Breaking Through Imposter Syndrome: Preeti Yadav’s Journey Of Growth
It is easy to get trapped in imposter syndrome, especially if you are in a fast-paced and ever-evolving space such as the tech industry. Preeti Yadav refused to be stuck in her limiting beliefs, accepted her mistakes, and unleashed her fullest potential. In this episode, she joins Asmita Puri to look back on how she flawlessly handled several career transitions in the tech industry. From her early days in India to working in Berlin, she shares how she overcame imposter industry and experienced personal and professional growth. Preeti also offers candid insights about the courage to face risks, learning from your mistakes, and the power of having a supportive network of like-minded people.
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Breaking Through Imposter Syndrome: Preeti Yadav’s Journey Of Growth
It's so good to have you and finally have this conversation. Before we get into the conversation, can you introduce yourself to the reader?
Thanks for having me here. My name is Preeti and I have been in the tech industry for many years now, but I have had multiple roles in tech industry as well. Currently, I am working as a Frontend Engineer, but I have also worked as a backend engineer, business analyst as well for bank sector in tech, so I’ve had multiple hats.
Preeti’s Tech Journey
That's the aspect of your career. That's very fascinating and I am excited to dig into it. Walk us through your tech journey that the last decade and then feel free to share any significant challenges or turning points that you want to highlight or walk us through.
I am actually an Electronics and Communication Engineer by degree, but my sister was a computer science graduate, and I got into computer science via her. However, I also got into it because one of my roommates was into it. After college was done, I was preparing for my MBA, but while I was going to collect my certificate, Infosys was actually my first company and they were doing campus recruitment. I just went there by chance because my dad was like, “What's the harm?”
While I was there and I was giving the interview, I actually like my interview quite well and the questions he was asking about problem-solving and what skills you have and also, I scored quite high in assessment, but I guess that was because I was preparing for MB. I got interested because my interviewer asked me analytical questions like, “How do you solve this problem?” I was like, “Okay, interesting.” I joined the company and I was trained in Java first. It's interesting because when I was actually getting my training, when you don't get it, it's very complicated because most of the people in my batch were from computer science, so our instructor kept skipping concepts.
The people just knew what they were talking about.
Encapsulation and abstraction, they would skip through it. I would say these are one of the most basic concepts you need to know if you want to be a backend engineer. I would say that I was quite nervous. You have to write a test at the end and you need to clear it to actually be cleared to go from a trainee to a full-time employee. If you don't play, they do give you a second chance, but if you do not, then you're out the door.
I was actually quite nervous and I started reading this Java book out of nervousness and I realized in one afternoon, in six hours, I had read all the concepts which were bothering me for entirety of two and a half months or so. I understood it very easily, and I said, “Interesting. Maybe it's not an issue with the subject. It's maybe an issue with the trainer and how it was being taught.” Moving forward, I started doing the job, but what we are taught while even in bootcamps or the courses we do online and the work we get are so different. Production-level code is another thing. When we started working, I realized I don't know if I want to do this.
I had a friend who was a frontend developer and he was writing his exam, like he was going through the same process but in a different company and he would sometimes give us questions like, “Do you know how to solve this?” That's how I started getting into frontend a little bit, by trying to solve his problems. I thought, “This is so interesting, actually. You could see on the screen and you can debug it so quicker while the button is not working or maybe the placement of the button's wrong. Why? This is a beautiful thing.”
Very annoying but also beautiful.
Years later, I don't remember last time I wrote because we are all using design systems at this point. I remember that, around three years into the job, I was like, “This is not what I want to do.” I took a career break to prepare for being a frontend engineer, then got a job as a frontend engineer and what we prepare for and the reality of the jobs. I had this senior colleague with me and whenever I would have a problem, he would look at my problem and he'll be like, “It'll take me some time. Could you push a code and then I can pull it on my system and we can look through it?” Whenever he would show me his problem, I would quickly be able to tell what he's doing wrong.
That was the time I realized test development, I would say I really like all the concepts that you talk about it. I know I'm really talking a lot about it. You have just asked the first question but all the questions which we talk about in computer science, they actually came to me because I struggled through them all. When someone would push the code and it was not tested properly and then I would say, “There's a bug.”
