szeitlin/women_in_analytics_notes.txt

## women_in_analytics_notes.txt
Speakers:

Jenni Romanek - Dir. Analytics Instagram; DS at twitter previously
Nell Thomas - DS manager FB 2 years
Gayatree Ganu - DS Manager monetizaton, FB 6 years, worked in search before ads
Yuko Yamazaki - Lyft Dir of Eng., data; read Lean In 100x
Sarah O'Brien - head of global insights at LinkedIn
Amy Sample - VP of BI at PBS, AOL 8 years before that
Omoju Miller - ML Eng at Github
Katya Skorobogatova - VP growth at VentureCity, was at FB for 7 years

• Omoju: ML infrastructure is really important, but it's not sexy.
• If you have hypervisibility, use it to bring others along with you.
• It's ok to leave. Be patient: it's always slower than you want, try to have fun.

• Sarah: if you're not in the flow, take a break
• Compelling Storytelling is important
• Gender insights report: Recruiters are 13% less likely to click on a female profile, but after that there's approximately equal follow-through

•Katya: have to know how to pull back and when to ask for help

---

Jennifer Prendki - CEO and Founder, Alectio
was a manager at Walmart Labs; Chief DS at Atlassian; VP of ML at Figure Eight (labeling company, which got acquired)

• She has experienced even more sexism for female managers than ICs
• Investors said "no sole female founders allowed" and offered money on the condition that she let them name a (male) cofounder
• Men are judged on strengths, women are judged on weaknesses

# Pyramid of Professional Needs:
5. help inspire other women
4. feel valued
3. equal pay and opportunities
2. job safety and moral integrity
1. physical safety at work

---

Hilary Parker - Stitchfix

Challenge: only get feedback on 5 items per user at a time, and not even that frequently

Idea to a 'tinder for clothing'
Chrid Moody built it: "style shuffle"
Ended up with a "geyser of data"
(as much data per user in 1 day as they previously had in 1 year)
matrix factorization model

next step: understand clothing interaction model
fed back into style shuffle so they could have users rate outfits

Actual design process is not a lightbulb moment!
Ingest, Influence, Reinvent

•Empathy for yourself first so you can take care of others

---

Cheryl Dartt & Sheryl Sandberg

- lots of stats in Lean In, her editors didn't like that, they tried to make her take it all out
Sheryl will be 50 this year and has never worked for a woman. She assumed her generation would change that, but instead no one would talk about it.

LeanIn.org and optionb.org

annual comprehensive study of women in the workforce
Doesn't change much year to year
Women are applying for jobs at the same rate as men, but we're not getting promoted at the same rate

First management role is critical

Facebook: Increased women in technical roles to 22% (7x since 2014)
36% in the company
57% of those are new grads
FB University for URMs, summer of Freshman year in college, talk them into majoring in CS

50% of small businesses using FB or Instagram are hiring. FB is the largest job platform in the world now.

• Half the things you're doing aren't necessary. Do it quickly. "a little worse, and a little faster"

First draft of Lean In had 4 pages on the Masai tribe's matrilineal governance
And 5 pages on video games, about how girls do better when they're not being watched, otherwise boys do better

42k Lean In Circles meet monthly

---

Tammy Ball - Army of Allies workshop
- works on identifying bad actors at FB

* This workshop was FANTASTIC, but it was hands-on so I don't have many notes for it. I want to ask her if they're going to make the materials available.
We did an abridged version - I would love to do the full thing some day.

Women get a lot of personality feedback. If you receive this kind of feedback, ask for specific suggestions on how to improve.

When you give feedback, don't just say thanks, be specific about impact.

When you receive feedback from someone with less power, it may be more serious than it seems. Mentally add weight to feedback from URMs to account for that.

Make it obvious, say out loud:
"this is a crucial conversation"
"Ask how long it will take to get it fixed"
"I plan to check in weekly until this is resolved"

---
Mandy Gerdes - DE Manager, Instagram

when something goes wrong, it looks like this:
1. email with a weird question
2. "is something wrong with the db?"
3. initially assume it's fine (probably user error)
4. then panic
5. then, professional attitude
6. your manager should step in at this point

What to do:
1. have a plan
2. implement procedures to protect against this happening again
3. postmortem
4. build resilience

#Picture someone riding an elephant
#Who is in control?
#What happens if the elephant gets scared
(elephant is emotional self, rider is cognition)

- Label the physical feeling (to help build self awareness)
- Accept that your elephant is stronger than any reins
- Have an escape plan and be disciplined about using it

