The tech industry is often favorably compared to other more traditional industries, with workers and media outlets pointing out how differently “old school” companies and tech companies tend to approach workplace culture, expectations for employees, compensation, and more. These comparisons, while enticing to hear and sometimes accurate, are entirely superficial and unlikely to provide an accurate impression about what working in tech is really like.
Since joining an adtech company called System1 in April 2021 as a Technical Product Manager, I’ve learned that an outsized emphasis on free lunches and flexible hours – things that don’t actually have anything to do with the work that gets done – overshadows some of the real benefits to working in tech. Free food might attract people to the tech industry, but they stay for other reasons. For me, the lessons I’m learning about leadership are one of the greatest gifts that the tech industry has given me.
Before joining System1, I had never thought of myself as a leader. I had never felt confident enough in myself to make decisions on behalf of a group, and I also had a misguided view of what it meant to be a leader. I believed that one had to be a manager – somebody’s boss – to be a leader, and I was profoundly uncomfortable imagining myself enforcing a hierarchy and making people’s lives worse. If I had known that the job I applied for would require me to lead a team, I never would have applied.
Working at System1 over the past year and a half has dispelled these misconceptions. I don’t directly manage anyone, meaning that I have no direct reports and no power to decide anyone’s salary or review their performance. However, I do undoubtedly lead a team, and it seems like I’m surprisingly good at it. Without enforcing a hierarchy or holding power over anyone, I determine our team’s priorities and define the requirements for the tools and the features we build. Sometimes, having this amount of responsibility scares me, and I do still doubt myself often. It’s not always easy to be a lone woman stating her opinion on a technical feature to a group of male engineers who are all much older than me.
With practice, though, this gets easier. I’ve learned that earning their respect isn’t about making them think I know everything, or know as much as they do. It’s about making sure that I use my strengths to accomplish things they couldn’t do or don’t want to do. Communicating with stakeholders on other teams, managing their expectations or gathering requirements, creating and distributing documents that define every detail of a new feature and list every task to be done – these are necessary and difficult tasks that I know I do well. I’ve also found that simply asking good questions earns respect over time. People notice when you are engaged and interested in learning more, and they’ll appreciate it.
Lastly, I’ve learned that making people’s lives worse is the antithesis of leadership. My manager does everything she can to make my life easier, and I try to do the same for the engineers on my team. I routinely ask for their feedback, and I act on it. In this way, I’ve earned their trust – I feel that they truly believe that I’m on their side. Being a leader is actually not so bad. And who knows – someday, I may even want to try my hand at being someone’s direct manager.
Someday. Maybe. But right now, I’m very happy leading a team without explicitly leading the people on it.