Maybe as a junior engineer, you're not given the proper development, but at work, you are doing all the bugs or the tech steps, etc., to get like hands-on experience on the code base as well like, “This would have been caught if there was a proper test case written.” I became a champion for those things in most of the projects or companies I have worked and I am that annoying colleague who will tell you, “You need to write a test case.” This has been my journey so far. I see my career in 3 phases. First phase was I was a backend developer. The second phase was I started as a frontend developer and the third phase is I moved out of India and right now, I'm based in Berlin. I would definitely say that this is the third phase of my career.
Interview Questions, Boot Camps, And ProduInterview Questions, Boot Camps, And Production Codection Code
You said the second phase is different in engineering and then the third phase you are classifying as your move to Berlin. Let's back up a little and I don't think we shared where the first part, the backend engineering and the emphasis and you going to school, all of that is in India. Now you live in Berlin. I'm told to ask so many questions by the way, but first and foremost, can you elaborate on how you think the questions that you are asked during an interview or the bootcamps and things like that, how are they different from the production code or things that you actually end up working on or customer requests and things like that?
I think, especially during bootcamps etc., it makes sense that we come up with live six scenarios which could go wrong, but there are so many scenarios do go wrong. I remember in one of the cases where we pushed something to production and I am seen as a like master, like a person for this particular application.
A subject matter expert.
I tested it end-to-end and said, “Okay. This looks good to me.” I pushed the code in production and 2 or 3 days later, we had a bug. The bug was that when we also send these emails to the users to actually act on certain things, like it’s a CTA, and when they clicked on it, because they have a very specific link, it would not really load and some issue was happening. I was like, “How did I miss this? If only I had written a test case.”
For my sister who is in medicine and does not understand tech but reads this show because she is a very supportive sister, CTA is call to action, which is what we do. When you click on a button, you go to a page. That's the call to action interactions. This is how back in and frontend, or just in general, coding bootcamps or preparation that you do for interviews differs from production environment code. One other thing that I'm hearing is that you are not generalizing all bootcamps. You are saying this particular experience that you had with this bootcamp was not preparing you for actual production level code.
We need to set our expectations correctly that a bootcamp cannot prepare you for a production-level code or issues or what to do and what not to do, etc., because in a very limited period of time, you get to learn a lot of things. It's basically setting you up for tech roles, but it's not really setting you up for a production code, first of all, but also in a team environment.
I'm not sure what is the current situation with bootcamps and how to resolve merge conflicts we are told, but sometimes what happens is someone else changed something and we had a set of code and we did not know that this person is also working on something which could impact us. These are just simple things, and I don't really think bootcamp can prepare us for them. It's just something to look out for and learn from our experience. This is where experience comes in, right?
Imposter Syndrome: There are some simple things in software development you cannot be prepared for even if you underwent a boot camp. Just look out for and learn from experience.
Yeah. Rachel, a friend of mine and also she was on a previous episode of this show, went to a bootcamp in the US and it was a six-month course and that really prepared her for the industry because they would, they would peer program. They would work together in a github or a code management environment and then deal with merge requests and things like that.
When she joined, she was actually very prepared to work in a production or she was relatively prepared, as prepared as you can be. I hear you when you're saying that you did not have that experience of actually working with people, dealing with code management, and delivering that integration, continuous development, and integration during these three months of theoretical concepts being taught to you. None of that happened in those three months.
I hear you. Think that whole undergrad, the companies coming to your campus, picking up a bunch of people and then having them work on these concepts and then guide their tests at the end of three months, I'm sure other countries do it too, but I know for a fact that's a very particular experience in India. I got close to experiencing it back in 2010, 2011. It's been a while. I don't know what it looks like now, but it sounds like not much has changed.
It has been a while since I went through the process. I'm not sure how it is now, but back then, it was quite competitive. I remember I used to go to the training class at 9:00 or so and it's a 9:00 to 5:00 working hour and then after that, you had your own study hours. I was in there until 10:00 or 11:00 until they switched off or I guess the light switches off automatically.
