None.
Hello PyPodcast,
Today we are very honoured to have Una with us.
Una, do you want to introduce yourself? Oh.
Still a human being.
She is a superstar in PyLadies Amsterdam.
She is doing everything for PyLadies
Amsterdam and I'll let you talk.
Hi everyone, I'm UNA.
I'm running apparently PyLadies Amsterdam for
Oh my God, like longer than six years.
No,
no, no way.
And the 7th is coming soon.
Apparently the seven years is coming
starting from May.
So OK, now I can officially say
7 years. Yeah.
Wow 7.
Years.
Seven years is like longer than my visa, so
that's a lot.
So I can assume and say that's now she went
to the basic school, you know.
Yeah,
yeah, if you think of, you
know, PyLadies is your baby, then yeah,
it's now, you know, in school and.
Sometimes it's feel like
I still try to distribute the load, but
sometimes it feels like this indeed.
Let's learn a little bit more about
yourself.
Have you been living in Amsterdam for a
long time?
Yep, I relocated to Amsterdam 11 years ago.
So
I think that was the love from the first
sight, you know? And it was
I talking about Amsterdam,
not about a person.
Unless you want to personalize Amsterdam of
course, or personificates I guess.
Not personalized or personific.
I think the Amsterdam has very unique
opportunities in the sense of meetup
saying, but at the same time it has a lot
of pros and cons. Pros.
There is a group of people who just
attended meetups just for the sake of
eating.
It's everywhere.
It's everywhere, not just Amsterdam, I'm
telling you.
Apparently, Yeah, apparently. And
it's really saturated.
It was saturated before COVID.
During the COVID it was less, let's say,
active.
After the COVID, it's saturated again.
Sometimes you have to make choices like
where do I want to go? Oh my gosh, There is
like 3 or 4 really interesting events and
they all happen at the same time and not
all the events making recordings and you
know, sometimes just like the information
in the states within.
So yeah, I think
for me it was really, really important to find.
I was not looking specifically for a
community.
I was it's more more like, you know, the
quest for knowledge.
And it was like, oh, by the way, like we
had a lot of events, but all the events are
talks, which is fantastic.
I do agree.
But at the same time, you after the whole
work day, you go to this talks and the
talks go through like direction One,
Direction two direction 3.
And like, at the end of the day, your brain
is struggling, you know, to, to get all
these concepts together.
So you're feeling that you start fuzzing
out on the talk #3 if it was your good day,
and if it was your bad day, you start
fazing out on the talk #1 And also a big
amount of talks are going about like, oh,
look at this cool feature.
Like just subscribe to a premium, you know,
and you're gonna get that.
Or look how some things I've done and like
when I start asking questions.
But like, what were your, you know, the
thought process? What is pros and cons like?
Yeah, you're saying that just use this
awesome library.
Fantastic.
That's how it's compared to others.
Like, why this? Why that?
But you were working in tech before you
moved to Amsterdam?
Right.
Oh yeah, yeah,
that's that's the thing.
I was already there.
I usually joking that I'm, you know, like
the the person who's there and not there at
the same time.
I'm usually trying to, let's say merge both
words and like if I look back, it's my
career.
I think I tried almost all.
I was only mentioning that I didn't try PhD yet,
but for the rest,
like working for myself, working for
someone else, starting my own company,
growing my own company, selling my own
company,
get into another one.
And by the way, my first job in the
Netherlands was an executive director.
Yeah, that's how I ended up here.
But then after that I was like, Nah, you
know, I'm just done.
I did some stuff for myself, but now I want
to do something for somebody else.
And that's how I start freelancing.
But I was really scared to start freelancing
in the Netherlands because I was like,
it's a small country in case I deliver
really shitty product.
Or really, should
you know what people gonna do?
OK.
Do you feel like it's it will close it down
opportunities If you
like you didn't do well the first time is
do you feel like it will close it down for you?
Yeah, it's like it's such a tiny country.
So basically the majority of the folks you
know them are just rotation of the brains
between like the big players
and why referring to the big players? I do
not mean funk companies, I mean just like
the the big players on the local markets,
whether it's like international companies
or local enterprises.
But the majority of them there are some
bunch of really like interesting unicorns,
for example.
And then they're basically migration as a
mention of the brain.
Like you go there, then they go there, then
when they fed up doing that, they go there.
So there is also like this consulting
world, which is like slightly different, but
it's almost the same I would say.
And and yeah, that's how you get it.
I was very, very like early in my
career.
I was actually considering moving to
Amsterdam and looking for a job there, but
I have been told that if you want to work
in a consultancy you have to speak Dutch.
So how's your Dutch?
I would say really "geth so"
I don't think that's the audience going to
pick it up,
at least the majority of the audience.
It's true in case you are aiming for like
very top senior positions, it's very, very
true because when you need to interact
directly with let's say C level, C minus
level stakeholders, if it's a Dutch
company, they will be Dutch.
