Secure the Role, Keep the Bag: Thriving in Tech as a Black Professional presented by Afroflare at Cloudflare

All right. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining Cloudflare and Afroflare and TextGiving's panel. Today, we're going to focus on not just securing the role, but also keeping the bag. And it's going to be focused around black professionals who have not only made the pivot into tech, and they've also been able to thrive in their careers. So over the next 75 minutes, we're going to talk through seven dynamic professionals with all various backgrounds, whether that's at Cloudflare, at Google, at Qualtrics, we're going to talk about their experience, but also really give tips and tricks on how to make sure that you are doing what you need to do to keep your bag. And in between that, we also will pass it over to TextGiving, who's going to spotlight their pivot program, which is an awesome workforce collaborative. And they will go through the entirety of that program for that. So to kick it off, I know some participants are joining just some housekeeping rules for right now. If you do have any questions, drop it in the chat. We have a Q&A session at the very end of this call. So we will take a couple of questions. If you wanted to go to a specific person, feel free to do that and ask them directly. And yeah, so let's go ahead and join and start with our bios. So Patrick, if you want to go first. Sure. Hello, everybody. My name is Patrick D.K. I am a senior cybersecurity engineer at Intercontinental Exchange in Atlanta. I do the digital forensics and incident response. So pretty much all things defense and response for this company. And we go by ICE for short. That is the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange. We have a mortgage technology branch and we have data services. So not that ICE. Thanks, Patrick. LaTosha, if you want to do your intro as well. Hi, everyone. My name is LaTosha Landy-Smith and I'm based in Dallas, originally from Albany, New York. And I'm at Cloudflare as a manager within trust and safety, specifically leading the platform integrity team who's responsible for managing the financial fraud on the platform. Great. Bradley, you're up next. Hi, everyone. I am Brad Perkins. I currently live in Austin, Texas, but a Louisiana boy at heart through and through. I am an executive assistant here at Cloudflare. I support our deputy chief legal officer and our general counsel in our legal policy and trust department. Great. Yada, let's hear more about yourself. All right. Hello, everyone. My name is Yada. I am a learning and content specialist at Figma for my nine to five. And then outside of that, I am the director of education and programming at TextGiving. So really excited to teach you all about our pivot program in a second. And I am based in Brooklyn, but originally from the Bay Area. Great. Brandy, you're up next. Hi, everybody. My name is Brandy Richardson. Currently work as a technical program manager at Google. I'm originally from New Orleans, but I live in Atlanta, Georgia. And yeah, I'm just super passionate about diversifying tech and making it a very inclusive environment. So I'm excited to be here. Great. And last but certainly not least, Amanda. Hi, everyone. I'm Amanda Onwukwe. I'm a customer success manager at Qualtrics here in Chicago, Illinois. I'm a native to Charlotte, North Carolina. So I love that we have some Southern representation here. Like Brandy, extremely passionate about making this space equitable and accessible for people of color. So excited to chat with you guys today. Amazing. And I'm Candice Onwukwe. I'm currently based in Atlanta, Georgia, where a couple of people here are based. I work at Cloudflare. I've been here for the last four years as an employee relations partner. And over the course of my tenure, not just at Cloudflare, but previously at Amazon and Human Resources, I see a lot of things and a lot of different avoidable issues that if somebody could just have those tips and tricks, we could have avoided it really around the performance management space. So this panel is near and dear to my heart because I want to make sure that we are giving out as much information as possible. And really, not only just how do you get a role in tech, but also how do you thrive in tech and what resources are there, what support systems are there. Text-giving is one that I have seen multiple times at multiple conferences. So I'm really excited to even have them here to conversate and just discuss their overall platform. But really, this panel, again, is with professionals from all different backgrounds who have not only broken into the tech sphere, but have thrived. They've been promoted. They've made career moves. They have the resumes of people that you want to look up to in a space. So I'm really happy for the next 75 minutes, we can talk really amongst friends and just give as much information as possible. So with that, we'll jump into the questions. How this panel is going to be set up is the first part is going to be focused on getting into the tech atmosphere. So we're going to focus on panelists who have made that jump from a nontraditional background into the tech sphere. And then from there, Text-giving will do a spotlight on their pivot program. And then lastly, our second segment is going to be, so you got the job, but how did you start thriving in your role? How did you adjust? What helped you stay? What helped you grow? So that's how we're going to have our panel. Again, if you do have questions, feel free to put it in the chat. Keisha is here. She's on stage with us. She is our lovely moderator from Cloudflare. She will be moderating the chat. And for any Q&As, we will talk through it at the very end. Okay. So let's go ahead and jump into the question. So Amanda, I'm going to start with you first. What inspired your move into the tech industry? So I feel like I've always been a naturally curious person, just wanting to really understand how things work beneath the surface. And I think when I made the pivot into tech, tech was really emerging and embedding itself in industries and processes that were kind of archaic in nature, specifically like in the healthcare space, which is where I came from. And so I really wanted to be a part of that change on the other side of that innovation. I'd worked with a lot of technology in my operations and risk role. And so wanting to be further embedded just in how technology was really shaping the healthcare space, both clinically and operationally. So that really is what drove me and my interest in understanding what could be out there and how I could marry my passions and my background in the tech space. Yeah, that's amazing. And now Bradley, I'm going to pass it over to you because you came from the legal industry. So I'm sure legal industry working at a law firm is night and day. Tell me more about also your journey and what inspired you to move into a more tech-based industry? Yeah, you hit the nail on the head. It's definitely very night and day. I worked previously in big 10 law firms, supporting partners, specifically within the securities sector of the law firm. And while it was just great foundation for me to learn and to branch out and to just get the footing that I needed, it really sort of kind of limited me in terms of moving into different areas or just, you know, developing different skill sets. And what I saw just from the tech space was that, you know, as a executive assistant, senior executive assistant, chief of staff, you're not just limited or capped on your capabilities. You know, they encourage you to grow. And that was definitely something that I was looking forward to within that space. Yeah, that's a great way to put it. And really speaking about the obstacles and those challenges that you faced, LaTosha, what obstacles essentially did you face pivoting into a more tech-based industry? One of the obstacles I faced, so when I first joined into the tech space, I was a contractor. So I transitioned from being a full-time within the banking financial industry. And then I made that pivot into tech as a contractor at Facebook. And being a contractor is a little bit different than being a full -time employee. So I had different projects to work on. One of the obstacles for me was trying to make that transition to make sure I can get into a full-time position. So I was constantly networking, constantly meeting different leaders, constantly trying to just show my face and show my impact to the company. And then eventually I was able to land a full-time role at Amazon. So the obstacles I faced was just pretty much being in the tech world and just learning the processes because it's very fast paced. It's different than my traditional banking industry of more calm and slower paced. So definitely pivoting in that aspect. Yeah. And I love that you also touched on contracting. I contracted at when I left Amazon in between coming to Cloudflare. I actually loved contracting. I think it gave me an opportunity to almost test out how a company works before committing fully. So for anyone watching, and if you're thinking about your next opportunity and it is a contract and you are scared, I always look at it as it's a test trial run. So you're able to get your foot in the door. You're able to make connections and also realize if that's the place that you want to stay, or if you want to go to another contract, if you want to do a full-time opportunity as well. So I love the fact that you just even touched on contracting because a lot of people don't know that that's such a key to getting into some of these tech spaces where they're not hiring for full -time roles. All