The Transition To Front-End Development
I want to go back to the three phases that you described. You went from electrical engineer to backend and then back into frontend. Here's where I think folks have heard me say this before, but I like to call frontend a gateway drug for creative people. Can you elaborate on how you found your calling with frontend development? Can you elaborate on how you have found a creative outlet through frontend feature development?
Just a small correction. I have an Electronics and Communications degree. Not electrical. It's just a small thing. In terms of frontend, I would like to say two things which I noticed while I was working as a backend engineer. First of all, I was working for a bank, like a bank was the client and it was a US bank. That in itself is a little intimidating. Getting a product or a feature out for a banking client is extremely difficult, and I personally felt extremely difficult. They have a stable system. They don't really pursue up and coming technologies or latest technologies. It's a system, it's stable, it doesn't have a bug, then they want to stay with it because the repercussions of having a production bug for them as far higher than I would say like any other company. I'm not saying like health sector.
For banking it's a very complicated system. First of all, as a very young person working in banking sector, the rhythm was a little bit slow for me. The next thing was also that the technologies they were using were a little bit too outdated. I remember that they were still using Maven or something. I don't know what was being used for.
Folks still use Maven, yeah.
While you were pushing the code, somehow, you would have to tell everyone, “I'm pushing the code. No one push at the same time.” It could not really detect that. There was no version control on it. I don't really remember what it was at this point, to be honest. At that point, I felt like my energy does not really match with the energy this project is moving with. When I was trying to help my friends with UI/UX things, I felt more interested in doing that.
When I started learning UI development by myself, I picked it up way quicker than I picked up backend engineering because backend, it's just code, so there's no UI. You are actually testing your backend code through the UI. I think that is the thing with creative people. They want to visualize things and if you have a UI to see what you have worked, the speed of it is, I feel, quite faster than backend development. It's a good gateway drug, like you say.
Comparing Tech Cultures: India Vs. Berlin
I think it's not really tangible but you can see things moving along at a quicker pace and there's a level of instant gratification that could be missing with backend work. I hear you. I am glad you found your way to frontend engineering. It's amazing. It's a lot of fun. Moving to the third phase, which is your move to Berlin. As someone with experience in working in two countries, how would you compare the tech culture in India versus Berlin? It sounds like a very generalized statement that you are representing the entire tech culture in Berlin and the entire tech culture in India. I hear it, and what I'm trying to say is that I'm interested in your experience of the two tech cultures.
From my experience, I worked in two cities in India, in tech, Pune and Bangalore, and in Germany, obviously, Berlin. Bangalore has a very specific tech culture. Most people, I would say, even the average people in tech were a little bit, I don't want to use the word better, but there is this energy in Bangalore. Everyone talks about tech, what they're doing, technology latest up and coming. There is a joke that goes around that if you throw a stone in Bangalore, it lands on a software engineer. It's just this very different energy. I say this to my sisters as well, that if you are a software engineer, you have to experience Bangalore’s tech culture. It could be quite draining on you because the working hours could be quite high, depending on where you work. Certain companies have working hours, others don't.
There's also this expectation that everyone is doing 9:00 to 5:00, what are you bringing to the table? I personally really like it. I actually grew a lot as an engineer working in Bangalore, seeing my peers, what they did, the way they thought like, “This product is actually not for me, I'm working on it but it's for this user.” This mindset of being keeping the user in the center of the whole development process, how the user is going to interact, etc. That was something I actually learned in Bangalore. Doing the right thing for the product, not for the developer. Getting it out of the way was not the primary concern. Code quality, etc., these things are really talked about and worked on, at least in the companies I worked for in Bangalore.
The product is not for the developer. It is for the user and keeping them at the center of the whole development process.
That's a really good experience I have in Bangalore. At the same time, as you are maturing in your role, but also as you're growing a little bit older, sometimes that could mean that you are seeking more work/life balance. As we know it, Bangalore is also a little bit more populated than rest of India. It’s one of the densest cities in India at the moment. My move was totally based on, “Let's see what else is out there.” I also wanted to have a lesser populated place.
