Hi, everybody.
Welcome to PyPodcats, the Hidden
Figures of Python podcast series.
The purpose of the PyPodcats is
to highlight the voices from underrepresented
group members of the Python community.
We follow the PSF's
code of conduct
to help our interactions and to keep
Python a positive, successful, and growing community.
You can check out
pypodcats.live/conduct
for more information.
So let's begin.
My name is Mariatta.
I live in Vancouver, Canada.
So I'm involved in the Python open
source community in a lot of ways.
I'm one of the Python core developers.
I also do public speaking.
I've been attending lots of conferences to share
my experiences and my experiences with Python and
with contributing to open source projects.
I'm currently self employed.
I do software consulting.
Maybe I'll pass it to Cheuk.
Yeah, hi, I'm Cheuk and I have been working for,
I've been volunteering for a lot of conferences.
I tend to not count these days
because otherwise it would give me anxiety.
I'm currently now serving in the PSF Board and
yeah, so happy to do more of these.
I'm glad that everybody loved PyPodcats and so
we are happy to have Nihanika today with us.
Thank you so much, Mariatta and Cheuk.
I am Niharika, everybody.
I'm really, really excited to be joining this
episode of PyPodcats with two eminent ladies
that I look up to in Python community.
And I'm really, really excited to be here.
I'm here to share my experiences in Python
community, in open source, and also some of
the most interesting things I learned and the
fun I had being part of this community.
And thank you so much once again for
giving me this opportunity to be on to
this PyPodcats and really excited.
Looking forward to hearing more and chatting with you.
Thank you.
As mentioned, one of the goals of our
podcast is really to share stories and journeys
of underrepresented group members in this community.
And I think I heard about
your story and it's really exciting.
I feel like more people should know about
you and then learn from your journey and
then to inspire lots of people.
So can you tell our
listeners your journey in technology?
I know you studied technology and you graduated from
University recently, but share that with us, definitely.
So basically, I'm right now working
as software developer at Accenture.
It's been three years now, and one of the
most challenging part for me in my career has
been job, and working after graduation, job.
Everything has been quite challenging.
I graduated during COVID and getting a job, sticking to a
job that I never wanted to be in, and missing my
dream job, or not able to fulfill my goals has been
one of the greatest disappointments I would say I had.
And it's been a roller coaster.
But then there is,
there was one thing that always kept me going,
or other than job, there is one thing that,
that made me do a lot of stuff,
explore every technological aspect is, participating and contributing
to open source and Python community.
I think definitely coming from a women's University
or women's Institute in my place here, it's
one of the greatest asset I had.
The amount of encouragement I got during and also
after my college to contribute to open source community
and to know the value of being woman in
tech and help more and more women.
All these aspects, I think I got to experience
and learn from early stage in my college.
Not a well known college, but yet I got
the opportunities and made the best use of it.
I think this community gave me a
lot of strength to work professionally.
As I said, this wasn't the job
that I wanted to be in. Later,
dealing with a lot of anxieties
and stress, depressions, I couldn't
much I feel I achieve in terms of
job according to the goals I said.
But then this community participating in Python events,
conferences, other than my job, has always given
me that strength to keep going.
And I love.
I love being part of this community, and
it has given me a lot of strength.
And I also would suggest a lot of women
to be part of this, no matter how you're
doing, personally or professionally in your life.
Yeah.
May I ask, what's your dream job?
My dream job, definitely.
I would say it's nothing like a particular dream job.
I just wanted to be an entrepreneur, being
honest, and I wanted to start that from
an early stage of my career.
But that's another thing that I really couldn't
work on it on the right time.
And I definitely consider myself a
failure in that particular aspect.
But then, as I work through at.
You can still be an entrepreneur!
Probably I wanted to end up in a job
which is probably more high paying in a big
giant FAANG, as people mentioned with that, there's a
lot of peer pressure in tech industry.
If you see in India and also elsewhere, that
your first job after graduation is into a FAANG
or a big multinational company, which is very, very
high paying, and you're kind of doing great.
Yeah, but that.
That definitely didn't happen.
But I'm really fortunate to be in the company
that I am in now and doing my best.
However, it is probably I couldn't have explored some
other stuff around the globe other than my job,
if I wouldn't have been in this particular company.
Probably it was written this way.
Yeah.
And I think you can still be
an entrepreneur, and I'm glad that
you have the spirit for it.
Yeah, I feel like your career just started.
I know there is, like, you can still work towards
your dream, your dream job, I'm sure of that. Yeah.
But it's.
It was.
I felt somewhat sad to hear about, you
know, things that were depressing for you.