right. Does anyone else have anything around obstacles that they face when they pivoted? I'll leave it at like an open forum now. I can maybe share something if you're looking for it. I think I was really lucky at my start at Qualtrics to have advocates who pulled me in and supported me. I think the biggest obstacle and barrier for me was personal and internal and convincing myself and truly believing that the space was made for me and I can succeed in this space. So that trigger word of imposter syndrome, battling that and wanting to walk in the light and walk in the spirit of those people that really motivate you and the person you really want to be in this space. So I think that was probably the biggest barrier, that hurdle to get over. But I think mentorship, networking, and I think the greatest learnings I've learned so far have been through conversations and connecting with people. And I think that's what really helped me overcome that. But I think a lot of people in this space probably go through that. Yeah. And imposter syndrome is such a big thing, especially when you look at a company, sometimes the people don't look like you that are in those certain roles as well. I don't know if you all have faced that. I faced that coming into Cloudflare. Thankfully, I came onto a team that was very supportive and really reassured me that I'm in this role, not because I'm... Because a lot of times with imposter syndrome, it almost feels like you're a fraud, like you're not supposed to be there. But getting that reassurance and being able to lean on my team and them letting me know, like, you're here because we wanted you here, not because we just gave you a job, has helped quite a bit. So imposter syndrome is something that's so big and that we all face. If you are dealing with that currently, just like Amanda said, get with your network, start making connections, start learning from people, start asking questions. You're not necessarily in a role just because they want to give you the role, you're in the role to make a difference. And so you should use that to your full ability. Okay, great. So I kind of want to touch more on the resources or learning paths that people took, whether that was, let's say, a skillset bootcamp, whether that was connections, like Amanda said, or networking. In what ways, resources or learning paths did you all use? And I'm going to leave this to an open forum. So if anybody wants to jump in, go ahead. I am happy to jump in on that one. I will say the pathway that I took specifically was networking. Not just in-person networking, I was networking across LinkedIn. You know, if you were a recruiter at Google, at Meta, Amazon, you know, even other medium-sized places, I was, you know, reaching out saying, hey, you know, I'm an EA for partners at a Big Ten law firm. I'm looking to pivot into the tech space. You know, here's my transferable skills, here's my skillset, here's my resume. You know, if you can just get me to the right department, I was just, and also just customizing a lot of those messages to whatever position that they had. So that was, that was my tactic. And I, you know, I think I fared out pretty, pretty well with it. Candice, I just wanted to make a comment on the last question really quickly. I'm so sorry. So one obstacle I would tell people is to get encouraged, to get familiar with being rejected, because it's going to happen a lot when it comes to tech. Be comfortable with being rejected. You're going to have a lot of no's, but just remember all you need is one yes. And then in terms of the learning path, so I did go through a software engineering bootcamp. I went through a bootcamp called Codesmith. And from there, I also did a lot of, like, self-teaching. So that's the beauty about tech as well, is that there's so many free resources and online resources that you can utilize. And then also, similar to Bradley, LinkedIn was my best friend. And so I added so many people in tech on LinkedIn. So a little trick that you can do is go on LinkedIn. If there's a specific company that you want to work for, type in that company, and then type in the role for that specific company you want to work for. And then a bunch of people that work at that company with that specific role, their names is going to come up. And so something I did, I would add people, and then I would pitch myself to people as well. I would introduce myself. I would offer, I don't know, I would just, like, ask that they were open to virtual coffee chats. So I definitely feel like putting yourself out there is going to be super important. If you are a person that's a little bit more introverted, this may be a challenge, but challenge yourself. Put yourself out there. Pitch yourself. Add as many people as you can on LinkedIn. Also get involved with communities. I think Bradley spoke about that as well. Join different sort of organizations, community meetups, because when it comes to tech, who you know is the most important thing. It's not simply about what you know, it's who you know. Absolutely. And Patrick, I'm going to come to you because I know you've been trying to come off mute quite a bit. But what Brandy said about just these informational, formal, sorry, coffee chats with different people on LinkedIn, that is such an underused resource that a lot of people, I don't think, realize the impact. Because I might not have a role that's open, or I might not know of a role that's open, but if you're able to pitch your background, the second we see something, okay, can I get your resume in front of the hiring manager? Can I make a connection with you? Can I help advocate for you in this space? Even though, yeah, there's no role that's currently open, but really just making those small connections with people at different companies that you may have no connection to, but it's just the fact that you took the chance on yourself and you reached out. And that can translate into getting an interview and ultimately getting a job as well. So great, definitely a great key and a great tip. Patrick, I'll give it back to you. Yeah, I was just going to, as far as resources, I agree, networking is a big one, finding a mentor in the field. For me personally, my pivot, I would say I pivoted more to cyber than I did to tech. I probably did have this traditional background. As far as I went to school, I got a degree and I started working as a software developer out of college. Thing is though, I had no internships. I had no projects under my belt. So I was working in retail for a while before I got my first job. And I don't feel like I grasped anything to actually do well in an interview once I finished school. So YouTube University really helped me down when I started out just learning anything I could, finding different pages, YouTube pages that I could find and learn from one of these people that was talking about a concept that I thought would help me with my job search. I think also just the vastness of IT and tech in general, because when I realized I wanted to be a software engineer, I did that because I wanted to pivot to cyber. And I thought that that would be the most straightforward path. But then I got to cyber and either way, you would have been wrong. There are so many different ways to get into cyber and just anything you want to do, there's different subdomains of all of those things. And I think it can be very overwhelming to say, okay, I want to be a cyber security engineer. What does that mean? For every role you look at, all the definitions might be different for that role. So it's like, all right, do I just learn everything about everything? No. So I think finding a mentor to help you kind of refine where you want to point to or what you want to focus on is very big, but then there's also so many free resources out there. And I think once I had the lane that I wanted to pursue, I think that helped me kind of refine what I wanted to study as well. Yeah. So you mentioned YouTube as a resource. What other free resources Patrick are out there that you could tell us about? Somebody asked that in the chat earlier. I know that there, so when I started out, there were a lot of, I mean, obviously the coding languages, they have their own libraries that you can start with. I had a Linda account, which is now LinkedIn learning. You can still get a lot of stuff on LinkedIn learning. Some of it is fluff, but there are some good things there. There are, I had cyber bit defenders. This is like a blue team threat hunting lab. It just gives you practical training on threat hunting and doing, it's called CTFs, which is, I forgot what it stands for, but it just, it gives you the practical, because I think a lot of people focus on like, what did I do on my resume as the experience, but you can get experience from anywhere. Like I made a home lab at home following a video that I watched and I like set up a test computers to try running analysis, malware analysis, looking for threats, looking at logs and different things like that, that I knew would be important in the industry, but I didn't have like an office that I could go to and test that out on. So you can really, if you build it, you can learn it and you can, you can speak to that in the interview, I think. So. Absolutely. And one other resource that I know a lot of companies are using right now is Udemy for business. I've gotten my Lean Six Sigma training just because I was running a project. I had no idea what I was doing. I was struggling so bad. And I reached out to somebody on our people operations team, his name's Carlos. I don't know if he's watching, but shout out to Carlos. And he told me about the fact that he had Lean Six Sigma. I went, did