Frankly, I'm quite happy in Berlin because the company that I'm working for, they're also into eCommerce. They have user-facing but also like supplier-facing applications, etc. I have worked for websites which were user-facing or consumer-facing. We talk about a lot about how you need to have a very acute eye for detail. You cannot actually release anything in production before testing things very thoroughly.
The pace is a little slower, but right now, I'm working for the supplier side. You can do a lot more because you can interact with your users. You can actually talk to them, and because the users could be internal as well as within the company, you can talk to them. You can ask them, “How is your experience with this?” As a developer, I feel this is something that is such a good experience that you can reach out, say, “How is this feature working out for you?”
I did this because I was in a training and I found two other women who were using the application I was working on. I was like, “Actually, let's grab some coffee and talk about it. What do you not like or what you actually like about it?” At one point, as a developer, I guess you start growing out of just looking at the tech stack, and you start overarching into a little bit of leadership but also experience. How is the whole product coming out?
What is the impact of what you are doing on a day-to-day basis? There's a shift at a certain point where you go from just about fixing things and developing yourself and learning and things like that to what I'm trying to do every day and how is this affecting people. I think it also lines up with us being in our 30s and entering that phase of your life where you're like, “What am I trying to do here? What's happening?”
I think we also develop a lot of self-awareness situations. I spent the initial 5 to 7 years of my career trying to prove myself technically. When I started getting the feedback like, “She's very technically strong and she will challenge you if you are saying something she does not agree with,” I realized that phase of my career, that journey is complete. Now, I want to see what am I working on. What is the impact it's bringing to the users? Are the users actually using the features we are releasing, or is it just another thing tucked away in the corner? You put it the best way that we actually mature as a person as well, not just in the moon.
It all lines up. You've moved to Berlin. That's one thing that I was actually going to ask. In the Bay Area, Bangalore sounds a little similar to that. There are a lot of software engineers here. I don't know if it's the same as Bangalore, but generally, I have to make a conscious effort to make friends that were not in tech. They might be working in tech or a different industry. I had friends in the food industry and things like that.
Usually, people are working in tech. People are either software engineers or they have something to do with tech. I think there is a level of conscious effort that you have to make to separate that out because maybe some people don't have to do it but I definitely did not want to spend all my time thinking about the newest tech because I don't really care. I don't have a lot of gadgets. I don't care for cool gadgets or things that. I'm not that tech person. I'm not in the video games. Once I'm done, I don't have any side coding projects going on. I
T's work, I love it, I'm passionate about it and then I don't want to leave, I leave tech. I don't want to do it. I want to paint, I want to talk to people, and I want to connect with them that way. I think it can be hard to do that where everyone around you is like, “What is the side project that you're working on? Are you coding on the side and building something fun?” I was curious about Bangalore culture in that way, and it makes sense to me that, again, getting older, I realized, “This is just a lot. I need something different.”
I know a lot of people who actually like that, the tech people tech is looking for. If there is a latest technology out there, they're on it. Was it released before? They're already a better user, so I understand, and I respect that. That level of medication and passion for your craft passion, I understand that. For me, personally, I wanted more from my life and also from my time.
I dedicate 9:00 to 5:00 to technology. I’ve dedicated that to problem solving and the impact I'm making, but 5:00 onwards, I want to do something for myself, maybe exercise a little bit or crochet. It’s what I’ve picked up these days, and sometimes, I tell people, “Yeah, I have a crochet project.” They're like, “Don't you work for tech?” I'm like, “Why? Is that not something I should be doing?”
Imposter Syndrome: I dedicate my entire day to technology, problem-solving, and the impact I am making. At the end of work hours, I want to do something for myself.
Welcome to being in your early or mid-30s or late 30s, just 30s and finding new hobbies. I picked up embroidery and I'm not good at it. It's been hard to motivate. It does matter. Just kidding. It's just how my brain works.
I think this is a thing for the youtube and Instagram generation that the things we pick up, we want to be so good at it. We have lost that picking up things or doing something just for the sake of it, just for the pleasure it gives us and not because we want to create a side hustle or a youtube channel.
