Anne Pauley
I've been in my field for about 10 years now, and my career path has been shaped by my interest in combining creative fields with engineering and science. In college, I double majored in engineering and music, which led me into product development and robotics - a good combination of those interests because it's a very open-ended, problem-solving type of field. I'm most proud of the way I've navigated through a really wide range of companies and fields within the Silicon Valley ecosystem. Working in consulting for years, I was able to work with basically every industry at some point or another, and then I moved through the startup world, the biotech sector, and eventually went into big tech working on mass-produced consumer electronics. As a technical program manager, I work with groups of people on solving issues and making decisions between teams, but I also work on technical projects, mainly design for manufacturing and assembly. A typical day involves meeting with engineering and operations teams to work through our top issues on both engineering and assembly problems, as well as cost analysis, to work out what the best path forward is for our product architecture decisions.
• Double major in Engineering and Music
• Board of Directors at The Crucible in Oakland
• Burning Man Project
• Flaming Lotus Girls arts collective
What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to what we call 'doocracy' in Burning Man and arts culture - you don't have to wait for someone to tell you what to do, you just do what you think has to be done. This approach of taking initiative and not waiting for permission has been key to how I've moved through my career and accomplished what I have.
What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would say you don't have to get things right on the first try. Right now, most people's first job is not the job that they stay in forever. You just have to do what seems like the best thing - make the best decisions you can at the time and kind of keep going from there.
What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I would say the global supply chain is a difficult thing to navigate right now. That's one of the biggest challenges in my field.
What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Right now, the thing that I'm working on the most is just health. As I'm now in my 30s, I'm making sure that I'm on top of my health and not driving myself into the ground, and also not working too hard. That's something that I've definitely done in previous years, so maintaining my health and not overworking are the values I'm focusing on most.
Locations
Oakland, CA