the entire training and it changed how I even look at project management from the people space. And this is not something that's really pushed on us as HR professionals. So being able to take that and now implement it, any projects that I've worked with has been an amazing thing, but Udemy for business was free for me because I currently work at Cloudflare. They have tons of resources, tons of even if you're studying for like your GRE, there's information on there, there's training sessions, webinars that you're able to use. So definitely ask around for what resources even your company could provide and, or if they're willing to provide like a reimbursement as well. Another quick cheat code for learning and resources is that there are so many software tools that have free trials. Even if you aren't familiar with what it is, let's just say AI, for example, because that's huge. There are so many AI tools that have free trials, free credits, et cetera, for you to just play with and learn more. And I think, especially as adults, when we get outside of the classroom, there is a challenge for us to develop this like self-serve or how can we kind of continue to expand on our knowledge? And that is playing around is a great way to just learn about a tool and see if that's actually of interest to you. So I definitely encourage you all to just like learn more about tools, check out a free trial, learn on Coursera, on Codecademy, et cetera, and just like use that as your sort of launching point for your career panel, your career progress. Sorry. Yeah. If I may add to the biggest misconception, even a misconception that I didn't fully understand prior to coming into tech, that not all roles in tech are based in technology. So I think the other piece is like honing in on your relationship skills, your communication skills, your executive presence. Like those are all skills that you might need to take a different route to enabling and learning. So if I may plug, there are some really great volunteer organizations like Compass Pro Bono, where you can practice and hone in on your consulting abilities and support nonprofits while you do that. So within LinkedIn and other enablement pieces and systems that everyone's chatted about already, I think those transferable skills are incredibly important. A lot of these organizations invest and prioritize enablement when you join them. So you'll learn the tech eventually, but those other soft skills are incredibly important to hone in and strengthen. Great. And I do just want to plug in real quick, the chat. If you have not seen the chat, people are dropping gems in there right now about resources, about how to stay connected. So please definitely look at the chat we have. I recognize a couple of names from Cloudflare. These are all people as well who have been thriving in their own careers. So while we are talking, feel free to just continue to plug different resources, support your own thoughts as well in the chat to keep the conversation going. All right. So we're going to jump into our last question of this segment. How did your previous background help or hinder your entry into tech? And anyone can go. For me, I think, so my background is pretty diverse when it comes to finance. I have a finance degree, but then I also coupled that with a certification in fraud examining, because when I was in the banking space, I was in the fraud department and I didn't know that the tech world had a fraud department. So when I got introduced to that and was able to onboard at Amazon as a risk manager, it opened my eyes to the magnitude of how I can make an impact. So having both of those on my belt definitely helped me land that job for one, and then also was able to leverage and to scale that and then make that transition to here at Cloudflare and pretty much leading a team at this point who are investigators, who are pretty much managing the financial fraud on the platform. I can share a bit. A lot of my work has involved program management. And if you're not familiar with that, it's sort of like project management, but at a larger scale, you're juggling multiple projects at the same time. And when I first pivoted into tech, I came from an art and education background. So the exact opposite of typical traditional tech careers. But when you kind of recognize those transferable skills that you do bring and have the confidence in them, you can directly apply them to your work. And so if there are any educators in the chat, you know, you're juggling students, you're juggling parents, you're juggling admin. That's something that I could directly apply to my program management skills of like, here are all the stakeholders that I'm working with across functional teams, and I need to make sure everyone is aligned across the board. So just really making sure that you identify these transferable skills that you can directly apply to your job, whether or not they fit that specific tech space, because we all have the skills we need to be confident in Yeah, I can share a little bit here too. My background being in healthcare operations, incredibly, you know, different from kind of the world I stepped into in customer success, but the customers and clients that I service are healthcare providers. So I mirrored the profile and experiences of the customers that I service. So I think that was the one, you know, trick and cheat code I use, you know, to get into the space is because, you know, when you can understand the needs of your consumers, and really who the product, the tech is actually helping, that's, that's a really important way, a good way to get in. So yeah, that significantly helped me. And I'll say for myself, I came prior to supporting partners in law firms, I was a Hill intern and staffer. And I think coming into the legal public policy and trust department, just marrying my political experience, also with the law experience, I was able to sort of push that to the forefront. So that, you know, made me stand out. And I was, you know, had the experience that they were looking for. I would say for me, I did not come from like a polished career background, my degrees in public health, and I've had like so many different careers. I worked as a recruiter, I worked as a school teacher, I worked during ministry, I've had so many different positions. But I would say the biggest thing that has helped me in my tech career, and I think Yara spoke on it is how to identify your transferable skills. And so one unique thing I would say, when you are applying for jobs, don't focus so much on a title, look at the responsibilities and the duties, because I have worked at both Microsoft and Google, and two positions can have the same title, and you're doing completely different things. So I don't know if titles are, you know, should be the focal point, look at your responsibilities and your duties, and see how those things can be transferable. So if you used to be a school teacher, I believe someone mentioned it, I'm sure you were a, I don't know, I'm sure you created the curriculum, I'm sure you have project management skills, I'm sure you had great communication skills, even though that wasn't your actual title, you had all those responsibilities. And so now it's like, okay, how do I transfer these skills and these duties into my new role? And so I'm just speaking for someone, again, my background is not polished, I've worked in every single industry, but one thing that I was always good at is transferring my skills. And so focus on the duties, responsibilities, don't get caught up in the titles. That to me is such a good key. And it's really how you package yourself to these companies, just like Brandy said, I mean, we have so many people who have come from education, and now they're program managers, they work in learning and development, but it's because they already have that experience, whether it's that they started their careers in learning and development, but they had those transferable skills, like Brandy said. And I actually want to touch on the hinder part of that question, which was how did your previous background help or hinder your entry. So I have a pretty unique experience. I came from Amazon, but not Amazon Web Services, Amazon Logistics. So my career started in Baltimore, Maryland, in a warehouse with 6,000 associates. And these are people that come from different backgrounds, of course, hourly employees, and that's how I got my start in HR. In that time, I learned any and everything about how to work in human resources in that environment. Coming into tech, very similar to Bradley, it was night and day. The HR processes are kind of the same, but the people are different. The corporate working environment is so different. I hadn't worked in a corporate role before. So a lot of times, I did hinder myself because I did not know how to navigate some of these certain experiences and how to navigate these conversations. How do I advocate for myself, especially being in a remote environment as well? So my previous background, I would say, kind of hindered me just a little bit because very similar to everybody else, I didn't have that traditional, I started in tech coming straight out of college. I had to learn along the way. And we're going to get more into this in the second part of the segment, but it really was those connections that I made, who I was able to get advice from, who I was able to talk about the issues that I have, and also people who poured into me as well. So that wraps up our first segment. I'm going to hand it over to Brandy and Nyada, who's going to talk through the Pivot Program at Text Giving. So they will have about 15 minutes to go through that, and then we