- If you don't fear failure, it means you don't care that much

---
Susan Sun - freelance full time about 4 years

- became a manager of a remote team straight out of grad school
- asked for management training and it was all about sexual harrassment (i.e. not useful at all)
- prefers to work onsite because of privacy/GDPR rules
- feeds off of team energy
- initially took on way more than she could handle (3 clients is about the max concurrency)

Freelance:
- no benefits
- NDAs
- customer-client relationships
- no mentorship built-in

FTE:
- benefits
- at-will
- manager-direct relationships
- still have to seek out mentorship/manage up

Job boards (none of which have ever yielded clients for her):
The Mom Projects, UpWork, Fiverr, Freelancer, Vettery, Experfy

Instead got all her work from "accidental" networking

1. Hire a lawyer to set up your single-member LLC ($1000-3000); read about it on the IRS page.
2. Sign contract with clear start date, and work fully scoped

Timing matters.
Freelance usually peaks at the end of the quarter (leftover budget)

Other costs/things you need:
Save 1 year of buffer $ + healthcare ($600/month)
WeWork charges $300-600/month for a single desk
$ travel to pitch non-local clients
$ infrastructure costs (AWS, etc)
business cards, domain name (required for an LLC in NYC, $40/year)
logo design
Quickbooks/Harvest/Toggl for granual tracking (down to the minute)

How much to charge?
old: current or desired annual salary/2080 hours per year X 2 = $rate/hour
better: total expenses/year x (10-20)% profit margin = desired annual revenue/1134 hours x 2 (factors in vacation, etc)

Gut check model:
- price hourly to avoid scope creep
- set price by level of interest and past experience with the client
- ask trusted friends to check your rate about once a year
- adjust for annual inflation (2-3%)
- there are no laws to protect freelancers from getting paid late or unfairly. 58% have had the experience of not getting paid
- in 2017 NY passed a Freelance Act.
- look for a Freelancers union

Hard to feel a strategic impact of freelance work. It's mostly short-term programmatic; a dataset or a model
Better companies will forget you're not an FTE
	Speakers:

	Jenni Romanek - Dir. Analytics Instagram; DS at twitter previously
	Nell Thomas - DS manager FB 2 years
	Gayatree Ganu - DS Manager monetizaton, FB 6 years, worked in search before ads
	Yuko Yamazaki - Lyft Dir of Eng., data; read Lean In 100x
	Sarah O'Brien - head of global insights at LinkedIn
	Amy Sample - VP of BI at PBS, AOL 8 years before that
	Omoju Miller - ML Eng at Github
	Katya Skorobogatova - VP growth at VentureCity, was at FB for 7 years

	• Omoju: ML infrastructure is really important, but it's not sexy.
	• If you have hypervisibility, use it to bring others along with you.
	• It's ok to leave. Be patient: it's always slower than you want, try to have fun.

	• Sarah: if you're not in the flow, take a break
	• Compelling Storytelling is important
	• Gender insights report: Recruiters are 13% less likely to click on a female profile, but after that there's approximately equal follow-through

	•Katya: have to know how to pull back and when to ask for help

	---

	Jennifer Prendki - CEO and Founder, Alectio
	was a manager at Walmart Labs; Chief DS at Atlassian; VP of ML at Figure Eight (labeling company, which got acquired)

	• She has experienced even more sexism for female managers than ICs
	• Investors said "no sole female founders allowed" and offered money on the condition that she let them name a (male) cofounder
	• Men are judged on strengths, women are judged on weaknesses

	# Pyramid of Professional Needs:
	5. help inspire other women
	4. feel valued
	3. equal pay and opportunities
	2. job safety and moral integrity
	1. physical safety at work

	---

	Hilary Parker - Stitchfix

	Challenge: only get feedback on 5 items per user at a time, and not even that frequently

	Idea to a 'tinder for clothing'
	Chrid Moody built it: "style shuffle"
	Ended up with a "geyser of data"
	(as much data per user in 1 day as they previously had in 1 year)
	matrix factorization model

	next step: understand clothing interaction model
	fed back into style shuffle so they could have users rate outfits

	Actual design process is not a lightbulb moment!
	Ingest, Influence, Reinvent

	•Empathy for yourself first so you can take care of others

	---

	Cheryl Dartt & Sheryl Sandberg

	- lots of stats in Lean In, her editors didn't like that, they tried to make her take it all out
	Sheryl will be 50 this year and has never worked for a woman. She assumed her generation would change that, but instead no one would talk about it.