Preeti, are we going down a tangent? I don't know if it's neurodivergence in me. You bring up a great point about YouTube and Instagram generation, although I don't know if I grew up with that. Maybe old oldest daughter syndrome, Indian parents’ syndrome, I don't know what it is, or just Millennial generation that we can't really or we don't really have the money to buy a fancy car so we're just trying to crochet, paint and embroider our way through midlife crisis. I don't really know.
I'm sure there are people who are doing intense research about this, and they would be smart enough to diagnose it. I really think journaling, junk journaling, I'm so into it. I just can't stop watching videos of people just putting trash on a piece of paper, the difference between scrapbooking and junk journaling, and how passionate they get about the difference between the two. Anyway, this is a tangent I can go on because I pick up a new hobby every month and it's a joke.
I think I'm the same and a lot of people who know me, they're like, “How is this hobby going?” I'm like, “What? I gave it up. I have a new thing. Catch up.”
Also, you’ve got to be good at it. I tried pottery once. I went to the studio just one time. I tried it, but I could not center it, and I lost my cool. Not that I started losing it at the studio itself. As I'm walking back home, I'm like, “I'm such a failure. I can't believe that I couldn't even do something as basic as that.” I have not gone to a pottery studio since because in my head, I consider myself to be a creative person. I took art lessons almost my entire childhood and then as someone that is artistic by some standards, I should just be able to pick this up.” Different tangent for different days.
For me, it's a little different. If I start doing something and I'm already average or a little good at it, then I’ll lose interest. It needs to challenge me and if it is challenging, then I will keep on doing until it clicks and then I will lose interest and I’m like, “Okay, I know how this goes now.”
You thrive and it makes sense. There's a reason why you went from backend to frontend and then moved cities so many times. I can see you getting comfortable. It’s like what you said, you get uncomfortable once you're comfortable. It sounds like you start looking for the next challenge.
It's a good segue to our next thing. We also talked previously that right now, I'm looking for a next role because I feel whatever I had to give to the role as a software engineer, I have given it. I feel the things which I'm doing now are more arching over a leadership role. Do I want to go the path of senior engineer then into an architect and that role or do I want to go into EM role or do I just want to move into a lot of people moving into product as well, so product management and things that? This is something I am trying to understand as well. I also spoke to a couple of product managers in my company, which basically is a good thing because if you want to move within your company, you have a lot of contacts now. It's not like doing it for the very first time. You have been here. You have a network now.
Shifting Careers And Career Growth
Thank you for setting me up so beautifully for my question. That was beautiful. I really appreciate it. You changed careers. You went from back into frontend at the very beginning and now you are thinking about it again. How would you compare those two shifts that you're trying to make early in your career? You said you have experience. You have a few years under your belt. If you were to move, you would be starting from scratch in some ways somewhere after being in a leadership position. Tell me, what's different in shifting careers this time around?
One of the main things I have noticed while I'm trying to look into what's next for me, I have realized that I have really leaned into the understanding or an expectation that I will make mistakes and it's okay. Initially when I switched careers for the very first time, I was working 18 to 19 hours because I was so scared of making a mistake. I was scared of being found out somehow.
Expect to make mistakes along the way, and it is okay.
She has the Imposter Syndrome.
“She has taught herself how to code,” and I really do not know how I did it at the time because I literally was like, “I'm done with the job. I'm quitting the job.” I called my mom, “I'm going to move back home, I’ve quit my job.” Everyone was like, “What are you doing?” My dad was like, “She doesn't discuss anything with anyone at this point.” I quit my job, I moved home and they didn't know what was happening. They're not into tech people. My dad is an engineer, but he's not a tech engineer. He didn't know what I was doing and I was just going through various YouTube channels and this and that and just figuring everything out on my own. There was an ex-colleague who also helped me. I was going the Angular way and then he nudged me towards the React way.
Thank you, that colleague.