If it's an international company with some
like offices here,
they also would be Dutch.
And somehow everyone here is bilingual,
but they prefer to speak Dutch.
And if you don't
get it,
you can lose a lot of,
you know, a lot of nuances.
That's that's true, But I wouldn't say that
it's true if you're not interacting direct
with stakeholders unless unless you're
joining some kind of
just outsourcing company that's, you know,
basically don't care about you.
They're just selling you per hour and
earning the margin on top of it.
But it's also like it's their business.
That's how they operate in this case.
They want to hire you as cheap as possible.
They want to sell you as
expensive as possible.
Yeah, it is what it is.
Yeah, it sounds really tough, but
that's what make me want to know more about
your journey when you
first moved to Amsterdam. Like,
do you already have a job or you
already have your own company? Like
so where were you at that
point in time?
Yeah. So when
at that point in time, I, I sold my company
and I was basically looking for a job and I
was looking for a job that will help me,
you know, to relocate myself.
And there's also like my partner was also
at that moment we're looking for a job.
So we're like, OK, so if we find then we
are moving because we didn't want, you
know, to just move.
We wanted to move with the good conditions
under good circumstances because I'm
originally not from,
let's say EU country, which makes it
usually very hot.
It's very hard, but it's way harder than if
you just like do transfer within EU.
Because like if you're from you, you can go
and work in any place.
You just need to do some registrations to
get some tax numbers and everything.
But for the rest, you're free to go.
Even if you have your passports.
You can go, for example, and work in
Scandinavian countries as well.
So you don't need to have visa that separate thing
unless it's Great Britain.
That's completely.
Sorry.
Yes, yes, I'm looking at you now like
Queen, Queen.
Actually, like we also take a hit.
So I mean who lose more?
Never know.
Yeah. So
I mentioned like that my first job in the
Netherlands was an executive director.
So it was basically a
service company.
You're doing a lot of things, but their
goal was to build the company was from
scratch, which was really valuable.
Because I get through all this, you know, I
get to experience bureaucracy first hand.
But I wouldn't say that it's a lot of
bureaucracy.
At least what I'm hearing, for example,
from the colleagues who live in Germany, it's
it's completely different story.
So I would say there is a bureaucracy, yes. I see.
Yeah, because
I also have a good friend who live in
Germany and you know, these two country I
think is the top 2 competing who have more
bureaucracy.
Yeah, something like I would say something
like that indeed.
And then I was like, OK, so yeah, which is
how the tech scheme looks like.
What can I do? What are the companies and
the Netherlands like some major players,
you know, like ASML
you have like Phillips, that's like they
were the majority of the folks are gone.
They have like okay, booking.com and like
this, you know, big dinosaurs.
Let's put in this way.
So and there are other options of course,
and there are
more local options. And
I was like, yeah, what should I do? And
then I was like, no, I want to go, I want
to feel freedom.
So I'm going to go freelancing, which was
really strange decision because it came with
some changes of the residence permits
by default, like if you're located in
specific capacity, you're not allowed to do
to work in for yourself.
So there are like a lot of things.
So I found a way to do that like legally
and officially.
And as I mentioned that back then, I was a
little little bits like afraid of
doing something on the local market because
I didn't know how rusty I am.
You know, rusty not in the sense that doing
things with Rust like in the opposite
direction,
not related to Rust language,
the pun intended joke.
So,
and I was like, yeah, where are you going
to go? And like where have friends, they're
going to help me.
Like I just want to deliver.
Good job, you know, and I don't want to
look for the clients or something.
I was looking for some
kind of low ending fruits.
And apparently the friends of mine, they
were like, oh, just, you know,
like if you're interested, it's like we're
working with the United States,
so we're working with American markets.
If you're interested, go there, you know,
go there.
I mean, stay here, but
go there and do some stuff. And
I was like, yeah, I was really, really
excited.
So basically for me legally, it was really
easy because my,
all my, let's say relationships were with a
local company,
which, you know, protect me from
everything.
So in case something happened with the
money or clients, it's not my problem, it's
their problem.
Like they were handling everything for me.
So I would say that was for Lancing, but
it's still like working for someone else,
but like with some freedom to say no to
specific clients and like, let's let's say
like that.
And that was funny because you working with
people online, there is huge time
difference.
That's where it caught my attention because
when we started doing meetings online,
people were surprised to know that I'm
female.
Somehow they were expecting just, you know,
another guy.
It's a cliche, but it's still, it's still.
And there was like, oh, are you? Oh,
we didn't expect this is like, what do you
mean by?
Oh my God,
I think, I think
people don't check LinkedIn.
But like, you know, at that time, right?
It's not like now people will check your
LinkedIn before talking to you. Oh.
Boy, yeah, I I think there is like, yeah, that's
like, who are you? I was like my
you're engineer, you know,
or
you
can.
You tell us about this freelancing job
specifically.
Like what do you do as a freelancer?
