Her Story
About Bharti
I'm an engineering leader in quality and technical program management at Meta, where I've been for the past 11 months. I'm responsible for quality and automation of Meta AI app and all the wearable devices, predominantly smart glasses and other devices that are being worked on which are not out in the market yet. My role involves making sure all the user journeys are working as expected, driving initiatives with engineering teams on what should be the area of focus, reviewing what the quality looks like currently, putting together practices for automation and scaling that automation up. With my team, I go through the features we are doing in the cycles, review the quality, and make sure I'm able to coach them to do their best work and also grow in their own career. I'm very hands-on, so my day-to-day includes writing automation and using AI a lot these days, building systems for myself that will help improve productivity not just for me but for the entire team. I have about 14 years of experience in my field. I started with my computer science engineering degree in India in 2011, then worked in India for 3 years before moving to the United States in 2014. I completed my master's in software engineering from 2014 to 2016, building a solid software engineering foundation. After my master's, I started at Amazon where I spent five and a half years. Amazon laid the foundation for me in good software engineering principles and quality principles, and I really align with all their leadership principles, particularly ownership and thinking big. I learned to own what I'm working on and own it as a leader instead of an individual contributor, which laid the foundation for me leading teams initially without influence and without authority. By learning and handling bigger and bigger projects, I now lead a team of my own. Before Meta, I worked at Apple for about 4 years, contributing to Vision Pro, iOS, and Mac OS. Working at Apple and contributing to state-of-the-art products is what I would say is the highlight of my career so far.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Bharti
01What do you attribute your success to?
I've been blessed with great mentors, but more importantly, my family, who is so supportive of me. If there is any crazy idea in my head, I would run it by my family - my mom, my sister. I think I'm someone who thinks out loud, and for me to brainstorm, I need to talk to someone, and then the ideas keep flowing. So I would say my family and the mentors who've given me the opportunity to work on different things, and also giving me stretch goals and pushing me to do better. These are the two key factors I would say.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
One of my very good friends, who was also my manager at Amazon early on, asked me right after my first promotion, 'What's next for you?' I told him I just got promoted, so I don't know, I'll keep on doing the job that I'm doing and grow into it. But isn't it too early to ask what's next? He said he is always, always looking at his next level, his next move. Basically, if you do something good, just don't dwell on it, do something else better. That just clicked with me so well, and I have carried it through my professional life and personal life - keep getting better and better, and do not just settle. When you do something good, do something better the next time.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I am learning to be a better leader, to balance everything. So to a young woman who is starting her career out, I would say don't ever shrink yourself down. If you get into a meeting and you feel overwhelmed, trust that this is normal, happens to everybody, even senior executives. You just have to understand what is your unique skill and how you bring in impact, and don't shy away from tooting your own horn. That is very important in this industry.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
Sometimes there are so many different priorities, and different stakeholders have conflicting roadmaps and priorities. So working on something that you believe is fruitful for the organization, for quality, but also not getting so stuck in that belief - you have to think of a bigger picture, not just your own team and your neighboring team. You have to think from a business standpoint, and sometimes conflicting roadmaps and conflicting priorities do pose challenges. You just have to approach it smartly and see where the investment of time makes the most sense. Learning is a motivator for a lot of people - what do I learn out of this? But it should also be how is the entire organization benefiting from the initiatives that I'm taking on.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
For personal life, I would say I get along with people who are honest and authentic. I wouldn't have it any other way. Funnily enough, authenticity is something that is very desirable to me in professional life also. And transparency, because I see it this way - if you're not transparent with the people that you're working for, you are taking away huge success from your team. People do their job much better when they feel supported and valued, and I think transparency and honesty is the first step to building that trust. The values in work I would say are transparency, trust, and honesty, but also being in charge of your own career.
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