And although I'm glad to hear that, you know, the
Python community was there for you, maybe if you could
share a little bit, like how do you,
how did you find the Python community and
maybe how did the community help you?
Because you mentioned that, you know.
Yeah, sure, sure.
Firstly, I started my open source journey,
because through open source was my initial
step to exploring Python, or Python community.
And then PyLadies, I think it was PyCon
India in 2017, which was my first conference.
From there, I started contributing to FOSSASIA,
and from FOSSASIA organization, I discovered Python
community, Linux, and many other communities.
But then, PyLadies was something that stuck
to my heart a bit more closer.
As I said, coming from a women's college somewhat,
I was focusing on how women oriented communities are
running around, other than how the institute runs.
And that's how I explored PyLadies.
And initially, I didn't know anything
about coding because I was not,
not a person who was into geek,
who's geek into coding, or who loved
working on coding and software stuff initially.
But then slowly after coming to Python, I realized
it's not just the code contribution that you do,
it's more to it. You do through documentation,
there are many unsung stories, I would say,
background work that goes on in community service.
You volunteer, you organize a meetup, and you host,
even booth, which encourages women to more volunteer or
start in other communities, which empower women.
So in this way, I think PyCon has helped me.
And since then, there's never going back.
I kept contributing, I
kept participating, volunteering. Even
it is a tiny job, like being
a moderator or anything online, offline.
I've had always given my best.
I try to participate because people, it's the people of
Python community who give you that warmth, and who, and
mainly the women in Python communities who say, it's okay
if you're unable to work well, or if you're not
professionally well, be part of this community.
You can develop a lot
and get opportunities through this.
And in that way, I just kept doing my best.
And now whenever I'm sad, I'm not happy working
professionally with my job or any stress I have.
It's always the women in this community that I
reach out to and say, I'm just stuck.
I don't know how to work on this.
And probably I'm not happy with my pay.
Anything related to anything. It is.
They say, don't worry, these are the opportunities.
And they keep sharing a lot
of opportunities that I can
explore. Yeah.
In that way, it just kept going on.
So Python meetups and conferences are my,
my sa... I think they are my savior.
They save me from whatever I go
through in my personal and monotonous life.
Yeah, I'm really glad to hear that.
And I feel so relatable.
I think I.
I faced what you faced, too,
like, feeling unhappy at work.
And then it's the same as you.
Like, finding people like Cheuk, like Georgi, you
know, talking to them, who also understand what
the challenges we face as women in tech,
you know, is really helpful.
So I'm really glad that you
found your, you know, your community.
I'm interested to learn more,
I know you said,
you said you did contribute to
FOSSASIA, and I know you,
You're also contributing to Google Summer of code?
Can you talk more about what did
you do during Google summer of code (GSOC)?
I mean, I didn't actually do my GSOC
but then I was trying for that.
Yeah, I didn't do GSOC.
I couldn't make it to Google Summer.
of Code, that was, I think, my first failure,
for which I was actually trying a lot.
But then my community work, or however, participating just as
an attendee in FOSSASIA and also working on small, little
here and there, code commit, pull requests on new projects
that FOSSASIA was coming up with. I was more,
I'm more interested in hardware.
So here and there, Arduino connections and stuff was
how I started doing my contribution to FOSSASIA.
And definitely writing the proposal to GSOC was what
taught me, even though I didn't get into.
But making that particular proposal that I worked on
for GSOC taught me how to even do documentation.
That was the first step that
taught me to do documentation.
That is how I learned.
That's another part that I didn't make it to.
But then this is how I understood that.
Oh, so you even elaborate and write about code.
Not just coding, but you write about it.
And I think,
I don't see this as a failure.
I think it's still a successful because
you still learn something valuable out of it.
Yeah, yeah.
It doesn't matter how you get
there, but now you're here.
So I think being able to write good proposals,
like selling your ideas to people, that's a skill
that you can learn, and it's a good experience
to know about how to do that.
So I think that's still a successful story.
But how about the hardware?
What kind of hardware are you...
do you do or what?
I don't know, the terminology, like, do you make or,
do you work with hardware?
Definitely. When,
when it comes to hardware, I think
it's somewhat directly related to the branch
or the domain that I come from.
I'm an electrical engineer, and I mean, right
from day one, more than working on, like,
building a software, I was more interested in
building hardware which actually shows.
Shows you a prototype and gives you a
satisfaction that you are at least working.
That's what I believe.
Like building a..... a small....
What do I say?