So there was 1 gig was pure data
engineering.
So basically you have
you do sensor fusion or a lot of sensor
data coming in, you need to process it very
sparse data and then you ship it to the
data scientist.
They're going to build different like time
series, like statistical and machine like using
different machine learning algorithms on
top of that.
That was like the first one gig.
It was approximately 4 or five months
and then I was dragged into the more, let's
say ML related gig.
Again, there are like data scientists and
they're struggling to put things in
production.
Could you help us to go there, You know,
set up some like bring some software
engineering practices in place.
Help us like with CICD pipeline
specifically for machine learning training,
introduce continuous training where it's
possible set up specific metrics and
threshold for monitoring.
And that was really interesting because at
that moment that was a very, very awesome
project.
I was working with self driving trucks and
that was like, whoa, that's where I learned
first time in my life what LiDAR is
before that, I have no clue.
Like that this thing that do this like
365°, like your
3D coordination position.
And then it's basically allows you, let's
say to see.
And then you can run on this like
combination of computer vision algorithms
together with all this, let's say a sensor
data that coming in like combination of that.
And you get like the, the full picture of
what's going on.
That I think was for me really, really eyes
opening
because you know, before that, like what's
the problem? You just say don't hit,
don't hit this
very cool.
And after that I jump on the different
things so I get him back to more like
maritime industry and that was the moment of
help to predict the best time for crew
rotation.
So you have like
crew who stays for a longer term on the
ship and when ship arrives to specific
coast, you need to take an account the
weather, taking account a nationality of
the crew that has to be rotated taking into
account visit conditions of the country.
They think they're gonna port at plus like
weather condition.
And I mentioned like condition also like
all the ocean.
How is it how it's like behaving, how it's
working? And then what is the probability
that the ship going to be at this port
versus that ports? What is the most, let's
say, optimal condition for rotation, which
can saves a lot of money or which can even
prevent rotation of the crew? For example,
visa regime is not
favorable.
Also, you get a lot of like repair teams.
So there are a lot of repairs that happens
as soon as the ship is moving.
So there are big repairs that you do in,
for example, in different types of docks,
but there are also repairs and go.
So imagine like like the folks that flying
with like this very excessive baggage and
then for example, they losing it back.
And the bag has like all the tools, like,
you know, like the tools, cost of the
tools, just like, yeah,
like
they were they were tags in it.
The bags was also secured because it's very
expensive.
But still, you know, it's like depends on
their company.
Like do they have like the specific
tracking? Do they have if the luggage is
lost, it's usually not a problem of our
company.
It's a problem of
handling company at the airports and the
majority of the cases it is what it is,
yeah.
It's simpler, complicated.
I think that's I never thought that you
need to like the way you describe this
managing, you know, ship crews as they port
because I, you know, I enjoy cruise ships.
Like I've only done it a few times, but it is
a very big production
to me.
Like managing the shipping cruise.
There was some
Netflix shows to show just how they run the
restaurants inside the cruise ship planning
meal or logistics.
Because once you're inside the ship, you
don't get to reload or something.
So now you're talking about the actual crew
management using, I guess as a software
engineer, you,
you write some program for that.
That's kind of fascinating.
Do you use Python for all?
Partially
like when it's possible, but you know, the
fancy is when I decided that I don't want
to do freelancing anymore and I just want
to work for a local company.
I went back to consulting because I
couldn't find a company that gonna satisfy,
you know, my needs.
And that like was awesome topics that I
would work at.
And that's how I joined the consulting.
Like the local consulting company, let's
say it was an outsourcing company.
It's still an outsourcing company, but they
also have like this separate department
called the TN Innovation.
That's where I landed and that's where I
get an opportunity to build whole things from
almost let's say from scratch.
And that's where I switch to working with
aircrafts.
So like now you can think about each
aircraft.
So how much food should we put in it? How
much water,
how much fuel, let's say based on the
amount of passenger that's right for for
registration, should we swap an aircraft?
You know how the operations of the airport
is going to run knowing what is expected
amount of passengers from, let's say from
the local air company.
So it's.
A random question.
Yeah, go on.
I have heard in my previous job that a lot
of, you know, air traffic planning is using
Prologue.
Is that true? Do you know or you don't
touch that part of craziness?
I touch this parts, I touch this part
because I would say that one of my latest
gigs was redesigning basically the whole
data in AI system for a very big fun
European company which is controlling
European sky.
Like there are a lot of things going on there.
They solving problems
that are not
common and they're solving very unique
problems.
That's why there is a lot of custom built
stuff because otherwise the way how the
information is shared, like how you can
parse it, which makes it very, very
difficult and completely different from
others.
You even can have like up to 12 languages
used for different components because what
they do, you know, the the funniest part, I
never thought about airspace like that.
They calculate airspace and they create
like cubes and they calculate the capacity
of each cube to flow through it.
And each cube is operated by
like ATC or a combination of cubes is
operated by ITC by this like the air
traffic control tower.