will come back for segment two. All of my panelists, feel free to enter the backstage area at this time. Awesome. All right, everyone. Hello, hello. Just wanted to kind of give you a quick overview of the Pivot Program before I begin to share some of our content with you all. But first and foremost, I work for an org called Text Giving, which some of you may be familiar with, but we are an org that started out focusing on giving back to the K-12 community and the DMV area. So if anyone's in the DMV and the panel, shout us out. And we were really focused on, again, just giving back. And then COVID hit, and a lot of folks were looking into online learning, pivoting into tech as a whole. And that is where our Pivot Program sort of sparked, which is a way to really focus on enabling adults specifically to get into these technical roles that they are most likely interested in from non -traditional tech backgrounds. So I can go ahead and get started. Let's see. To the Cloudflare folks, I need to share screen. Give me one second. Okay, here we go. Perfect. So yes, like I said, I'm going to share a bit more about the Pivot Program as a whole. So again, Text Giving is a way for folks to really kind of dive into their specific careers. We help people pivot into and excel in their specifically in-demand tech roles. Text Giving is, again, based in the DMV, but we are global at this point. We have over 7,000 people in our community, and we have an annual summit in DC every year in December. If you're available to join, we would love to see you there, where we have things like panels, workshops, one-on-one sessions with hiring partners, as well as companies to really make sure that people feel like they can confidently pivot into the spaces that they need to. So going back to the Pivot Program specifically, as you all have probably seen, there's just a big challenge with workforce in general, specifically a gap between employees and employers. So employers, so the companies like Cloudflare, et cetera, are looking for specific candidates who fit these roles, who fit these responsibilities. But some of these technical training programs, or just the lack of general exposure to these roles, have sort of led us down a path where employees who are applying don't have all of the sort of core knowledge that the employers are looking for. So those are some of the challenges now, especially focused on tech roles. And so the Pivot Program started to really bridge that gap. So we work with expert leaders in specific industries to teach anywhere between four to six months for in -demand skills. So things like user experience, cybersecurity, AI is big, obviously, this year. And so we work with, in this photo you can see, a bunch of folks in specific regions to really tap into that industry and understand all that encompasses so that you can build that technical acumen. And you can see here that we've partnered with some incredible spaces. So Grow with Google DC, we've partnered with the City of Atlanta, as well as the Urban League of Philadelphia. So kind of diving into what our offerings are, we focus on three big components. The first I mentioned is the technical education. So that's really sort of the end-to-end understanding of a subject. So this cohort in the photo here is on cybersecurity. You then get a certificate or certification, depending on our program, at the end. So this specifically was the Google Cybersecurity Career Certificate. Outside of the technical education, though, because we know getting a job isn't just what you can do on paper, it's how you can speak to it, it's who you know, et cetera. And so we have these other components, the professional development and networking, which really allow our participants to learn more about building their professional brand, their LinkedIn, building portfolios, interview prep, and getting into the networking. So all of the things that the panel mentioned earlier of how you are going to show up in in-person spaces, how are you going to show up in someone's LinkedIn DMs, really making sure that you get a sort of 360 understanding of the soft skills that are relevant to specific roles in the tech industry. So one specific example that I want to share is that, again, we partnered with the City of Atlanta Office of Innovation, and we were really focused on two things, enabling the participants. Our cohort here was specifically project management, apologies, as well as UX design, and making sure that we enabled those folks to kind of thrive in that sector. But the second piece was actually working with the city to make sure that we're building a tech pipeline that is diverse, that is knowledgeable, that is ready and eager to learn. And so a lot of this was working in tandem with the city to identify what their values are, what their metrics are, and how we can build a program around that. And so I want to give Brandy a quick shout out, because Brandy spoke at one of our in-person events, kind of just share her experience. So Brandy, I'll let you quickly share any information that you want to kind of highlight about the text-giving experience in Atlanta. Yeah, the first thing I would say is I want to encourage people when you are looking to getting to any sort of pivot programs is to find programs like text -giving where the founders and the people that work for the company actually work in tech. Because one of the things that you'll see is there's a lot of pivot programs, and then the founders are just these business people, entrepreneurs, but they have nothing to do with tech. One of the things I appreciate about text-giving is that the founder, he works at Google, he used to work at Facebook, he used to work at Microsoft. He is a technical person. The people that he has working and supporting and volunteering at text-giving are technical people, and so they're giving you their firsthand experience. And so that's one of the reasons why I enjoy volunteering and enjoy supporting text -giving is because you have people that actually work in tech, and they can give you firsthand experience, as well as great networking. And so, yeah, I think that's the main thing I wanted to highlight is encouraging people to find programs like text-giving that is centered around tech. Another thing I want to say about text -giving is that there's an intimacy to it that I really appreciate. So they have their text-giving summit that takes place in December, and I personally know people who have gone and actually connected with people, networked, and got jobs from text -giving summit versus some of the other bigger tech conferences or summits. They're so large, it's very hard to really connect with people and feel that intimacy. And so, again, I appreciate text -giving because it's, again, tech -centered, founded by a tech person, that's important. And then also there's a love of intimacy when you go to their events, when you join their pivot program, when you join their events or go to their summits, that you can actually have networking with real people that are working in tech, make those real authentic connections. And there's Black people that actually want to help you because one thing about Black people is that we don't want to be, you know, gatekeepers. We want to open up the door for the next person. And so, yeah, I just wanted to shout out to text-giving. I really love all that they're doing. And so, yeah. Thank you, Brandy. And this is also just a great example of what volunteering can do, especially if you are interested in a space. Volunteer time if you're able. It's a really great opportunity to obviously build your network, but really, again, understand that this is an area or an industry that you're interested in working in. So, this is one of the testimonials from a cyber security cohort, Kayla, just kind of talking about the program as a whole, what she was feeling before, just struggling with community during the program and especially attending the text -giving summit, just kind of building that confidence. And then from there, being able to strengthen her portfolio and finding a role. And so, I think the key piece here is, you know, the before and the during, we've all experienced this. We've all been nervous. We've not felt confident in our abilities, obviously, imposter syndrome, et cetera. But things like this program and building your network and your community can eventually evolve into things like getting a role, building your portfolio, et cetera. So, this doesn't happen overnight, but I think it's important to see that we've all sort of been in the same space as Kayla of like, how can we build and progress towards feeling confident and finding and securing that role that we're interested in? So, that is the quick kind of summary of the Pivot Program. If you are interested in learning more, you can follow textgiving.co. I can put that in the chat after for more information. And then again, we do have our summit at the end of the year, December 10th through 13th in DC. You can buy tickets on the site, textgiving.co as well. And I will go ahead and pass it back to Klaifler. Thank you, everyone. All right. Thank you so much, Yada and Brandy for going over that. I have my own funny testimonial about textgiving. I have run into textgiving in so many different spaces to the point where I'm like, what is this program? I've seen them at Afrotech multiple years. I've run into them at conferences. I went to a random event at Georgetown one time and they were presenting. And so, I think the one main thing about textgiving is not only are they giving you all the resources and the support, but they're providing a community to do that in. And that to me is why they stand out