A kind of Googlee Lens, or a kind of
prototype of eyewear for blind people to see and
understand things, or probably building some Med tech projects
which are for heart ECG detections, like basic stuff
that I started with, and then from there, working
on Raspberry Pi, and that's how I explored Python. How,
how....
How amazing it goes with Raspberry PI.
Yeah.
Is there a project you want to highlight or showcase here
that you use Raspberry Pi that you want to tell
our audience about?
Showcasing.
Showcasing is like, I think I have
to search my showcase or my,
to actually show the project.
The one thing that you're proud of.
Definitely. There is,
There is one project that I think
I am definitely proud of is.
Until then, I was, like, normally working on
building some small, small code related hardware prototypes
and different hackathons, like a small processor for
running LED light and stuff.
But then came an opportunity in my final
year project, where I worked with the,
a prestigious institute here, Indian Institute
of Technology, which we call IIT.
I had a final year project which was
a power system, electrical energy, that I work
with from a Raspberry Pi system.
So it was like an energy monitoring system in my
whole campus, where we were coding and we were linking
a Raspberry Pi with the electrical meters or the substation
meters that we have in our campus energy buildings.
We connected that to Raspberry Pi prototype, which
helped in monitoring the power fluctuations or power
cuts in a particular building in my college.
And we were monitoring and we even made web app for it.
So that web app.
So in this way, how much energy a
particular building in my campus is consuming.
And how can that Raspberry Pi
help in controlling or monitoring it?
That is what monitoring campus
energy monitoring system is about.
So in this way, it was a huge.
Is there something we can see online?
Do you still have the website?
Online? Website?
Yeah.
Do you have the website?
Maybe you can send it to us and we will put it.
Yeah, sure.
Yeah.
You can actually explore that.
I'm totally like a kid regarding hardware.
I can only do something like playing
with LED lights and that's it.
You know, I don't do anything that, like, useful.
That's really cool.
Yeah.
I have a Raspberry PI and I'm still figuring
out what else can I do with it.
So it's interesting to hear
what other people are doing.
I'd like to learn more.
You mentioned that you went to women only school.
Can you tell us what it's like?
So I come from this institute called as BVRIT.
It was a new institute.
A new, new institute in my, in my city.
I think I was the, I was the
fourth batch who actually joined the college.
It was that new.
But then I saw how amazing the University was
right from its that like, there was the first
batch itself had a GSOC intern.
And yeah, she was quite engaged
in open source and FOSSASIA. She was.
She also started her journey with FOSSASIA.
And there are many other women
as well who are contributing.
And I was quite amused that being a new and
not so known Univer, institute, it has done a lot.
So even the little opportunities that I got in my
institute, like we had a small meetup by FOSSASIA.
That was the first meetup that was
organized in my institute that gave me
a kickstart to exploring open source.
I think that was even the first time
I explored something called as GitHub, edit, commit,
pull, request, everything about open source documentation, how
important it is more than code contribution.
And how can you explore open source
projects through documentation and all these steps?
Slowly, slowly.
I think I was over enthusiastic or an extrovert.
You can say who was, who was ready to do anything.
Any opportunity that I get in terms of exploring
tech or even non tech, I was ready.
And I think that enthusiasm in one way was good, that it
brought me to the place that I am in right now.
The opportunity that I'm able to get.
I'm speaking with you people across who are from
different places and doing a lot of crazy stuff.
So I think, entrepreneur and you
should not give up your dream.
Yeah, yeah.
I think it's really cool that they're
telling you about open source, right.
At, you know, during university, during college, because I
didn't, they talk about open source when I was
going to University, but it was very basic.
They just, they didn't teach us how to be involved.
They just teach us,
open source is like, these are the license.
This is, it means if the code is
available or something like that, but they didn't
really teach us how to collaborate or.
So I think that's a really good experience for you.
That's what I want to say for beginners.
For beginners like me, or for many women who
just gets started or who just want to understand
what open source or even tech industry is.
It's not that the code, code part that starts with.
I would not agree because no person as
a beginner knows how to code really well.
Everyone is like even less than a beginner
when they get started with their open source.
So probably it's how, it's understanding the documentation, getting
involved in the meetups, conferences, probably that could be
the way they can get started with the coding
part as well, the code contributions as well.
So, yeah, every time I contribute to a
new project, I feel like a beginner.
Like, because you're not familiar with it.
It's like, I think it's absolutely fine if you
feel like a beginner because that's the normal thing.
Exactly, exactly. Yeah.
So can I ask then,
it's because you went to women only, you
know, from women only school and then when
you went into your professional life.
Of course, it's not all women.
And in my, I don't know about
you, in my experience, mostly men.