And basically when the aircraft is flying
the ATC, just passing it from one chunk of
cubes to another chunk of cubes.
Like next time I have a delay in my flight
I would think of you so.
Yes.
Wait, wait,
wait, don't think of me
think about the cubes.
That's.
Where?
Yes.
Because of the weather or because of the
other things.
But you know where you can hear that? So
for example, when the pilot says, oh sorry,
we just missed our time slot for departure,
that's exactly they missed their claimed
space in a cube.
Oh, yeah,
that's happened a lot.
Like when after, you know, the pandemic and
also during the
summer season, it happens a lot, especially with
some flight company that is really cheap
and start with an hour.
It happens a lot.
We're not going to pick up the topic of
Coldplay and they are
divorcing couples, right?
I was just looking at that the other day.
Yes,
it's
yeah.
Let's not gossip about it,
yeah?
Let's change the topic. Yeah.
What spark? You started PyLadies in
Amsterdam.
You know,
it sounds really strange, but the smells
and the sounds.
So I was attending a lot of meetups.
Usually I was mostly one or maybe like
there were two of us there
let's say, that can be identified as females if I
put in this way.
And the majority of the meetups starting
with guys drinking a lot of beer and eating
very bad quality pizza.
But like, I know it's still like free of
charge food, but it's like very, very bad.
And at that moment I was not drinking
alcohol at all.
So for me, it was really problematic
because I was smelling it and I was
smelling and the beer and the pizza and the
guys, I'm
sorry.
In the summer I can imagine it's
Really though, yes crowded places very hot, you
know it's not going to be nice.
Yeah. And I was like, what if there could be meetup
where it could be not about talks,
it would be mostly about doing still doing
something, doing some exercises like trying
out a learning new concept, not just
Like I wanted something that I can, you
watching a demo.
know, like run, it's runs on my machine,
so.
Or OK, or if you need some specific
credits, like to run it somewhere else.
And I wanted to have a space where I can
influence a bit the food and the drinks.
I was not saying that's like I am against
alcohol.
It's not about that.
It's more about it's OK to have alcohol,
but at the end during the networking part
and not during the event.
Because if you aim to do workshops, then
you know, that's something different.
So that was my idea and I'm really thankful
that that moment I meet another person who
was like, so if we both dissatisfied,
why not to start something new? And we're
like, OK, So what should we do? How we
should do it?
Like should we create a meetup group?
And then then what's where to
advertise it? I don't know, go to the
events and talk.
Oh, we have this cool idea, just go through it.
And there was like other any low hanging
fruits or something.
And next to it, I would say my desire was
to see more, let's say, female and
underrepresented groups on the stage, you
know, taking the spots and not just being
somebody's like, assistant or something
like that.
And I was like, yeah, maybe there's
something.
And then just like with a short discovery,
we noticed, oh, there was a PyLadies
Amsterdam chapter.
Unfortunately, they somehow like stopped
their activities in 2000
just
2014
Yeah, I guess something like that.
There was some folks running it.
So I really thankful that they started it
and we're like, oh, could we resurrect the
zombie horse, you know?
And that's how we started.
And what was really funny today when I was
chatting, sending DMs to Mariatta, I
scrolled down and I noticed my first
message to her like saying, hello, I'm
doing this.
I'm trying to get access to here and there.
Could you help me? Thank you for
understanding.
It was so
nice to see it.
Thank you. Yeah.
Yeah.
I
think that's the same.
I've heard these stories a lot, like
everything you said, you know, like we all
hear, we want to see more people who we can
relate to, you know, want to see more women
in the community.
There are
lots of PyLadies these chapters worldwide who
just, you know, people started it, maybe
they have other priorities afterwards.
And then it got dormant.
And I'm really glad to hear that, you know,
you picked it up and then you run it and
you have your own vision of, you know, kind
of community you want.
I think that's really good to hear.
I'm more used to hear of people
complaining,
like saying there should be something for
me here, Like, I want an event like this.
You should be running an event the way I
want it.
But yet they're not running it themselves.
They're just saying you should run
conference like this, this and that.
But when we ask them, why don't you help
out? Why don't you run it? They say no, I'm busy.
Of course
So
I'm really thankful that you are actually
doing it.
There is a lot of people who are telling me
it's not going to work like workshops, it's
impossible to do.
I mean like workshops, they have to prepare
first.
You need to find someone who wants to give
it like free of charge.
It's a lot of work.
You need to just like with a lot of like trial and errors to
get, you know, what's the
like, how to do it.
Like what are the formats that going to
work, what's going to work, what's going to
work? And but everybody will tell me it's
impossible.
And especially if you want more like
underrepresented groups running the
workshops. No,
you know, no way.
Like it's not gonna work.
But what I learned, you know, the compound
effect, that's what works.
So if you go in no matter what, and if
you're delivering, people start noticing you.
People start talking about you.
And what is for me is really, really eye
opening.
