Sajeda Noor

I have to say, a lot of it is due to the people around you, the community that you have around you. When I first quit med school, I was at a loss in terms of what I was going to do next, and I was in New York City, which is a very expensive city. I was lucky enough to have some friends who said, hey, why don't you think about tech? Just like most people who work in tech, they kind of just fall into it, and that's what ended up happening here. It's really allowed me to live in New York City, to develop a real life here, a real community here, to meet my husband here, all of these things. I mention it to my friends who recommended that I go into this all the time about how much they've changed my life for the better by pursuing this career. I'm so grateful now to be in a place where I'm comfortable, I have a roof over my head, we can pay for the groceries for now. Part of that is it's really important for me to push that forward. Any one of my friends in whatever industry they're in, I'm always happy to look at resumes, to step in, and support. There were times where I felt pretty lost, and even if I had some community, I wasn't sure where to go in those moments. Those are the moments that I really clock in my mind and kind of over-serve in my community, whether that's helping people with groceries or helping them stabilize their life for a few days so they can think about what the next step is.

Don't be afraid to ask the question, ask for what you need, and see where the cards fall, versus always preempting what you think an answer's gonna be and not asking in the first place. I've seen this so many times, for myself in the beginning of my career, and then also for my colleagues and people that I've mentored, that there's just a lot of hemming and hawing in terms of what's needed for them, and whether they have the ability to request this within their professional world. And the answer to that is yes. It's just how you do it, and that's where it's really important to have a mentor, or someone to speak to within the industry, or even just someone who's seasoned to talk through how to navigate that conversation. But never let it go, because if you do, not only does that impact you now, it impacts your future value decades from now, and it will impact your ability to retire and all those things. Write down what you need, and create a coalition for yourself so that you feel strong, standing on the shoulders of others for what you need. And that will make you much more successful than just trying to do it on your own.

Make friends, network, network, reach out to people on LinkedIn, through the network that you might already have, and if you don't have, be bold, and reach out. Cold reach out to people on LinkedIn. You never know who will respond and how they'll follow up with you. Especially in New York, and especially in tech, it's very hard to get a job off the bat, but if you're part of a network and people know you, your chances of getting that role exponentially increase. I also am very much an open book. If anyone wants to reach out to me and talk tech, I am very happy to have that discussion, especially for folks coming from more underrepresented demographics. But really, for anyone, I don't really mind talking to anyone. Just build that network, and frankly, LinkedIn is a fabulous tool for that.

Tech is going through huge seismic shifts right now. I liken it to an earthquake in terms of how AI is impacting everything. It's impacting everything in terms of workflows, it's impacting how people are decisioning at the executive level, it's impacting at every level of work that I've ever seen, not only within the tech space, but beyond that. Part of that is great, that's really exciting, but we need to be measured. This is a completely new technology, and if we implement it in a way that's not strategic and thoughtful, a lot of people are going to suffer. We're going to have a lot of job loss, we're already seeing that across Oracle, across Meta, Microsoft - hundreds of thousands of people have lost jobs. I think AI can have a place in humanity, but it is not a place to replace people. It also obviously has to solve for its sustainability and environmental issues before we can truly utilize it the way it should be utilized for human need. With challenges, always there are opportunities, and there's a place right now to influence how AI is being built, to write our thought pieces, to speak to our congresspeople, to speak to our thought leaders at our companies, and influence them in terms of how AI is to be utilized, how it's to be used, how it's to be built. That's happening right now, and there's a really big opportunity there for anyone who wants to get into that to be a voice in that room.

I truly believe in integrity. If my name is on it, I will do my best to make it reflect my values. I have to say, working in tech, sometimes that is compromised to some degree, and that's the nature of working in a corporate and capitalist system. So the way that I answer for that is by having that integrity within my person, and in the way that I behave towards others. I'm a strong believer in independence, so in the ways that I work, in the friendships that I have, or whatever I do, I always make sure that everyone knows that they are free to make whatever decisions that they want, and to try to create an environment where people feel comfortable to make the decisions that are right for them. I believe in safety, making sure that people are safe to share what they want to share, and how they want to collaborate, and just really create actual work versus posturing and all that other political, corporate political nonsense that often happens. In terms of my personal values, I think of integrity, I think of independence, and creating an atmosphere of collaboration, of acceptance, and of safety. I was reading this Harvard Business Review study on increasing group intelligence, and they found that if you create an atmosphere where there's no judgment, where you can just ask the stupidest question on the planet, and no one will judge you for it, and you just kind of move on and collaborate and build, that increases group intelligence. I've always tried to create that kind of atmosphere in the teams that I've worked on.