How do you find the difference between
these two, you know, environment, I think.
Definitely, like when you travel to a
new country, you experience culture shock.
But for me, yeah, when you experience culture shock,
but definitely for me, it was when I went
from a, coming from a women's university where it,
it's a bit tightly packed with one gender-oriented
goals, and goal settings, or teachings, or environment, stepping
into the industry, or world.
I started it from the University, like from
my University as well, getting involved in Toastmasters,
trying to interact with other genders and stuff.
But then it was definitely a tech shock for me.
Like culture shock, I would have
my own word term, tech shock.
That is, I saw the whole industry
in general is really dominated by men.
I saw more men involved. It's,
I saw men a lot into development that,
this, organizing and stuff, more men, men.
And I was like, okay, here there is a bit less
ratio and it's definitely a bit like men are more involved.
But then in that, from this phase to that phase,
I thought, as a woman, I have to do something.
I have to do something.
It was definitely difficult for me initially.
Like, even though I'm an extrovert, for me it
was inside I felt like I'm an introvert.
To get conversation started with men asking me, please guide
in my career, or how can I, as a woman
as well start contributing and volunteering, or even as a
code contribution, how can I get started?
It was definitely a bit difficult for me initially.
But then thanks to PyLadies and Women Who Code,
there are many other communities who balanced the gender tension
that I had in my mind during the shift.
I saw, no, there are women communities who are working.
I can go there and I can even come here.
I can balance in between both because in my
job, I, my whole team has more men.
Seriously, it's more men.
So this is the way this community taught me how
to behave, how to speak, how I should maintain my
personality while balancing both in profession and while trying to
get myself involved in this community work.
How's the work culture difference?
Like an all women culture and all men culture?
Do you think? Kind of,
the power hierarchy is a little bit different?
Yeah, yeah, it's definitely different.
When you, when you deal with more woman oriented, a
lot of attention is given to you, just to you.
And every single thing you do
as a woman is probably noticed.
In general, whatever you do is noticed.
And like, in terms of like a.
Yeah, she did this and she did amazing.
A small little thing or a job
and a woman tries something new is
appreciated in communities and immediately they're given.
When it comes to corporate, I think there
is a lot of competition because you have
to handle another gender as well, even in
terms of work, or setting, or achieving your
goals, or getting that appreciation from your manager.
Definitely there is competition that gives you a
lot of pressure, unknowingly, a lot of pressure,
and you feel depressed and stressed out to
make yourself more, more visible in job.
For me, while dealing that stress immediately, my gateway
is probably just come to any meet up. Immediately.
I keep searching, is there any meetup.
Open source detoxing.
Any open source meetup which
is encouraging women as well?
Any woman-oriented.
I'm like, yes, this is there.
I'm going in.
So maybe that's like part of this is the gender thing.
Maybe part of it is because, you
know, corporate and community are different.
Yeah, definitely. Definitely.
If you don't mind sharing and you
can say no, like, was there specific
I don't know if you ever noticed
maybe discrimination or something, if you're comfortable.
Yeah, sure, sure.
I think this is something openly to be discussed, because
only when you discuss, people get to know and feel,
yeah, I'm not alone who is going through this.
I think definitely in.
In my job or in my professional life, I often
get to hear that women take a lot of leave.
They are not that dedicated setting their
goals or completing their work on time.
You take a lot of leaves. This.
This is something that I get to hear. They go on a lot.
They take a lot of vacation, or
they take a lot of leaves.
Their me time.
I think this is there.
And also, they're like, no problem
if you can't work more.
The person, who, this man can handle working long hours,
there are a lot of other stuff as well.
You can't handle this pressure.
You don't have much patience.
This is generally a woman or a gender trait. This. This.
This is a lot.
And you become easily emotional, which I am.
A lot of women who are very sensitive or emotional,
they cannot take any feed, any criteria, or they cannot
take any a suggestion, or they take to heart.
I mean, if I am suddenly said, you.
You don't work well.
She doesn't work well.
Her work is not visible. She's like that.
When they say, there are many
women who take that very seriously,
they become sensitive, emotional, and incorporate.
When you work emotionally, you cannot survive.
Yeah.
I think men also will be, like,
you know, hurt by those comments.
They're just, like, very hard and, like, it's not true.
Yeah.
You know, to me, though, it.
It's annoying that they.
They say women like in general. Right. I think.
And I feel that that's the pressure that you
mentioned earlier, like, when you are only, like, one
of the few in the team, you have this
pressure to make sure that they don't categorize you
as, you know, the whole women, like, you're representing
for the whole group when you're just yourself. Right.