Before COVID, all the events were in
person.
We were not doing recordings because it was
too hard to set up.
Everything back then was like, oh, no, you
know, just you're just doing it.
And you constantly was looking for
sponsors.
Like who's going to pay, you know, who's
going to host, who's going to feed
us,
let's say in our workshop givers and
workshop takers.
And that was constant like, oh, there was a
list of companies.
We tried to reach out to the big companies.
They say no because they were more
interested in like events that's going to
attract 150 people versus event that
attracts 60 people because we have this 60
people Max capacity for in person events.
Otherwise for the workshop, it's really
hard to handle.
If you want to help, if you want to support
people, then you know that's not going to
happen.
Was more than 60.
At least that's what we learn and always like.
As soon as COVID started, we didn't stop
when a lot of communities just closed or
shut it down.
We just switched online and we start
experiencing the beauty of doing things
online because that's where we realize, oh,
by the way,
in case there is no one to host you, you
can host yourself online.
And then the people are saying, no, online
is not gonna work.
People not gonna show up for the events.
You know, there's, I was like, look, if
we're just doing online events, we now have
a capability of recording it.
So now you're recording it and there's also
a video record of it.
Although there are still a lot of ads on
YouTube.
And notice if you add in time stamps, then
it slightly decreased the amount of ads
that you get because it's also correlated
to a lot of factors like do you have like
paid ads or whenever we don't,
we don't use that.
So in this case, we just you just get like
general ones.
You keep repo open.
Of course, some materials could be
outdated.
So we usually encourage people if you try
in our workshop, something doesn't work,
please open PR, you know, just do that.
So you're going to help yourself and you're
going to help others because you know, the
methods got deprecated.
Other things are going to happen to the
materials.
For example, we were heavily using called
Mini-conda in the beginning just for the
setup and everything.
Then we switch to poetry, then we switch to uv.
So like we also like migrating stuff, but
we couldn't migrate, migrate everything.
But yeah, I think that's was the beauty of it.
And then after COVID,
like as soon as you can do more stuff, we
basically switch to we're not looking
specifically for anyone to host our
workshops, company usually reaching out to us.
If no, no one reaching out to us, then
super simple like we just do online.
And it also help you to get workshop givers
from different countries as well.
So that's also the beauty of that.
These are all
very good advice, yeah.
I remember last here at PyData Amsterdam
when I was at the booth.
So there's a booth for PyLadies.
And then she's asking every lady that she
talked to.
You want to give a workshop? And this, this is.
Yeah,
this is like stuck in my head.
Yeah.
I.
Think, you know, really good,
Yeah.
I think what's stuck in my head, last year
I was at EuroPython, so it was like it's PyLadies booth
and I think I had, like, a 4:00 flight in the
morning, something like that.
So I was not in my best mood.
So I came and that was like my analytical
me in the full force, which is not really
compatible, you know, with human beings
around.
And I remember that I just a storm to the
booth and it's like like we have a PyLadies
we're doing this.
Oh, and PyLadies Amsterdam doing
workshops and
if you're gonna put a counter how much time
I mentioned workshops by the end of EuroPython.
I think everyone does. That's
crazy
lady that's talking about workshops.
Oh my God.
I think it's really good to hear your
experience.
As
you know, I'm one of the people who
administer the chapters
for PyLadies is basically whenever someone say
I want to start PyLadies, I'm the one
giving the initial like access, creating
their account and everything.
I think there's a lot of people they want
to start a group, but they don't know how
to or they don't know what it entails.
Maybe, you know, some people think I just
open a meet up account, but there's a lot of,
like you mentioned, like you need to
outreach, you need to ask people to come
and speak, right, giving workshops and
figuring out what's a good format or not.
So I think it will be good to share all of
this experience with people like. Yeah.
You know, if I may to add what's really
interesting, my goal is not to create
workshop givers.
That's not my goal.
My goal is to encourage people to try it out
realize whether it's hard, not hard, like
it doesn't matter.
But then I was constantly asking myself why
I'm doing this, you know, what's the
purpose of running it for so many years?
Why didn't you know? There was like a lot
of changes in other like organizers.
We also, by the way, we keep our team
really, really small.
So the biggest amount of people we used to
have, it was 3.
That was the biggest amount.
And now like there are again, two of us
so far.
So I'm happy to see that our workshop
givers now speaking at the conferences.
And I think that's for me the best.
We, even though they can, for example,
speak even for local events, I'm already
happy with that.
It gives them confidence that they can, it
gives them confidence that
you can do that.
And you know, there is nothing weird about that.
And to lure people to do that, I'm usually
talking about two options.
I'm saying option number one, you're
working with some specific Python library,
a specific concept you work in every day.
For sure.
There are a lot, like a lot of tricks up on
your sleeve, sleeves upon your trick, it
doesn't matter.
Butter with butter.
So you probably know something that other
people don't.
So just share it.
