulseCon features three panel discussions, which are      popular, interactive parts of the conference that tend to run over their      time budgets because the audience doesn't want to stop talking.  Rupa is      moderating a panel on toxic environments, which tend to affect women more      strongly than men, for reasons that are not well established.  To      encourage participation, the panels are “safe space panels,” meaning      that social media use is banned during the panels and attendees are      encouraged to forget who says what.           Rupa gives some advice on interviewing women for engineering roles.  Some      of it I had heard before in unconscious bias training, but some of it was      new to me and easy to act on:           With women, you do a little extra background, reading up on what their      interests are, what drives them, and then phrase your question along      those lines, maybe have a few outlier questions if you think they'll be      able to answer it impromptu, and go that way.  Most women like to have a      scripted set of questions, to make them feel comfortable when they're      going into an interview, so they know what to prep for essentially.           Rupa says that CodeChix's primary goal is not recruiting of women to      engineering roles but retention in engineering roles:              Recruiting becomes a secondary [goal]... but retention is and always        has been the focus for CodeChix and that is mainly because of the way I        feel about it.  I've been in the industry, I've been on the technical        ladder and actually I've fought to stay on the technical ladder.  Most        places they will try to push you into program management, project        management, some sort of management track, and you really have to fight        to stay on the technical ladder...               Now that I have CodeChix, I know that I'm not the only one.  That has        always been and still is the number one goal of CodeChix, to retain the        women engineers who are on the technical ladder, keep them on the        technical ladder.  In fact, this year I am going to go ahead and say        that I have invited program managers and product managers to the        conference—and these are all people with CS degrees and EE degrees,        that are very qualified—I want to bring them back into the technical        ladder, out of their program management and product management tracks,        and see if I can do that...               I personally feel that it is really a horrible thing if you try to push        somebody who is a good engineer out of the technical track into        something else that, maybe they might be good at it, maybe they're not        good at it, I don't know...  I don't want to waste them because it's so        difficult to find good engineers...  Also, I'm tired of being the only        female on the team again.              Ben tells a funny anecdote from the beginning of Nicira, but you'll have      to listen to hear it.           DevPulseCon and CodeChix are available through their websites and all      your favorite social media channels.  You may also get in touch with them      through email at contact@devpulsecon.org or contact@codechix.org.           OVS Orbit is produced by Ben Pfaff.  The      intro music in this episode is Drive,      featuring cdk and DarrylJ, copyright 2013, 2016 by Alex.  The bumper      music is Yeah Ant      featuring Wired Ant and Javolenus, copyright 2013 by Speck.  The outro      music is Space      Bazooka featuring Doxen Zsigmond, copyright 2013 by Kirkoid.  All      content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0      Unported (CC BY 3.0) license.    

This episode's guest is Rupa Dachere, an engineer at VMware and the executive director and founder of <a href="http://codechix.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">CodeChix</a>, a 501(c)3 charity dedicated to education, advocacy and mentoring of women engineers in industry and academia. Rupa founded CodeChix because she found that, regardless of where she worked in the computer industry, she was the only woman on the team, which led to difficulties in advancing and keeping up with technologies that continue to pop up. The organization started out with small group meetings at Rupa's house, grew slowly through meetups and regular meetings, and now boasts over 400 women engineers as members. The topic of this episode is primarily <a href="http://devpulsecon.squarespace.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">DevPulseCon</a>, a two-day technical and educational micro-conference focused on women engineers, developers, users, administrators and geeks working in industry and academia. The conference began in 2015 as Coder[xx] with about 100 attendees, grew to about 120 in 2016, and this year's edition has already sold over 200 tickets. DevPulseCon takes place April 20 and 21, at the <a href="http://www.computerhistory.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Computer History Museum</a> in Mountain View. It is sold out, except for a number of tickets reserved for students, who may use discount code STUDENT-FREE to <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/devpulsecon-2017-tickets-31311692114" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">register for free tickets</a>. DevPulseCon has three components: technical talks, panel discussions, and hands-on workshops. The <a href="http://devpulsecon.squarespace.com/agenda/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">full agenda</a> for DevPulseCon is already posted. For those unable to attend in person, the technical talks and possibly some of the panels will be recorded and made available through the DevPulseCon and CodeChix YouTube channels, alongside the videos that are already available from 2015 and 2016. This year DevPulseCon features three panel discussions, which are popular, interactive parts of the conference that tend to run over their time budgets because the audience doesn't want to stop talking. Rupa is moderating a panel on toxic environments, which tend to affect women more strongly than men, for reasons that are not well established. To encourage participation, the panels are “safe space panels,” meaning that social media use is banned during the panels and attendees are encouraged to forget who says what. Rupa gives some advice on interviewing women for engineering roles. Some of it I had heard before in unconscious bias training, but some of it was new to me and easy to act on: <blockquote> With women, you do a little extra background, reading up on what their interests are, what drives them, and then phrase your question along those lines, maybe have a few outlier questions if you think they'll be able to answer it impromptu, and go that way. Most women like to have a scripted set of questions, to make them feel comfortable when they're going into an interview, so they know what to prep for essentially. </blockquote> Rupa says that CodeChix's primary goal is not recruiting of women to engineering roles but retention in engineering roles: <blockquote> Recruiting becomes a secondary [goal]... but retention is and always has been the focus for CodeChix and that is mainly because of the way I feel about it. I've been in the industry, I've been on the technical ladder and actually I've fought to stay on the technical ladder. Most places they will try to push you into program management, project management, some sort of management track, and you really have to fight to stay on the technical ladder... Now that I have CodeChix, I know that I'm not the only one. That has always been and still is the number one goal of CodeChix, to retain the women engineers who are on the technical ladder, keep them on the technical ladder. In fact, this year I am going to go ahead and say that I have invited program managers and product managers to the conference—and these are all people with CS degrees and EE degrees, that are very qualified—I want to bring them back into the technical ladder, out of their program management and product management tracks, and see if I can do that... I personally feel that it is really a horrible thing if you try to push somebody who is a good engineer out of the technical track into something else that, maybe they might be good at it, maybe they're not good at it, I don't know... I don't want to waste them because it's so difficult to find good engineers... Also, I'm tired of being the only female on the team again. </blockquote> Ben tells a funny anecdote from the beginning of Nicira, but you'll have to listen to hear it. DevPulseCon and CodeChix are available through their websites and all your favorite social media channels. You may also get in touch with them through email at <a href="mailto:contact@devpulsecon.org">contact@devpulsecon.org</a> or <a href="mailto:contact@codechix.org">contact@codechix.org</a>. OVS Orbit is produced by <a href="mailto:blp@ovn.org">Ben Pfaff</a>. The intro music in this episode is <a href="http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/AlexBeroza/43098" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Drive</a>, featuring cdk and DarrylJ, copyright 2013, 2016 by Alex. The bumper music is <a href="http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/speck/42100" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Yeah Ant</a> featuring Wired Ant and Javolenus, copyright 2013 by Speck. The outro music is <a href="http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/Kirkoid/43005" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Space Bazooka</a> featuring Doxen Zsigmond, copyright 2013 by Kirkoid. All content is licensed under a Creative Commons <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0)</a> license.

DevPulseCon, with Rupa Dachere from VMware