Her Story
About Gayathri
Gayathri Balakumar serves as a lead data engineer at Capital One, where she has spent more than 10 years in the fintech industry. Her expertise centers on data engineering, cloud migration, and generative AI. She earned a Bachelor's of Engineering from Anna University and maintains AWS and Databricks certifications. Gayathri is a senior member of IEEE and participates in the Worldwide Women's Association. Beyond her professional role, she mentors and speaks at Dallas AI and has judged multiple hackathons. She attributes her success to leaders who trusted her capabilities and to the mentors and sponsors who have guided her career. Gayathri advises young women entering the field to bring their best to the table, remain unafraid to learn new technologies, and collaborate effectively while creating safe spaces for authentic contributions within teams.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Gayathri
01What do you attribute your success to?
I would definitely attribute my success to some of the leaders who have trusted me, even though I was in the industries, senior leaders that have trusted that I would deliver. I was not even though I did not know a particular technology, I have never backed down because of that, and so I think I continued to work on that same problem, and worked on several interesting problems.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
During my tenure in Capital One, I've had the opportunity to talk to several of the women in tech leaders who have walked that path before. Something that stands out is does your manager know what you're doing, and advice on how to get a mentor and a sponsor. There should be sponsors who can advocate for you. I attribute my success because I've had good amount of mentors and sponsors.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
For me, it has always been bringing my best to the table, and I've also never been holding myself back. I have never been afraid to learn. Some of the things that I have done in the past required quite a bit of learning new technologies and the technologies changing. So you have to always be ready to learn, and to collaborate and also bring your best to the table and then I think the rest should follow.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
Right now, there is a huge challenge because of AI, because some of the things it is able to provide, but at the same time we have to justify our work end of the day, and we are held responsible as engineers for the product. The knowledge of an engineer is becoming more and more valuable. The opportunities in data engineering: if we could get real-time analysis, and improve upon that, and notice customer behavior, and do a deeper analysis, then we could provide more value.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Some of the values that I take personally is somebody trusted in me at one point of my life, so that's why I'm trying to do the same for someone when someone newly joins the team, giving back to the society, so that's why I do a lot of these mentorships. One of the values is giving a safe space in the team for everyone, that is wonderful personally, really carry very deeply, because if the team members are able to bring their authentic self to the table, and then we all come work together, then whatever product we are building is definitely going to be successful.
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