as a premier organization. It's because it's people that look just like us that are trying to do the same thing that can help support you. But they also have been in these spaces before. They know how it feels to be maybe sometimes the only person or the only person of color in these environments. But we're providing essentially a community. So, if you haven't, we're going to send out their information. But if you have not already, I highly suggest going on their website. And also, if you can go to their summit in December. I'm trying to go. I'm trying to go for free. But I'm trying to go. And I highly, highly, highly suggest people to attend those events and support them as much as possible. All right. So, we're going to jump into the second half of our questions. These questions are really focused not necessarily on getting to text. So, we spoke about that. We talked about the resources, the free programs, the connections, the networking. Now, we want to focus the conversation on how to thrive in your role once you have been essentially offered a role. So, just jumping in, I'm going to, again, this is open for anyone. How did you adjust once you landed your first tech job? I will say for me, I allowed myself probably like a couple of weeks just to sort of get the lay of the land. But once I did or at least got most of it, I really hit the ground running. And I made sure that everyone in my department knew who I was and then sort of branched out from there. I just wanted to make a name for myself and, you know, sort of brand myself here at Cloudflare. And that was one of the big things that I did was just not only, you know, making sure that I knew what I was doing and showing up or showing up early, but just also getting to know people on a personal level and just making that sort of connection because that's, you know, is something that can help sustain you in this industry and, you know, also take you places too. So, yeah. I agree with that. Also, I think my first my first tech job was very siloed and a lot of the people were responsible for what they did, but you really didn't know who did what. So, I made it a goal of mine to kind of get the business knowledge from all the different resources I see. Like there are people sitting at desks next to me that work on teams adjacent to what I did, but I didn't really have a full context of what they did. And I think interacting with them and understanding who all the players are and how we all fit to the business and what the business goals are, I think that helps me as well. Because like we've said, like the technical knowledge is good, but having that business knowledge and then learning who all the people in the community are and they can help you get some context to kind of further understand your job and do a better job at it. So, I think that was the first thing I did was just, all right, who is this? What are they doing? How does that relate to me? Like over and over and over until it started to make sense. And Patrick, I'm going to pass this back to you really quickly. So, how did you identify those individuals that you really want to get to know once you got into that role? Yeah. I mean, a lot of it is proximity because, so for instance, I worked at Fidelity Investments. That was my first company and I was a software engineer, but I was in New Hampshire and I was the only one in New Hampshire and New Hampshire of all places. So, it wasn't many people out there to begin with and the people that were there, it was maybe like 20 people in the office and my business unit was probably the smallest one in that office. So, short of just saying, hey, who are you? And what do you do? I was very intentional about meeting the ones that were there. I would ask my manager who had been there before me, like, do you know what this business unit is and who all the important people are? If a thing came to me that I hadn't worked with before, I would say, okay, well, what team does this usually fall under? Whose jurisdiction is this? And then I would interact with that team. So, really just kind of pulling at people and trying to get help from whoever was there because again, like we said, that imposter syndrome is so real. So, I was already feeling like I need to understand everything or else I'm not good enough and they'll find me out and then I'll get fired. You know what I mean? But when you meet more people and you understand like, oh, we all kind of don't know what we're doing. We're just, you know, we're just doing good. You know what I mean? We're doing enough. So, I think just meeting the right people and yeah, just not being afraid to talk to somebody that you were curious about what they were doing. That's what helped me. And I think that's so important, especially, sorry, Rain, I'll let you go in a second, just coming from a non-technical role, going into another non-technical role, but then I support technical teams. So, in my role, I support our research and development organizations at Cloudflare. So, that's product, that's engineering, that's security. When I first came in, I had no idea what these teams do. I had no idea how to even translate the business needs to performance management. But just like Patrick said, I found very key players that could help me understand exactly what the business does and what their organization does, not only just within their organization, but for the entirety of Cloudflare so that I could now understand how to better do my role and how to support them better. So, really, if you're in those non-technical spaces and you support a specific business unit, really around those technical environments, start having listening conversations with just the most random people in their organization, whether that's a VP, whether that is a entry-level software engineer, just ask them essentially, what do they do? How do they work? What teams do they work with? What software do they use? Really being able to give yourself additional knowledge to help yourself grow and develop, knowing that you don't have a technical background, I think is also something that's pretty key. Brandy, I know you wanted to say something. I was just going to add to what Patrick said about most people don't really fully know, but we just sound like we do. One of the things I realized about working in tech is that everybody likes to sound smarter than what they really are. You use these big words, but in reality, I've learned when you are able to break a technical concept down in layman terms, that actually shows that you know it much better. One of the things that I will say in terms of adjusting, honestly, it took me months to adjust in my first tech role, but sometimes you have to fake it till you make it. A lot of times I would be in the meetings and shaking my head, like, absolutely. Then after the meeting, I would go and research and understand the concepts better, or I would like ping my mentor on the side. I think that's super important when you are getting into a tech role, to have a mentor at that specific company. I would follow up with my mentor on different questions that I had, because for the first few months, I don't think I adjusted. Honestly, I feel like I'm still adjusting being in tech. It's like my sixth year. Tech is always changing. There's so much to learn. Tech is always evolving. I think some of that is the beauty of tech. You're always, in some ways, walking on eggshells, because again, you're always learning. There's this sense of curiosity that you should always have. I don't think people should be discouraged if you feel like, I haven't adjusted in month one or month two. Give yourself grace and know that that is the beauty of tech. It's that everything is always evolving. The moment you feel like you got a concept, then boom, a whole new concept is now created. A perfect example is AI. A few years ago, AI wasn't that important. Now everybody's talking about AI. I think that's just an example of tech is always evolving. Always be learning. You always will be adjusting. You won't fully ever be adjusted, to be honest. Anyone else want to tackle that question? Picking back off what Brandy said about how tech is always evolving, it's evolving and it's evolving quickly. A big piece for adjusting, at least for me, was scheduling 30 minutes of my morning to read everything, whether that was Slack, whether that was internal docs, because I not only understood what was going on from a tactical perspective, but I could then understand what are some big rocks, what are some OKRs, what are some things that our company is actually looking to do, and align my work with that, so that I could bring to my manager, hey, I saw in this meeting that everyone's focused on this. How can I work on that project? How can I get involved there? Or if I can't, who can I talk to to learn more about it? So just kind of scheduling time with yourself and potentially your manager to just go through, read everything, and align your work with that. I know that probably gets into another question of how do we secure and stay with the bag, but I think that's an important piece to note of why it's important to always sort of be learning in this space. Yara, that was a perfect segment into that next question, which is really around, of course, how and what helped you stay and grow in the space of the tech industry? And I also want to kind of add another caveat to that, because I know a lot of us are either remote or we work from home, and with that is another added challenge. So if you have any tips, kind of like Yara said, having a specific time period to review emails and meetings and just make sure that she's up to date with everything. If you have a