Like even though if you're working with
pandas, I mean like there are so many
things that you can do.
Like there are so many like how you handle UTC.
I mean, there are a lot of things and
people do not realize that.
So you're usually saying focus on something
that you're doing every day and just share
what you can share.
Of course, like protecting sensitivity of
the data of the task.
If it's like intellectual property and
everything or your
employers
doesn't allow you to share something, fine.
But from the other side, I'm saying maybe
there is something on your bucket list that
you never dare to try and you never had
time for that.
And then if you can tap into that
potential, it's like you can try it and
then you can run it and then you can
upskill people that.
And by the way, if you also have some kind
of, I don't know, like performance or
whatever called stupid plan on your work
and you can also add it there.
So where basically you will be allowed even
to use your working hours for that. So
it's like win-win situation for everyone and
somehow it worked so far.
It definitely have been helpful for me as well.
And I totally agree.
Like even in the beginning, I just
I didn't think public speaking is something
I could ever do.
At least when I first came to one of my
earlier tech conference, one of my first
PyCon like I was really impressed to see a
lot of women speaking.
Before that, another conference I've been
to, it was very commercial.
The speakers are all
CEO or CTO's or something very high up.
I don't see normal people like me speaking
on stage. So I
I just thought that you must be a professor
or CEO to speak at conferences.
But it's not, at least not in the Python
committee and definitely not in the PyLadies community.
So I do feel it is the purpose of this
community to provide that space and you
should take it.
Yeah.
And, and I think you just like, you know,
give away my secrets, just like that's my
motivation of,
you know, I love giving workshop because
like I get it as an opportunity to really
like strengthen what I already know or
maybe I know a little bit, but I want to
know more than after I learned it then
because I know how to explain it to other
people.
So it's like,
you know, I think it's a very good like
learning opportunity for whoever is like
giving the workshop as well. Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's not only this.
I think what for me is really, really
important.
I want to recreate your current working
situation in the room.
So what do you mean by that? Like at least
like our chapter, that was our decision
that we allowing anyone doesn't matter.
Like whatever, you know, the society, like
put what type of labels on them.
So basically, if you're interested in if
you're working with Python and you're
interested in this particular topic, join us.
If not, no, you know,
really simple.
But the workshops would be given.
So we have at least 12 workshops per year.
So at least 11 workshops would be given
predominantly by females or transgenders.
other different options that exist
nowadays? Let's put it this way.
So like, that's the power.
And it's really funny to see people when
you're talking to them and they were like,
oh, you know, I can give workshop.
I was like, yes, I do agree you can give a
workshop.
We have only one slot for you per year.
Otherwise, if you don't do any big
contributions to the community, you
wouldn't be given this slot.
So which means you need to pair up with
your female or other colleagues and let's
them run the workshop.
Oh, we don't have senior women, OK,
even as junior women give her space to to
run a workshop and just be there.
Not as somebody who stand in front of her.
No, as her shadow.
Like, tried it.
And I think for me, the funniest part was
to see in our first workshops where in the
room were only like, two or three guys and
one of them, you know, walked toward me.
It's like, now I do understand.
How does it feel now? I don't understand.
I've never, ever been in room with such a
big amount of, like, female engineers.
So what I meant by saying before that I
want to recreate
what you're going to see in the workplace.
That's why we are open for everyone.
So usually if you look at our workshops,
it's really mixed.
So the guys there is like the females and
other and I really enjoy it because what I
didn't liked for with a lot of female
communities, they keep you in a bubble,
they keep you in a bubble.
Sisterhood supports everything, but it's
not real life.
I just want to prep you for the real life.
Yes, it would be not easy, but at least you
know how to find your sponsors, you know
how to find your allies, you know, like how
to build your career up, how to manage up
people if you're gonna work with different
And I had some experience like with the
pure female communities, which I really
didn't like.
And that's the reason why I said I'm
creating an inclusive community with some,
you know, with some they'd say remarks.
With some adjustments.
Yes,
yes, yes.
I still think that I do agree with you, but
I think that, you know, there are different
purpose of this kind of
underrepresented
kind of focus group.
I think one of them is
like what you said, I think it's beautiful,
but I think if someone want to have a more
kind of, you know, support network, that's
also OK too.
But remember like maybe you should form
this group to join the majority group so
you can integrate as well.
I think the only part which we usually do
not cover.
So we usually do not cover something for
complete beginners.
We did some events in the past, but then we
switch fully to more, let's say mature folks.
So in this case, if they are complete
beginner, we
sends
folks to the
other communities that exist that are more
and more, let's say better suitable for
complete beginners.
If you just start working, for example,
with any programming languages, Python is
your first or if you switch it from another
one to Python
or vice versa.
So in this case we do redirect them to
other places where they can find
information because like for beginners
there is a lot of things.
Things you can send people to us HumbleData
because we are absolute beginner focus.
We do.
We also going to do this for Pydata
Amsterdam by the way, this year.