	LeanIn.org and optionb.org

	annual comprehensive study of women in the workforce
	Doesn't change much year to year
	Women are applying for jobs at the same rate as men, but we're not getting promoted at the same rate

	First management role is critical

	Facebook: Increased women in technical roles to 22% (7x since 2014)
	36% in the company
	57% of those are new grads
	FB University for URMs, summer of Freshman year in college, talk them into majoring in CS

	50% of small businesses using FB or Instagram are hiring. FB is the largest job platform in the world now.

	• Half the things you're doing aren't necessary. Do it quickly. "a little worse, and a little faster"

	First draft of Lean In had 4 pages on the Masai tribe's matrilineal governance
	And 5 pages on video games, about how girls do better when they're not being watched, otherwise boys do better

	42k Lean In Circles meet monthly

	---

	Tammy Ball - Army of Allies workshop
	- works on identifying bad actors at FB

	* This workshop was FANTASTIC, but it was hands-on so I don't have many notes for it. I want to ask her if they're going to make the materials available.
	We did an abridged version - I would love to do the full thing some day.

	Women get a lot of personality feedback. If you receive this kind of feedback, ask for specific suggestions on how to improve.

	When you give feedback, don't just say thanks, be specific about impact.

	When you receive feedback from someone with less power, it may be more serious than it seems. Mentally add weight to feedback from URMs to account for that.

	Make it obvious, say out loud:
	"this is a crucial conversation"
	"Ask how long it will take to get it fixed"
	"I plan to check in weekly until this is resolved"

	---
	Mandy Gerdes - DE Manager, Instagram

	when something goes wrong, it looks like this:
	1. email with a weird question
	2. "is something wrong with the db?"
	3. initially assume it's fine (probably user error)
	4. then panic
	5. then, professional attitude
	6. your manager should step in at this point

	What to do:
	1. have a plan
	2. implement procedures to protect against this happening again
	3. postmortem
	4. build resilience

	#Picture someone riding an elephant
	#Who is in control?
	#What happens if the elephant gets scared
	(elephant is emotional self, rider is cognition)

	- Label the physical feeling (to help build self awareness)
	- Accept that your elephant is stronger than any reins
	- Have an escape plan and be disciplined about using it

	- If you don't fear failure, it means you don't care that much

	---
	Susan Sun - freelance full time about 4 years

	- became a manager of a remote team straight out of grad school
	- asked for management training and it was all about sexual harrassment (i.e. not useful at all)
	- prefers to work onsite because of privacy/GDPR rules
	- feeds off of team energy
	- initially took on way more than she could handle (3 clients is about the max concurrency)

	Freelance:
	- no benefits
	- NDAs
	- customer-client relationships
	- no mentorship built-in

	FTE:
	- benefits
	- at-will
	- manager-direct relationships
	- still have to seek out mentorship/manage up

	Job boards (none of which have ever yielded clients for her):
	The Mom Projects, UpWork, Fiverr, Freelancer, Vettery, Experfy

	Instead got all her work from "accidental" networking

	1. Hire a lawyer to set up your single-member LLC ($1000-3000); read about it on the IRS page.
	2. Sign contract with clear start date, and work fully scoped

	Timing matters.
	Freelance usually peaks at the end of the quarter (leftover budget)

	Other costs/things you need:
	Save 1 year of buffer $ + healthcare ($600/month)
	WeWork charges $300-600/month for a single desk
	$ travel to pitch non-local clients
	$ infrastructure costs (AWS, etc)
	business cards, domain name (required for an LLC in NYC, $40/year)
	logo design
	Quickbooks/Harvest/Toggl for granual tracking (down to the minute)

	How much to charge?
	old: current or desired annual salary/2080 hours per year X 2 = $rate/hour
	better: total expenses/year x (10-20)% profit margin = desired annual revenue/1134 hours x 2 (factors in vacation, etc)

	Gut check model:
	- price hourly to avoid scope creep
	- set price by level of interest and past experience with the client
	- ask trusted friends to check your rate about once a year
	- adjust for annual inflation (2-3%)
	- there are no laws to protect freelancers from getting paid late or unfairly. 58% have had the experience of not getting paid
	- in 2017 NY passed a Freelance Act.
	- look for a Freelancers union

	Hard to feel a strategic impact of freelance work. It's mostly short-term programmatic; a dataset or a model
	Better companies will forget you're not an FTE