specific skill set or specific tips of working remotely that you would like to add as well, feel free to share that as well. Oh, yeah. Go ahead, Jack. Oh, yeah. So, no, you can go ahead. All right, real quick then. I was just going to say, I mean, so when I started this role, I was remote. I couldn't come to the office because I was in Atlanta. But I do think that present, making the extra effort to be like, for instance, meetings, I think I always had my camera on, which is something people don't like to do. But I do think like it makes you more than just a black screen if somebody can see a name and a face and then be like, oh, OK, I know who to send something to. So I do think as far as the remote piece, I think just being having my camera on and not being silent in the meeting, even if it's like, I have a quick question about that or just making myself at least like having my the awareness, my presence is there. You know what I'm saying? I'm not just a fly on the wall to meetings that pertain to me and my team and things like that. I think that's important as far as just in general, my staying and growing in the space. This can get abused sometimes, but I do believe that nothing is ever outside of your job scope. If you truly want to grow in a position like dealing with that ambiguity, especially like the only way to tackle imposter syndrome is to face the ambiguity head on. Right. So I think that if somebody asks, hey, can you do X, Y, Z, but you're used to doing ABC, like figuring out what you need to learn in order to do it, I think that goes a long way. Half of my team is upstairs listening to me talk right now, so they'll check me if I'm lying. But I know that when I first got here, I was maybe like two months in and we had an incident and we were doing our post report on it. And they were like, all right, who wants to do the presentation? And everybody was a little hesitant, you know, and I'm not necessarily a public speaker myself, but I think because when I play sports, I was captain and I just kind of am used to being forced into being the speaker sometimes. Like I just rose my head and I was like, you know what, I'll do the presentation. I think at the end of that year, when my manager was going over my review with me, he was letting me know like, oh yeah, we didn't expect somebody fresh to jump in and take this assignment and you did that. And I think that went over well. And it just kind of got me, it exposed me not only to the entire team and all the different units that I work with, but I'd also, I kind of, I think it makes you look good when you show that you have an interest beyond doing what's only your day to day business as usual. So I think that's what helped. If I may piggyback off of that, to Patrick's point, visibility is so important. You have to speak up, you have to be vocal and get involved as early and often as you can and flex your skills, be them not, you know, specific to the technology or the role. It might be, you know, another skill you have or something else that makes you unique, leverage that to support your team. And I think the other thing is also being your own advocate and celebrating your own wins as well is key for that success piece. Because I think naturally I struggle to, you know, toot my own horn. I think a lot of people do, right? There's a level of humility you just have to have, you know, as a human, but in this space, it is good to advocate for yourself and celebrate your wins because often you might be the only, you know, your best advocate and the only person that's able to do that. And then another point I think is interesting, and it goes back to some of our other questions, but pivoting from a non -traditional background, you know, success looked very different in my role today than what it did in my previous role. So in order to succeed, you need to be very clear on like what success looks like. You might have new metrics, you might have completely different ways that, you know, the organization is evaluating your, you know, your success and your good work. And so knowing what that is and then mirroring all of your actions and steps to that is how you continuously succeed and grow and outperform, you know, others. And I'll say for me specifically, because I'm going to double piggyback off of Amanda and Patrick, but yeah, showing up and showing out. And one of the tactics that I use specifically as a person that supports executives and C-suite people and partners in law firms in my past was that I wanted to mold not only my executives, but my team and their direct reports in a way that if I was ever off, they were like, where the hell is he at? What is he doing? Because I wanted to make sure that my presence was known, that I was doing the job to the best of my capabilities, if not more than, so that when I'm gone, they're lost. I feel like that's my like retainment sort of tactic. Candice, I was going to say, so I know you asked what helped you stay and grow in this space. Honestly, for me, the money is what's helping me stay and grow. And I think I use that as like my motivation when it comes to like grab reviews. And so something that I encourage people to do is document every single thing that you do, any sort of like ownership, any sort of accomplishments, any sort of like projects that you have executed and landed, document it all. So that way when it's time to get promotions, when it's time for like reviews, you have a what, three, four months, because well, at Google, we have grab reviews every quarter. So when it's time for like reviews, you have four months worth of documentation that you have already documented that shows all of your skills, all of your achievements, all of your accomplishments for that quarter. And so I would really encourage people to document everything that you do. Every time you launch a project, every time you execute a project, document it all. So that way you can be reminded when it's time for reviews, when it's time for promotions, you and your manager knows exactly what you did for that quarter or for that year. And so definitely the money is what motivates me, to be honest. And let me say one more thing, the ability to leave impact as a Black person, I think that's important. I know we talk a lot about racial biases and AI, but a huge part of that is because the people that are creating these algorithms are not Black. And so I think, you know, that to me is also a reason why we need more Black people in these spaces, because you get to directly impact products that will impact billions of people. And so, yes, I would say the money and the ability to leave impact as a Black perspective, from a Black perspective. And money being your, not even your main, but there's nothing wrong with that, honestly. I think in the tech space, there are ways to get your compensation up that maybe in other industries you're not able to do and live a more comfortable life. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think that's a good motivator as well. And I want to touch back on your point about really having your accomplishments listed out. That is such a good way to not only just be able to say, hey, here's everything I've done, but to feel accomplished yourself. If I can look back and say over the quarter, I was able to complete this, that, and the third, whether or not I'm feeling great about how I have been performing, I know that I can actually look back on my own accomplishments. And it's tangible. It's substantial. It's things that I know that I have completed, regardless of where it ended or where it did end, where it did not end. I know that I was able to complete this. So that's such a great point, Brandy. Before we jump to the next question, does anyone else want to piggyback or add on? Yes. One addendum to that. If people are shouting you out in Slack over email, et cetera, that's a great way. Screenshot that. Add that to your brag sheet, your accomplishment sheet, et cetera, because that showcases your impact cross-functionally or with managers and directors. And that also gives people an idea of being able to speak to your promotion. So in rooms that you might not be in, they can speak to all of the ways that you've helped them or that you've impacted their team. So screenshot, work with other people, make sure that everyone is visibly seeing your impact and not just you and your manager. I want to add on to that before we go to the next question. So one thing that I'm a big proponent of is constructive feedback. So definitely ask for those shout outs, those big accomplishments, but also ask for constructive feedback as well. So is there something that you may have missed? And not only are you able to know I missed this, but you have the chance to now rectify that and show by the next promotion or your next quarterly review that I got this feedback. In order to help that feedback, I did X, Y, and Z. And now I can show that I took the feedback and pretty much reworked it into my own capabilities as well. So I highly, highly, highly, highly suggest getting constructive feedback. All right, let's jump to the next question. How do you advocate for yourself in the workplace? I had a really interesting experience when I was at Amazon when we were undergoing a reorg. So within that reorg, they were trying to transition different team members to different teams, and they were pretty much telling you where you were going to go. And when I found out what team that I was going to go to, I knew that wasn't in my best interest to continue and to grow the career the way I wanted to. So I immediately escalated to leadership and had a conversation and advocated for myself to explain to them why I thought that