I’m grateful for that because look at where React is at this point. I would say that I just did everything on my own and I didn't reach out to people to hear from their experience or if they have something to share with me, tips and tricks or things which I could have learned. Now, there are people already on this role for doing this role . I can reach out to them. I can ask what their day-to-day look because I personally have noticed that if I have too many meetings, then I need to take break to calm my nervous system down, which is quite new, actually. I think it's started after COVID because we were not in office for a really long time and then it's an adjustment period.
I hear that self-awareness piece come through. It's wonderful.
I reached out to the product managers, which I had in my company, which I have actually personally worked with on different products. They told me what is the expectation and how they manage their day. The product management in my company works a little different than what I had experienced before and they also told me how it works here, what is the organization setup, etc. I also reached out to this woman who's a product manager and she is a lovely person. While I was telling her, “I want to do this,” at the end, she ended up saying, “If you ever want to mentor, just let me know.” She actually shared so many links and resources to get into, like, “If you want to go the product school way or if you want to go through a couple of trainings, etc.”
I really appreciated that network, which is available to me at the moment after being in the industry, which I didn't leverage back then. This is also something I have realized, which is a difference. Also, I guess this is just part of being older that you learn to set right expectations, not just with your peers or the people who would actually help you through this transition, but also with yourself.
It took me a little while actually to come out of that Imposter Syndrome. I looked into a lot of external feedback to relax and be like, “Maybe if people are saying I'm good at tech, if I have a good command of this, then maybe I am.” I don't want to do that to myself anymore. It's not fair, obviously. My expectations this time is you might fail, but it's okay to make mistakes because we all start somewhere. I also joke about this to my sister about that phase in my life because she is also a software engineer. I have 3 sisters and all 3 of us are software engineers. Backend frontend and the third sister is doing both backend and frontend at this point. We have a full stack team. I tell this to her jokingly, that delusion will take you to places confidence cannot.
Where did you find this or did you come up with this?
I came up with It.
Are you a philosopher of our time at this point? That’s beautiful.
I don't know if everyone has a different upbringing, but my older sister is someone who really questions herself a lot. I was the champion for her. “No, you can do it. You can do everything you want to do in your life. Come on, let's try it.” I guess I became that person who cheered her my whole life and then somehow, that also seeped into me like, “You can do it.” I became that person who was like, “It's okay if I make a mistake. Just save enough for six months and then you'll find something to fall back on. It's fine.” We always have ourselves to rely on. A friend of mine once asked, “If you were to look in your past and give advice to your younger self, what would you say?” I said, “I would tell my younger self to take risks,” because I personally have never failed myself. I have come through for myself.
Two things on the older sister front because of course I have something to say. I'm an older sister. First of all, thank you so much for being a champion for your older sister. I have a sister like I mentioned, and it's such a different feeling when she validates me or sees me like, “I'm proud of you.” My mom might say it, I might hear from someone else, but when she says it, it's a different feeling in my body and I can't explain it. It's like I can't fail her.
I just want to give your older sister a hug as an older sister. With her permission, obviously. I don't know why it happens, but we walk with not a chip but multiple boxes of chips on our shoulders. Why? I don't know. For me, I can't fail. I have to be a good human being for my sister, and she's trying to do that for three other human beings. I can't even imagine. Thank you for supporting her and being her champion. I don't know why older sisters are the way they are. They're very annoying.
I think it's because as the oldest, and I don't want to generalize, but I’ve noticed this multiple times in Asian household, at least Indian households, that they tend to shift all the expectations or the things they wanted to fulfill, the parents they wanted to fulfill, to the eldest daughter or son. They carry that weight somehow so we don't have to. The younger ones are a little rebellious because they see what is happening to their sister and they start predicting them. I have noticed this in multiple friends of mine who are second child. They're very predictive of their elder siblings. It's like, “Mom told me to do this,” then the younger would be like, “Yeah, but you don't have to.”
