Her Story
About Dhivya
Dhivya Sreedhar is a founding engineer and software developer specializing in software development, machine learning research, and startup engineering. She earned her bachelor's degree in computer science from Anna University in India and her master's degree from CMU. After beginning to code in high school and completing internships, Dhivya started her full-time career in 2022 at Zoho Corporation, where she worked on security features and products. She has since served as a founding engineer for almost three startups, including her current role at a stealth-stage startup in an operational industry where the team ships code daily and engages directly with customers worldwide. Dhivya has published four research papers and holds one provisional patent. She attributes her success to taking risks and pushing beyond her comfort zone, supported by mentors, and values accountability, curiosity, and responsibility in her work. She also mentors others in side projects and works with non-profits.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Dhivya
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to taking a lot of risks and pushing myself out of my comfort zone. I had a good enough job that paid the bills but wanted to take the leap, get out of India, pursue a harder degree, and dream more for myself. Conversations with mentors who had the same journey and the people who gave me my first, second, third opportunities also played a big role.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I received is not to take the traditional route. In tech, the traditional path is get good grades, do projects, go work for a big tech company. But working at startups has been really rewarding because the growth is exponential. You get to directly work with the customer and learn a lot. Over 3 or 4 years at a startup you learn so much versus a big organization where there's not a lot of accountability.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would advise young women to do a lot of things that have not been done before and not look for the regular route. Your peers may be working on different projects but that doesn't mean you have to do the same. Experiment and do a lot of different things and figure out what works for you. With AI and tools available today, almost 90% of things are accessible on the internet so you don't really have the constraint of getting a degree.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenge right now is with AI there's a lot of AI slop so you don't really know what's true or verifiable information. Even when coding or building, make sure it actually makes sense for the product or use case and verify what's true and factual. The biggest opportunity is that there are no limits for what is achievable. With AI today you can build a half-demo-able product in 24 hours without needing four or five people, so shipping things in volume really fast is super doable.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
The values most important to me are accountability, not waiting for people to tell you what to do but being accountable for your work and delivering on metrics. Always being curious and learning a lot not just in your field but other people's work so you can learn and grow. Being more planned, taking prerogative of planning things and delivering on time, and being more responsible.
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