would hinder my career growth versus help it and benefit it. And so I think it's always important to always speak up for yourself, especially even if it's leaders, levels above you, don't be afraid to advocate for yourself and let them know of where you see your career because you're in charge of your career. And I was able to transition to a different team that was better suited for my skill set and ultimately landed me within AWS. So I went from Amazon retail side to AWS to further enhance my skills. So I always just tell people, just don't be afraid because someone has a certain title to their name, and they tell you to do something. If you don't feel it's right, also say what you feel. I think that's a great point, Latosha. And I think going back to even the feedback piece, like I think you, you know, as a value person in that space, you also have the voice to give, share your feedback about reorgs and changes, you know, amongst your team. I think that's incredibly important. At Qualtrics, I've experienced a lot of change that's directly impacted my day-to -day, the team that I'm with. And I think to Latosha's point again, like just advocating what your needs are early and often is incredibly important, you know, because again, like we are, we are our biggest advocates. We don't have, you know, people in our back, you know, in our backyard and, you know, behind us supporting, supporting us in that way. So advocate often and give feedback whenever it's needed and respectfully appropriate channels as well. I also think finding a mentor is more than just how should I navigate my career? Sometimes your, your mentor ideally can be in a position where they might be your advocate. Like they might be able to go to the C-suite and speak of your name and, and, you know, mention you and specifically shout you out for your contribution on certain things. So I think, yeah, like they can help you career-wise, but also like, Hey, I just, they close my mouth. Don't get fed. Right. So if nobody knows that you plan to be the CEO someday, how, how can they help you get in that direction? Unless you're saying, Hey, this is what I want to be noted for, you know what I mean? I think having a, a mentor that you trust with your goals and your visions, like somebody that can align with you on what you want to do is super important. It doesn't have to be just one, you know what I mean? I have multiple mentors for different reasons. I think that they all contribute to my success. I think if you're in a place where feedback isn't something that is highlighted often, or you have to initiate that all the time, then make sure you initiate it all the time. Like we have one-on-ones here every, maybe like bi -weekly. And that's when I really get to like, let my manager know this is what I'm doing better. If I want a promotion next year, what should I be doing? You know what I mean? Like that's your opportunity, like speak your truth. You know what I mean? Like, don't, don't cutesy around it. And I think Candice is a good friend of mine. And she actually helped me when I was looking for my first security roles. And she was like, your resume is incredible. Why don't you just ask for XYZ? And my manager's listening. It's her fault. But, but yeah, so I think it's just, you know, like, why not, you know, shoot, shoot for the stars and see, see where you land at. I think that's important. Don't be humble about your career. It's your career, you know, you got to live with this every day. So do what you got to do. Absolutely. And one thing to know is Patrick asked and he received as well. So don't be afraid to ask, even if it is X amount more money. If you have the background, ask for it. The worst they can say is no. That's typically the worst that they can say. And one thing I want to also add is that, and we're kind of going to get into it in the next question, but your sponsor or your mentor doesn't have to be somebody that looks just like you. So in the tech industry, there's a lot of people who don't look like us. Don't be afraid to ask these people. You don't have to always ask them explicitly, Hey, can you be my mentor? Can you be my executive sponsor? But find those people in those key roles in which either A, you want to maybe get into that role someday, whether that, I mean, I don't know about CEO, but really finding VPs, EVPs in these higher level roles, like you can bounce ideas off of, you can ask more about their own journey. But one thing I want people to understand, especially those that look like us is that they don't always have to look like us to help mentor us. And also those are sometimes going to be your best allies and advocates. So they're in specific rooms that we may not be able to be in just yet, but they're able to speak highly of your name. They're able to talk about your accomplishments because you have established that relationship with them. And they're essentially able to be an advocate for you when you cannot be in the room or you don't have that voice. So I always try to tell people, your mentor doesn't have to look like you. Your mentor can be any person who's in a role that you A, either want, even if you don't want the role, but they're just in a certain level and they can speak highly to you, to different teams, to different roles and organizations as well. All right, before we jump into the next question, does anyone else want to answer, how do you advocate for yourself in the workplace? Did want to just add one thing to that. When advocating for yourself, you definitely need to make sure that you are prepared when you get to the table so that you can just hit the ground running for whatever you need or whatever you're looking for and then be set. You can't come up and be like, well, I don't know. You have to be, you gotta be, it's go time. You gotta be ready to go. So always prepare yourself before you have those sorts of conversations. Okay, great. So I know we're running up on time. We have about 10 more minutes left in our session. So I'm going to ask one more question and then we will go into a couple of Q&A questions that you all have put in the chat. If you haven't already, go ahead and put it in. We'll pull out a couple. But my last question, and we've started to touch on this already. What does community look like for you inside and outside of work? I know we talked a lot about inside the work, but I would like to touch on the outside. Always have a moment for decompressing. Outside of work, I love just being with friends and family and then doing what I love as like traveling and different hobbies that you enjoy because sometimes we take our work home and I just don't think that's a good work -life balance. So always keep in mind to have that supportive community outside of work and don't be afraid to do nothing. That's always my biggest thing because you find that you do a lot more the more you do nothing, if that makes sense, just because you have more capacity mentally and prepared to take those next steps. I would say for me, inside the work, I join a lot of ERG groups, which are super, or ERGs, which are super beneficial. So just our employee resource groups. So they have one for like black women, they have one for women, they have one for black people, they have one for just different things. And I think that's super encouraging. And it just gives me a sense of community inside my job. But I will say outside my work, my community for me is even more important. My church family, my friends. And I think those are the people that help me to remember that my identity is not found in my job. Because I do think sometimes as black people, it's so easy to, you know, place all of our hope and value in these companies. And so I think it's just, you know, it's good to just be level set it like, hey, this company isn't going to ever value you in the way that you think you should be. Let's just be clear. Like, I definitely think you should advocate for yourself and try to find value. But at the end of the day, it's still a business. And so I think it's important to have your outside community, have your, you know, your friends, your family, your loved ones that remind you of who you are, and that your identity is not in these companies, because at the drop of a dime, they can lay you off, let's be clear. And so I think it's just good to have that outside community. Excuse me, I think it's good to have community outside of work that just, you know, level set you and keep you grounded. And so I also wanted to give a quick shout out to Bradley. He was one of the first people that reached out to me when I first joined Cloudflare. And he introduced me to Afroflare, one of our affinity groups. And it was a game changer. So definitely appreciate that. And let me just rag on Afroflare at Cloudflare. I'm biased because of course, I am at Cloudflare. Excuse my language, we do the damn thing at Cloudflare. Afroflare for me has been such a great group being a remote employee. I've been able to connect with people from Lisbon, from London, when I went over to Europe, I got to go to dinner with these people, but they really turned into a family that I could fit to, that I can talk about, they understand where these things are coming from. So answering the question about community, especially inside of work, there's ways to find and connect to community. And I think your ERGs are such a great place for it. Even if it's not an Afroflare, if it's a Proudflare, if it's any type of ERG, like really be able to get into those groups and start to build that connection and community as well. Because it's not always just about work. Sometimes you need a little key at work every now and then, and Bradley knows I