Spotlight of the Week - YC Job Series Women Eng in Startups

Hi, y’all!

As I figure out what works best for my personal page, I am mixing it up a bit and am going to try writing my Spotlight of the Week articles separate from my topic specific articles for the next couple of weeks. I think this will allow me to dive into more detail for each spotlight and can also allow for easier search-ability on the blog post channel. My entire goal of these posts is to facilitate resource sharing, and I think that compartmentalizing the SOTW content may help this mission. So stick with me as I try it out, and no one hold it against me if I decide to embark on another reorg before the ink has dried on the last one.

What is Spotlight of the Week?

As we know, Empowered Women Empower Women. I plan to live out this mantra by amplifying one of my favorite things: women making their mark in tech. My goal each week is to highlight women I look up to, organizations I support, and general knowledge that I find interesting that pertains to this topic. Please reach out if you have an idea to share, a resource I don’t know about yet, or any questions you have relating to any of these spotlights.

YC Job Series Women Eng in Startups

This week, let’s talk about my experience attending the YC Job Series for Women Eng in Startups in 2021 sponsored by both YC and Elpha. I attended this cohort last fall, and there were so many amazing BOSS WOMEN I was introduced to and now act as an official fangirl of. Even if you have absolutely no desire to join a startup, I still highly recommend looking out for future cohorts and signing up in order to hear career (& life) advice from some brilliant individuals.

Structure:

When I attended the cohort, it was a weekly commitment of two hours for four weeks and I thought this time block would drag on like one of my college night courses. Color me impressed because every session was engaging enough that I genuinely seemed surprised when we hit the two hour mark. Truthfully, I would have stayed even longer in the breakout rooms listening to the women share their firsthand experiences. The first hour was a proctored talk with keynote guests, and the second hour involved breakout room discussions which led to lots of open and honest conversation surrounding any question in mind.

Favorite Topics of Discussion:

Conversations about compensation and bridging the pay gap
Advice about navigating maternity leave
How to identify if a job change is right for you
Tips from recruiters on how to stand out
Personal experiences from current developers, managers, and founders
Overcoming the gender disparity in the workplace
How to work, mom, and wife at the same time

Shoutouts to My Favorite Speakers:

If you need more reasons to sign up for future cohorts, here’s a look into some of awesome women that were involved in this program.

Cadran Cowansage - CEO and Founder of Elpha
Carolyn Mooney - CEO at Nextmv
Danyao Wang - Sr. Staff Engineer at Faire
Shruthi Murthy - Head of Engineering at Modern Treasury

A big thanks to the coordinators at YC and all the women who contributed to this awesome program. Y’all are rockstars.

Thanks for reading! Please shoot me an email with questions, comments, or information I didn’t know about yet!