My sister and I would fight all the time growing up, and we would still fight every now and then just as siblings do. I remember, even in the middle of a fight, she once stood up and vouched for me or did something behind my back for me that changed the outcome of this whole trip or something for me. Something I wasn't allowed to do, I asked and I didn't question and then just had tears in my eyes and went to my room somehow, by the end of the night, I was allowed to do the thing that I should have been allowed because I was freaking 19 or 20 by then. I don't know what my sister did. I did not have the strength to go talk to my dad but she would just be like, “Excuse me, why? She lives on her own. She didn't even have to ask you so you better go say yes to her.” I'm like, “What?”
You didn't know that was an option.
That's what I tell her all the time. I'm like, “You say things, you do things that I'm like, ‘They're going to kill her. This is how she dies.’” They just walk past her and I'm like, “What? This was possible this entire time? No one told me, guys.” You just have to try. Anyway, sorry. We took so many tangents. I love it. Back to shifting careers or switching careers now and early in your career, I'm hearing the maturity come through where you are saying you are kinder to yourself, you are more self-aware, you are accepting of your flaws. You sound very much like someone who's done the work, speaking of therapy speak, who’s figured out to a certain extent or as much as we can that putting yourself down is not doing something.
The statements where you are like, “I’ve never failed myself,” it's just freaking beautiful. To have that confidence in yourself is beautiful. I wish everyone of us could have a little bit of that. I am definitely going to try and cultivate some of that in myself until my brain forgets about it and then I put it on a Post-it note. I hear more confidence. I hear reasonable expectations. I also hear you tapping into the network and feeling comfortable reaching out to people when early in your career you were afraid to do that. There are new possibilities, and the world is opening up more because of all of that. It was you all along.
I guess networking is used as a term so often like, “This is a women's networking event,” or something. I think to myself, “Why do people need to network?” However, now that I have started dipping my toe into this whole thing, I feel it's very important to find people who actually are doing what you want to do. You need to learn or understand their experience. You set correct expectations with yourself, but also, it's very important to find people who actually would vouch for you or would actually encourage you. It's not always a positive experience. It's not that you do something and you go to new people. At the end of the day, we are human beings and we obviously project a lot of our insecurities into other people as well.
Find people who are doing what you want to do. You need to learn or understand their experience.
I remember the first time I quit my job, a colleague of mine said, “You quit your job without having any backup. Do you have any jobs lined up or interviews?” She kept on asking me questions. The more she asked, the more offended I got. At this point, I knew that it was not about me, actually. She was just projecting her own fears onto me. This still happens when a lot of people may not be what you want them to be, but I guess the trick lies in actually finding the people you need at the moment.
At this point, I feel women support women more. What we have learned this whole thing through our experience that we need to support each other, that our journeys are not going to mirror the journeys of maybe men or other people before us. I feel the women in tech industry really talks about having an Impostor Syndrome or also how do I raise my voice in front of my other male colleagues? These are such common things and people have gone through these issues before us and if we hear their experiences, actually, it might not solve anything for us, but I'm not the first human being on earth to go through this. It validates our experience, in a way.
Yes, that word, validates. It allows you to feel it and then allows you to be like, “Okay, then what do I do to solve this? What can I do?” The system needs to change, but also, what can I do within myself to make it better for myself? When I know this is happening, where do I look for allies? It's a lot when I'm seeing it, I'm putting it on us to solve it. That's not my intention. It's more of we we're trying to change it from within. It's going to take time. It's taking time. Until then, we just can support each other and do whatever we need to do to regulate ourselves and make it through the day.
When I first started my career into tech, I saw a lot of women who started with me and then a lot of friends actually dropped out of the career once they got married or had kids. When I went through it, I realized what is the whole data about, that the women coming into workforce and then dropping out of the workforce. At least in India, the data says that it's quite high at the moment. It is actually higher than what it was many years ago. Women are coming into workforce but also dropping out. This is not really the right topic. It's a very broad topic to discuss, but support is something that is the least we could provide.
Imposter Syndrome: Women are coming into the workforce but are also dropping out quickly. The people around them should provide them with the support they urgently need.