will call him up and we're going to key about something, honestly. So definitely find your community inside work as well. And I'll take one more answer, if anyone has an answer, and then we'll go to the Q&A session. All right, I'll take that as a no. So we're going to transition into Q&A. So if you haven't put your question in, we are going to take a couple of questions. So the first one is from David, given the current validity in the tech workforce, could you please share your perspective on the value or potential drawbacks of obtaining industry certifications for individuals who have not yet had practical experience in the field? If anyone wants to take that, or if I need to repeat the question as well. I can speak to from just like what we've done with the PIVOT program, as well as just sort of the macro level of certifications. Things have obviously changed, like a certification held a lot of weight beginning of COVID. And before that, things like boot camps were really critical. And so while those are still relevant and important, and people should participate in those, I think we also need to understand that now we have to add another layer of that, whether that is keeping up with trends, pushing out projects, having your portfolio, networking, like one thing isn't just going to get you in the door all the time. And so I think recognizing all that is encompassed in that specific role that that sort of certificate is spaced in is what's going to really propel your career, whether that is getting a new job, finding a new network, etc. So really just making sure that you're taking the next step and maybe another step after that, and not just banking solely on the certificate or certification. That's a great answer. All right, Patrick, this is actually for you. What are some of the biggest challenges that you face in your role, and also work -life balance while going into the office five days a week? I think biggest challenges in my role is just the ever-evolving, I guess, threat landscape. So like I said, I do digital forensics incident response, you know, Cloudflare is one of our tools that we use. So for instance, DDoS, we don't really worry about that, shout out to y 'all. But like we still see a range and a multitude of threats every day, especially I'm in the financial industry. Well, they do a lot of different things, trade, commodity and stuff, but we have a lot of legacy systems. So some things, you know, it might have been fixed years ago, but it wasn't fixed as well, let me not say that. So anyways, so what I'm saying is there's a lot of different threats and different vectors to follow. And now, like for instance, AI is the buzzword. People are trying to figure out how can threat actors use AI to be more evil in their tasks and more efficient in their automation of those threat objectives. And just keeping up with all of that and all the buzzwords and finding out what's noise and what's true positive and all of that stuff. It's fun because I like to learn and I like to be on top of these trends, but it is a lot to kind of to grasp and retain every day. Like setting some time apart to just learn is really challenging once you're out of school, you know what I mean? So trying to find that time to just adult and learn forward, but also for your own gains is really challenging. Five days kind of makes it harder just because, you know, I can't roll out of bed and log in to my computer and knock all that out while I'm making eggs in my first meeting, you know what I mean? I thought, you know, we navigated, we navigated. That's a great answer. And again, if you are working five days in office, so give yourself grace because you are doing something that a lot of people may not have to do myself right now, fully remote. So I don't have to battle traffic. I don't have to pick out my outfits. I, you know, just roll out of bed and go to work. So give yourself grace if you are going into office and you feel as though you're not really accomplishing anything outside of work. It's all just a transition and you just have to be, of course, mindful of that as well. So charity asks, and I will clarify this with everyone having a tech background. So a lot of us don't have a tech background. What are some ways or tips we can leverage AI in our everyday tasks to help improve our efficiency slash productivity in the workplace and set ourselves apart from others? If anyone wants to answer that. I love chat GPT and just that type, that use of AI. I think there's so many ways. I mean, you can even ask your bot how to use it to, you know, to support you in your role. A lot of organizations too, like Qualtrics, we have our own, you know, AI environment, leveraging that if you need specific help on QPRs or, you know, data, that's very specific that needs to be secure. But I think as, you know, personally how you use AI in your everyday set up, you know, schedules for yourself, you know, help you if you need, you know, support with email writing or kind of anything of that sort. I say definitely don't rely on it, of course, because I think your voice, your tone is still important. I think there are just a multitude of ways you can leverage it. And I encourage you to do so. I think everyone's leveraging it as well. So you really don't want to be that person, you know, that struggles to learn how to use it to adapt and succeed in your role. Perfect. Ikram asks, do you have any advice for building a meaningful network, particularly for someone new to the field and trying to break in during this current job climate? I recently graduated with a master's in cybersecurity and policy, and it feels that it is impossible to get your application seen without a referral. I, not to quote Issa Rae, I hope I'm quoting her correctly. She always said, she said, you know, a lot of times when people are trying to network, they want to network up and they want to network with people that are above the particular role that they're looking for. But sometimes you have to network across. And it can be the people that you're in class with, it could be the people in church with, in the grocery store, just people that are on the same level with you. You never know who they know or what doors they can open or vice versa. So that's what I would, you know, consider, consider that as well while trying to network up, network across as well. Yeah, one thing I want to add as well, because I can only imagine in this job market, I would say Cloudflare, we get a million applications a year, I want to say. So one thing that's very vital is that networking, but also finding these different industry groups in your city. So the referrals are not coming in, find different industry groups, specifically in cybersecurity. I don't know if you're based in Atlanta, Ikram, but wherever you are based, find those conferences, those tech groups, those different groups that you can be connected to people in which you may not have that connection if you don't show up to an actual happy hour or an event or a session just like this. So find different ways to start to make those connections. And it doesn't have to be immediately, hey, can you give me a referral to Google, but more so really just having like those soft conversations with them and start to build that relationship. So like we said earlier, when a role does come up, they can keep you in mind for those because the job market right now is absolutely horrendous. And I think networking is definitely key to be able to get to your next offer. And also on top of that, people are also very willing, myself included, to just look over resumes and make sure that you're applying for this role. Let me take myself out of this role completely. And let me just look at your resume versus the job description and just see if it even makes sense. So even if they're not able to provide a referral, they could help you with resume reviews. They could tell you more about the company culture, like really just getting yourself in there in whatever way possible. So we're at 3.15 PM Eastern. This is when it's supposed to end. We will take one more question and then we will wrap up and do quick takeaways. All right. I'm trying to find one of the better questions. So really quickly, Somi asks, what strategies have you found most effective for making your contributions visible within your organization? One of, I think a good strategy is when if your company has a monthly business review or weekly business review, definitely show face and make yourself noticeable and visible for highlighting projects you're working on. So typically like an NBR, highlight all the progress you made in the previous month and just pretty make sure to try to link whatever project you're working on to your organization goals or your team goals, because that's very important for visibility for Microsoft Payment. Amazing. All right, everyone. Well, we're at time. So I do just want to thank not only the panelists, but all of the attendees, whether you dropped in, whether you stayed for the entirety of the program, for just even coming and listening to us talk about our own experience. For my panelists, if you want to go ahead and drop your LinkedIn in the chat so that people can connect with you, we would love to stay connected with our attendees and just help out in any way, shape or form that we can. We'll also drop tech skippings information as well. I highly encourage everyone to go to their website, look it up, and maybe we'll see you all in December. Other than that, again, thank you so much for joining, and I hope you all have a good rest of your day. My panelists, we can go to backstage in a few. And thank you, Candice. You did a great job moderating.