It's not just women.
I mean, even men go through this. I'm not just speaking.
That's just.
Just focusing on women. But.
But then there are few emotional traits that women have
that they easily get affected with more than men.
So probably that that becomes a reason.
And I hear this, and then I see, other
than corporate, there are few communities, including Python or
even some other non-tech communities, where they're,
they're appreciating you, irrespective of your gender,
your race, whatever your mental disabilities are.
I see a lot of people from different
genders coming in, happily, interacting with me, and
they are like, dude, you are awesome.
When they keep saying this, I'm
like, no, it's not difficult.
There are other people as well who are
different, but they are strong and doing well.
Yeah, I think women are more
open to talk about the emotion.
So, like, we always talk about, like, now, the,
you know, the mental health care for men, you
know, kind of encourage men to also share their
emotion, you know, that kind of thing.
So, yeah, I think generally, like, you
know, a good environment, working environment, is
very important for everybody's mental health.
Yeah, definitely, definitely.
But I'm so glad to hear that your exit is
to find the Python community, the open source community.
Definitely, definitely safe space that we have here.
Exactly.
And there is one aspect I think I would
really like to highlight, and I don't know if
this is definitely to highlight, but then I saw
this being practiced in this as part of this
PyPodcats, and also as part of Python community.
Is that, like, in my personal life, my,
my younger brother, I have brother, and
my brother is a special child.
He's autistic. He is mentally challenged.
And that.
That environment and me trying to do
well so that I can even help.
My brother has emotionally or mentally always been
in my mind since my childhood, and then.
And it's like, I always thought that people
with mental disabilities probably cannot do anything, or
I don't know, how can I help them?
Are there any communities that are helping?
And then I came to Python community, and this was very.
Not just Python.
I know other communities are working, but this
is what I observed being in Python communities,
that how well people with disabilities or mental
disabilities, physical disabilities, are doing wonders.
I saw interview of Jessica, Jessica Tegner, who was.
who was,
who was also a pure hidden gem in community.
I saw being visually challenging,
how amazing she's doing.
I could never imagine someone doing like
that, even being a normal person.
And this. This.
This encouraged me a lot.
And this also was one of the aspect
that I always wanted to emotionally get connected
and give my best to this community.
And this.
This definitely was that point that always
encouraged me and gave me energy.
How amazing people in this community are.
I feel like everybody have a superpower
in the community that is hidden.
And I'm still discovering everybody's superpower.
Like, every day, I was like, you can do that?
You didn't tell me, like, you know, know
each other for so long, you know?
Yes.
There's so many amazing things
happening in the community.
Like, there's, like, so many hidden
talents, you know, like, yeah.
And we just need to have space.
We need space for them to share all of this. Right.
That's why definitely this is one
of the spaces for that. Yeah.
Each time I even.
I listen to each of our episodes that, like, I
am awed myself, like, really impressive to see them.
I think we are getting at the end of the session here.
Is there any other closing remarks or any,
do you have advice to share to the community?
Definitely.
There are a few things that I
encountered, so I would also try to
probably just tell people that probably this.
This assumption is wrong or it's. It's.
There's more to it.
There are a few things that people are.
A lot of people ask me or even
say, hey, Python community, or just these tech
communities are all about coding and speaking or
being an entrepreneur, having a huge, huge tech,
great tech profile.
I did this. I did that. Entrepreneur. Is it,
is it that you have to be a well established person
who even knows how to code, who's good at everything?
Only then, am I eligible to contribute?
This is an often question that I get.
I'm not a good person at everything,
but I really am enthusiastic to contribute.
I would say, yes, you're in the right place.
You really don't need to be on a well multitalented
person in all the aspects to contribute to any community.
Just start doing as volunteer.
Make networks, a lot of background work.
It's more than just speaking and, quote, contribution.
Be part of an organization.
Keep people engaged.
Registration desk is my favorite place in
conferences where I happily invite people.
And those smiling faces on the first day
of conference, being all these volunteering works, or
just being an attendee and gracing a conference
and making it a huge, successful thing is
also more just being a multitalented person.
You can just be a normal person and get started.
This is one thing I would like to say.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, you are special, and I would
say that I appreciate, but everybody is special,
and I'm so glad that you're here.
I'm so glad that everybody's here.
Right.
Well, thank you, everybody.
Thank you, Niharika, for joining
us and sharing your stories.
I think it's really inspiring, and I really hope
people who listen to your stories, they become inspired.
Like, they realize that, you know, they can do it, too.
There's so many paths to the
Python community and to tech.
So thank you again.
Thank you, everybody. Bye.