Her Story
About Sanjana
I'm a Senior Software Engineer at Microsoft, where I've been in this role for almost 2 years after working as a software engineer with the same team for about 5 years. My day-to-day work is a mix of coding, design, and working with customers and PMs to understand issues and product details. With respect to coding, it's more of implementing the features that we want to deliver, and that includes bug fixes and operational improvements - anything that makes the product better. With respect to design, it's more of an architectural review of how we want to get things going and figure out the tech stack. One of my most notable achievements was last year when we were working on AI agents and had to deliver an enterprise-grade agents platform within tight timelines of 3 to 5 months. We were able to do that, and it really helped with laying the foundation for Microsoft's Foundry, which is the current AI platform that we offer. Being part of the foundational team and doing it from scratch, being able to build that, and seeing the number of customers and the increase in the growth of the product adoption is something that I'm really proud of.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Sanjana
01What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would say don't doubt or wait for an opportunity. Just go for it when you are confident and you want to do it. As a woman, we have the tendency to seek for permission and assume that maybe I'm not ready, when we are totally ready. I think just not listening to that voice and going ahead with self-confidence to do what you think you want to do, and learn from it. If you fail, that's the maximum worst case that's going to happen. There's nothing more than that, so I would say, believe in yourself, don't doubt, and don't wait for an opportunity.
02What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I think this field right now is a highly dynamic and fast-growing, fast-paced field. I feel a lot of things keep changing, and being able to keep up to that speed, learn what's going on, and contribute and just put yourselves there is the most challenging part, I would say. Sometimes once you get into something, you'll get comfortable, and you want to dive deep into that, and at that moment, we lose touch of what might be going on and how it might affect the future of the way we do work. So I would say keeping up with the fast pace and dynamic changes is what's most challenging.
03What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
From work life-wise, I would say being able to have a commitment and stick to it is something that I believe in. I think when you're looking at any work, whether it's in tech or anything non-tech or any work related, I would say having the commitment to do what you have promised for and being able to deliver that is what I always try to live up to. Additionally, I think along with the commitment, being able to learn from your mistakes and being able to own it is what helps you move forward, because without that, I think we have the fear of making mistakes, and you either don't try, or you are always afraid of mistakes. So I think being able to own up, learn from it, and pick yourself up and move forward is what I stick to at work. It helps me try different things and learn more. And at personal level, I think it's mostly the same, I would say, after a long time working, your work and personal personality just merges. But in addition to that, I also always believe in having a clear separation between work and personal life. I don't like mixing the two, and having dedicated hours for each of it helps me focus and give my 100% for both.
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