Yeah, nice. So.
This is going to happen as well, yes, but
that's our focus.
I usually say it's like, you know,
community by practitioners for
practitioners or for practitioners by
practitioners.
I think that's good.
I think that's good that you found what
kind of status that meetup is, like, what
purpose it is, what benefit it can give to
the members.
I think it's beautiful.
No, I think that's actually important for
you to define what you want out of your
community.
Like you can't just be doing everything
just for the sake of doing it.
You need to have a vision, priorities.
Yeah.
Do you have anything that you really want
to talk about that we didn't cover? We can
do that.
I think yes, one topic that I really want
to touch upon, there's like the
recruitments.
I just want to add something about.
OK, please. Yeah,
the first, first thing first, like I
finally got I I signed an offer today, so
that's finally.
Oh, congratulations. New journey.
Yeah, that was a long, a long, a long, long
journey. Yeah. So.
That's about it, yeah.
One thing that I want to point out and
that's where things gets really, really
weird is when you're looking for a very top
level positions and that's where the rubber
hits the ground.
So before that I was privileged not to,
let's say looking for a job.
The jobs were looking for me.
So I was usually, you know, they were that,
yeah, it doesn't matter like what I was
doing whether it was my company or not my
company somehow I like organize space
around me in such a way that people start
reaching out.
So that was my reality for I would say the
last 20 years.
So I again, I was privileged to, you know,
to, to build that.
And when people are saying, oh, you know,
now around the layoffs and everything, I
was like, thankfully never hit by layoff.
I have never experienced it because I was
always feeling that something is going on.
So I was usually switching gears before the
layoffs were happening.
Just say that's just like my I don't know what.
Call it six sense or stupid sense.
Instinct.
Yeah,
so I had some personal changes.
That's the reason behind like the selling
house and everything. And
apparently
I was working for myself and I went to chat
with my bank.
So I will need the mortgage for like parts
of the sum.
So like can I get it and whatever like or
can I move the mortgage that I have in the
house to that? Like it's, they call it like
overbrugging, which means like over
bridging, which I really like.
Like the whole term basically idea was if
you're working, if you're working for
yourself in the Netherlands is possible,
but you would not be given a mortgage
unless you have three years of operations.
And with my company, latest company, only
one year of operations, which means that I
need to return to the workforce.
So basically I need to get to work for
someone else because like if you want to
get a mortgage, if I want to live. And the
reason like why I'm given when want to take
a mortgage, why just not to rent.
The prices of taking a mortgage is 2 times
lower versus renting.
And that's the difference and the market is crazy.
Of course I can go to smaller village,
leave Amsterdam.
It's always the case.
The problem is in the smaller village,
there would be the same price, but you
get more square meters.
I don't need more square meters.
That's the thing.
So getting back, sorry, staying on track.
I have to find a job basically like I have
to work for someone else.
I have to get a permanent contract or like
a temporary contract with some things next
to it to get a mortgage or to extend my
mortgage.
So I started my search.
It was in May.
I started my search in May.
So I was really, you know, like I'm OK,
I'm, I'm going to read descriptions.
We're going to see what's there.
So the positions I was heading for were
like head of director of artificial
intelligence.
So I was applying for different companies. So I
like choose three.
I was really, you know, like picking out
what I where I want to apply.
I, I applied there and guess what, nothing
like completely nothing.
I was like, hmm,
OK, maybe, you know, if we assume that a
lot of recruiters and the enterprises using
AI tools now, then let's use AI again to,
to, to apply.
So I generated a batch of things tailored
per each use case, whatever, I send it
nothing.
And I was like, what I'm doing wrong? I'm
already like, there are two weeks in the
process and nothing comes out like how
it's even possible.
And then one smart person told me, you
know, just take a batch and do batch a
apply literally
Of course you can go, we are like false,
you know, who can refer you and blah, blah, blah.
But do batch because in case start like
treat it as a funnel and then, you know, as
you go, go, go pick up.
And I was like, yeah, but it's not what I
wanted.
That's not what I want to do Just go.
So I create one batch dedicated to the
position of this like director, head of
artificial intelligence, and I created the
second batch for
ML staff engineer or AI staff engineer
or principal engineer or something like that.
And I start applying.
So here I started this traction.
And the finest part was the first screening calls.
The screen calls were like the first
question in the Netherlands is what's your
salary expectations? They usually said like
put your salary expectations in the form,
even in the recruitment form.
That's where I were testing their
front end and back end
by putting minus one, zero, 0.5
You know,
like everything.
Like let's,
let's.
Let's try how it works.
So the funniest part is I'm usually try to
jump in front of this question from
recruiter, because usually the first who asked
this question gets the better questioning
position at least at the Dutch market.
Let's put in this way, although it was
applying for a lot of EMEA remote
positions.
So I was like, OK,
let's do that.
And I usually starting OK, So what is the
expected salary range like I'm asking
specifically for range because it gives
them freedom, you know, to go from where
and just to show me the boundaries.
