Her Story
About Archana
I've always been really good at math, and I love computers. I come from Bangalore in India, and computers was introduced at a very young age back there. I was really interested, and I think outside of the curriculum, my first thing that I actually did was I wrote a C program for my mom to help with calculating the bills at home, and that was something outside of the curriculum, and it worked. I was very excited to see how you can get anything done, any difficult task done using programming and computers, and that's what led me to pursue my undergrad in computer science, and then my master's in computer science as one of the students in Northeastern with Dean's Scholarship as well. I worked with professors there, then I did my co-op, then I joined Intuit. I've worked for Charles River Development before as part of while I was studying, and then I worked full-time, interned in Intuit, then did full-time in Intuit. I was one of the foundational engineers in Intuit as well for building an API platform and a gateway, one of the foundational engineers in the ads team as well, so I've had a lot of zero-to-one projects and very exciting ones. My day now looks like a lot of design reviews, getting alignment. Previously, it used to be a lot of coding, versus now, I review a lot of code, I review a lot of system designs, and then I have a lot of alignments as to how things need to be done, and I do scoping of the project, costing of the project, and also assignment of who needs to do what, based on their interests and career growth, and where they are in their career paths.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Archana
01What do you attribute your success to?
I actually think it's probably my passion in the field is part of it, but every time passion just alone doesn't work, passion backed with working hard. I, like I mentioned, I have two kids, but I still try to do everything as much as I can. I went back when my younger one was very young, because that's when I had thought there was a good opportunity and a project for me that I didn't want to lose sight of, and yeah, worked hard and took my rest of maternity leave at a later time. So, hard work, passion, and I think it's also I was lucky enough to be surrounded by people who helped me grow and understand and do better. Because sometimes, you know, when you stop you feel like, oh yeah, I'm good at this, but then you actually look at people around who are much more better, and it just humbles you down, and then yeah, you grow differently.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Don't be scared of failing. I think when I picked projects, I always wanted... early on, I was too scared to take on bigger projects, or more challenging ones, just because I'd be like, what if I couldn't do it? And that would actually impact my ratings, my promos, but in fact, I think you shouldn't be scared to fail. It's fine if you're not able to get it, and it's not just you while doing it. You actually get support from people, and it's... it doesn't mean that it's just... you have to know everything before you jump in. You learn along with it, and get help where it's required, and it's okay to fail in spite of it.
03What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I think all of us in the Silicon Valley and outside know that it's AI, that means it's the 10X moment happening everywhere. So, it's a challenge, because it's very different from what we've known before, and we don't know how it could... how can we flex our muscles in a different way and use it so that we actually get this 10x in terms of everything, 10x productivity, 10x this, and so on. So that's a challenge as well as a great opportunity, because this is something that happens every few years in technology, very, every few generations in technology, like when internet was found or anything like that, so this is the moment, I feel like, where it actually changes and shapes how the rest of the industry would look like and what it is, and we have an opportunity to be a part of it.
04What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
The values that are most important to me in my personal life and work is I always think that you should be growing, or there should be the three things that are important for me at work: either I should be doing extremely important work that I'm very excited about learning new things, or I should be growing in terms of levels and in the career path. And the most important of all is I should always be surrounded by people that I enjoy working, collaborating, and being with. So that's part of... yeah, that's what I... are really important, and that's the one that I value most. People around should be the kind that you want to spend more time with. I think because that has a bigger influence on how you grow as well.
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