Rapid-Fire Questions
What's funny, I had a conversation with someone potentially on the show. Right towards the end, they were like, “It's not just about bringing women into tech. It's also about retaining them.” I was like, “Great topic right at the end. Thank you so much. We have two minutes to discuss it, and it's lovely. We'll find a solution.” What I'm trying to get at is that it is a big problem, and I almost left tech. If Visa was not a thing, I don't know if I would still be in tech because I was really devastated. I don't know. I think a topic that I need to think about and I need to figure out who I want to bring in to maybe everyone who has brought this up, I’ll just have all of you just sit and just discuss, “How do we retain ourselves in tech, ladies?” This is a big topic and I would love to talk more, but being cognizant of time. Time for rapid-fire.
Yes, let's do it.
Preeti, if you weren't in tech, what career would you choose?
I think I would be an artist.
What kind?
I could go into natural design. I could be into fashion designing. That was my primary choice. I was pushed into this. Thank you, Indian parents.
Berlin or Bangalore?
Berlin.
I knew that from the first answer that to the question, the tech experience one. I think you shared the best piece of advice you've given. What's the best piece of advice you've received?
I have received a lot of advices, to be honest.
Which one is coming to you right now?
My manager said this to me. Actually, two things I would to share, if that's okay. One of the things I was just running out to him was that we have so many documents on the team that we need a document to keep track of all our documents. He said to me “What you're telling me is a problem.” I'm not venting out to him and I'm not complaining. I am actually raising to them a problem statement. That actually changed the whole mindset I had in working in the team. I was like, “I have issues with the way the team is raising the PR, so that's not a complaint. It's a problem and I'm going to solve it.” I'm still in the process of doing that, but that really changed it for me.
The second thing he did help me with was when we were listing all the things I want to work, so we work on our focus areas in the company as part of our development plan, he added a column of end date that everything must be time-boxed. This is not something out in the air, which we discuss when we have time. This is a trackable, traceable thing with a deadline. I am nothing if I don't want to meet my deadline. It just gives me such a rush if I check them off. It's a type of thing where you make lists and then you check them off and then you get this rationale.
I'm sharing my list.
I was just going to say that I’m sharing the list and it's just something it works for me. I thought, “If this works for me personally, why cannot it work for me professionally?” It really changed my attitude towards the work I do. I have started seeing things not as a complaint, but as a problem statement with solution. I don't even want the perfect solution. I just want a solution and then we will take it from there.
Start to see things not as a complaint but as a problem statement with a solution.
Yes, that's a good piece of advice, too. Not the perfect solution. It's very tech-specific. I’m not going to go into another tangent during rapid-fire. Lastly, as we talked about some of the leaky buckets or having a hard time retaining women, we didn't dive too much into the issues in tech, but we're all aware of them. With that in mind, after a decade, why still tech?
I the problem-solving part of what I do in the job. It might not always come from the development part of it. Sometimes, it comes from working on the issues we are facing as a team, or maybe in a project, the way a project being is being handled. At the end of the day, I feel like I'm someone who likes to solve problems and as long as there are problems to solve, it'll keep me engaged. I guess that's the answer.
Where can people find you if they want to talk about changing careers or moving to Berlin from India or anywhere else in the world? I don't know, but particularly India. Where can people find you?
You can find me on LinkedIn under Preeti Yadav. You'll come up with hundreds of them because it's a very general name, so good luck.
Preeti, it has been such an amazing conversation. What a mental health-focused conversation. I absolutely loved it. I know it's really late for you, but thank you. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me. I really appreciate it. Thank you.
Thank you for having me as well. I really wanted to contribute to this topic. I’ve been contributing to this topic in my company as well, but I wanted to do something which makes a bigger impact. Thank you so much for having me
I’m glad to have you here.
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About Preeti Yadav
A software engineer with a passion for exploring diverse paths, I bring 10 years of experience across a range of roles in tech and beyond, from style advisor to business analysis and team leadership.
My interest in creative pursuits like painting, knitting, and sewing adds a unique perspective to how I approach challenges, especially those at the intersection of technology and creativity. I'm also deeply engaged in discussions around women in tech and improving team dynamics.
When I'm not coding, you’ll likely find me tending to my plants, trying out new recipes, experimenting with new crafts, or trying my hand at a new sport — always with a cup of tea or coffee close by.