So then we can discuss later like how it's
gonna work.
The funniest part is there was a lot of
really top level positions with salary
which were below like even like senior
engineer positions.
And I was like, I'm sorry, like with this
responsibility, like why? And then
you get really weird questions.
There's like, why do you need so much money?
Why not?
I would, I would try to answer the
question.
It's like I want to donate to the Python
community.
That's why I need money.
Come on.
Like, yes,
maybe, maybe that's a good question.
Like good answer.
I don't know.
Like that's
that's the reason people work to get money,
Jesus and.
I was like,
oh, you know,
you know, And it's like you're working free
of charge.
It's like, no, it's like,
strange.
Why should I work?
Yeah.
Yeah, they pay you by Bitcoin, No.
By beautiful eyes,
Yeah. Yeah.
So, like, but to cut the long story short, I
ended up, like, at the end of the funnel with four
companies.
And then I did another twist.
When I was in the process with these
companies, I was telling them directly that
you are not the only one.
So you know, we can play silly games and
said, yes, of course, you're the only one
company I ever ever dreamed to work for. Sure.
Fine. Right.
So I was telling them and it's really
interesting to see the reaction.
Some of them were like,
you know, it's not good that you're saying that.
I was like, yeah, I know it's not good.
But because we are on the final stages, I
want to be clear.
That's like I expected
offers coming in and I'm gonna
surprise, surprise.
I'm gonna compare the offers, surprise,
surprise.
And I'm gonna ask what I want, you know? So
that's the thing.
Company are expecting people to be like
lying on Tinder right? Like I only have eye
on you.
Like, no, that's
of course
people are swiping on the time, right? Like it's
just so funny.
Sorry,
continue. But then you know, the funniest parts.
So the week
one of the companies they were
there was some like holidays and they
basically like they dropped the ball.
So I didn't hear anything from them like
for three weeks.
Now they came back to me like, oh, let's
schedule an interview.
And I was like, OK, let's schedule.
And then I was like, oh, sorry, like please
cancel the interview because I already like
already have offers.
Although it's a final interview, but it's
like an interview with C level folks.
I don't want to rob their of their time.
You know that's.
That's it.
Beat them all.
I'm sorry.
No. Yeah.
And then the question would be, you know,
when they're gonna look how we lost this
candidate at the ends they they would be,
oh, we lost this candidate because of
competition.
No, you didn't lose this candidate because
of competition.
You lost this person because you were not
responsive for three weeks.
And like, I need to eat.
Sorry, the girls gotta eat, you know?
Yeah,
very interesting.
I felt the culture of hiring is somewhat
different.
I'm in the North America and like we, I, we
went through the same thing.
When I apply for a job,
I have to apply for like 10 different
companies and maybe I get interviewed for
one or two, right? And it's the same thing,
but something's different is like, I mean,
it's definitely OK for me to say, yeah, I
they will ask am I interviewing for other
companies? Like I will say yes,
like especially if you, when you say you're
hiring, you're interviewing for higher
level position
That means you know you have lots of skill, but
you you can a lot of people want your skill.
You can ask them, like, are you only
considering one candidate? No.
So yeah,
why not? It's like, you know, give and
take, right?
Yeah, it's both ways.
It's both ways.
Yeah.
So yeah,
that's basically what I wanted to share.
For me, it was really surprise.
First, it was like a lot of questions like
why do you need the salary? Like why do I
need a salary?
Come on.
You, you can try asking kindergarten's
children and they would also give you a
very reasonable answer. You. Yeah,
I mean.
Yeah,
yeah.
And the second one is like when you're like
get into the talk, like when you get into the ends.
They usually also like the, the, the
recruitment process is not very clear.
I'm usually asking about the structure.
And usually they don't have a proper
structure for such positions.
It goes like, oh, we're gonna have three
interviews and that's it.
And then you ended up having nine interviews.
That's the story is.
It like a reality show? Yeah, yeah.
You know, like interview from hell.
Yeah, you, you'll be like, excuse me?
Not the Squid Game.
You have
so many rounds.
Yes, ladies.
Yeah, that's a journey.
I'm happy.
That's like, I do hope for the right one
and like we will see.
I'm really impressed by like you just kind
of like have the mindset of like, if I want
to work for myself, I can work for myself.
If I need a job because of the mortgage, I
can have a job.
I think this is a resilient that it can
inspire a lot of.
People, I was watching this TV show on
Netflix. It's a
Indonesian
movie home sweet loan.
It's like also a journey
of a woman like she wants to be independent
from her family.
She wants to have a piece for herself, a
property by, you know, working for herself
by like she wants to work and
in order to
qualify for mortgage.
So like when you talk about this, it
reminds me of that movie.
Very interesting.
Well, thank you so much, Una and Cheuk.
Thank you everybody for listening.
Enjoy the episode and we'll talk to you
next time.
Bye bye.