Her Story
About Soumya
I am a software engineer at Tesla, where I've been working in the software industry for about 3-4 years now. It's been really good - a lot of learning, learning about new technology and trends in the market and applying it, and creating impact. My typical day is a 9-to-5, with fun projects, some meetings, a lot of brainstorming, and of course, coding. It's a mix of coding and collaboration. One of my most notable professional achievements was doing an initiative where we migrated data from a legacy system to a newer system - billions of records, which was a very complex migration that made it possible for us to generate a lot of efficiency for our users. What I love most about my career is learning from my team. I think everybody is super smart, motivated, and talented. At Tesla, there is no such thing that you cannot come up with a great idea if you're younger - we have interns teaching us every day. Everybody brings a new perspective, and it's very fun to engage and learn from everyone.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Soumya
01What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I've ever received is that it's okay to make mistakes. I know that sounds kind of cliche, but in the beginning, when you join a new industry, and it's a big company, and there's people that have more experience, you kind of are scared to ask questions or do something wrong. And I think that just slows your growth immensely. So don't be afraid to make mistakes. Don't be afraid to ask questions. Let your curiosity take over and just be a sponge and absorb all of the information that's out there, at least in the beginning of your career. I've just been trying to do that.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
One advice would be to not be intimidated. I think there's people that come from different walks of life and have their own story, but your journey is yours alone, so you should not be intimidated by people around you, because whatever you do also is making an impact. Try to focus on that, and try to keep getting better rather than comparing yourself to anybody else.
03What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
In terms of opportunities, every problem that you face on a day-to-day basis, whether it is how to make a simple piece of code more optimal or more efficient, that's an opportunity as well. Of course, there's bigger opportunities where you get to work on bigger products, things that are more high visibility, high impact, but I see every day, every time as an opportunity and a challenge too, to pull out your creative skills to find a solution that may not be something that's ever been tried before, but might be the best fit here. In terms of challenges that we face, most of the challenges are what everybody in the industry right now is facing. We are trying to work with AI to make our code more readable, more efficient, more optimal, so we face those challenges as well.
04What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Some of the values that are really important at work for me would be being dedicated, taking responsibility for everything that you own, and having that accountability. And at the same time, being collaborative, helpful, and patient while you're working with everyone else, and just being professional and respectful of everybody else's time. Personally, I think things that are important for me are being hardworking, dedicated, disciplined, and also just being a nice, kind person.
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