Tech Ladies Blog

Growing Your Career

Growing Your Career

Actionable advice about how to grow your career and network as a woman in tech.

Choosing to Stay — But On Your Terms

A reflection on the Tech Ladies webinar “Make Work Work For You: How to Hold It Down (Instead of Burning It Down),” hosted by Grace Fabian. In today’s hustle-driven work culture, we talk a lot about quitting — quitting toxic jobs, bad bosses, or unsustainable careers. And while those exits can be necessary and even lifesaving, we don’t talk nearly enough about what it means to stay. Especially when staying isn’t about giving up, but about choosing to hold it down, intentionally and on your own terms.

Growing Your Career

Women Building the Future: Emerging Founders & Managers in Startups & Venture Capital

The startup and venture capital landscape has evolved over the past decade, yet challenges remain—especially for women in the industry. To explore these shifts and what lies ahead, we hosted Women Building the Future: Emerging Founders & Managers Shaping Startups & Venture Capital in partnership with Venture5 Media. This panel featured two female founders and two emerging female venture capital managers, who shared their experiences navigating growth, fundraising, and the obstacles that still exist. If you missed it, you can catch the full recording here.

Growing Your Career

Why Invoice Compute is Tricky: A Coffee Shop Analogy

In our latest Tech Ladies San Francisco Meetup, Jenny L, an engineer at Metronome, broke down the challenges of invoice computation and usage-based billing using a clever analogy. If you missed the event, don’t worry! Here’s a recap of the key points and a link to the full recording.

Growing Your Career

Navigating Your Financial Future While Preparing for a Layoff

If you're reading this, you might be feeling some instability in your career. Maybe your company has announced upcoming layoffs, or perhaps you've noticed the warning signs. With constant news about workforce reductions, it's natural to feel uncertain. However, the best way to regain control is to take proactive steps to secure your financial future. Here are my key takeaways from a Tech Ladies webinar featuring Erika Ho, head financial coach at Holy Path to Fire, on "How to Plan for a Tech Layoff: Navigating the Financial Impact and Planning Your Next Steps."

Growing Your Career

Mastering Technical Literacy for Women PMs and Product Leaders: Key Skills You Need to Know

In a recent Tech Ladies webinar, Irene Yu, CEO and Founder of Skiplevel, shared some great tips on how women in product management and leadership can level up their technical skills. Irene is a full-stack software engineer who's worked at Amazon and with various companies across the tech world. Since 2019, she’s been helping PMs, directors, and startup founders build their technical confidence and skills. Irene shared a simple but powerful framework for becoming technically fluent. It’s all about four core skills that help you assess, understand, and communicate technical information effectively. Let’s dive into what they are and why they matter.

Growing Your Career

Should I Stay or Should I Go? — Key Takeaways from Grace Fabian Vigeant

Should I make it work where I am, make a small pivot, or start fresh in my career? While there’s no perfect answer to these questions, there’s your intentional answer. In Grace Fabian's webinar presented to the Tech Ladies community, she covered three strategies to get clarity, and move forward with confidence:

Growing Your Career

How to Identify Your Fear Response According to Ashley Paré

One of my key takeaways from the Tech Ladies webinar, Thriving Beyond Limits: Earn a Gold Medal in Resilience, hosted by Ashley Paré, was understanding how our nervous system responds to fear.

Growing Your Career

Event Recap: Building Confidence and Navigating Career Challenges as an Immigrant in Tech

At a recent Tech Ladies event, Tech Ladies Talk Live: How to Navigate Building a Career as an Immigrant, Aizada Marat, Founder & CEO of Alma—a platform dedicated to transforming immigration services for global talent—shared valuable insights on how to build confidence and navigate career challenges, particularly as an immigrant in the tech industry. The event wrapped up with a live Q&A, where Aizada provided additional practical advice on securing work visas. If you’re navigating the visa process, be sure to watch the recording linked in this blog for more detailed advice!

Growing Your Career

"Personal Branding for Women in Tech Who Hate Personal Branding” with Sarah Ing

Last week, I attended an insightful webinar led by Sarah Ing on personal branding, especially for those of us who aren’t naturally drawn to the idea of “selling ourselves.” It completely reframed how I think about personal branding, and I’m excited to share some of the top takeaways that stood out to me.

Growing Your Career

Top 9 Emerging Cities for Women Pursuing Tech Careers in 2025

Check out which cities in the US are emerging as top locations for women in tech!

Growing Your Career

11 Tools to Enhance Your Team's Productivity and Earn You the Title "World's Best Boss"

Working in Tech can be very exciting and rewarding, but it can also come with challenges. With many teams running lean due to layoffs, employees are feeling the pressure and often struggle to deliver their best work while managing burnout.‍ What can you as a manager do to help with this? After all, you’re plenty burned out yourself!‍ You can get back to the core of what has always made tech an exciting industry - innovation and problem-solving.

Growing Your Career

Get WEIRD to Plan Your Career: Ideate and Implement (Part 5 of 5)

If you’ve been following the five-part series so far, congratulations on making it to the end! If you’re just joining and would like to catch up on parts one, two, three or four first, please feel free and then come back to this once you’re ready.

Growing Your Career

Get WEIRD to Plan Your Career: Ideate and Implement (Part 4 of 5)

This is the midpoint in a five-step process called the WEIRD process that we’re applying toward gaining career clarity and determining what’s next. As a career coach, I love helping people discover next steps that energize them. Figuring this out can be a challenging task, especially if you haven’t followed a cookie-cutter career path.

Growing Your Career

Navigating Career Crossroads: To stay as an Individual Contributor or Become a Manager?

As a technology professional, there will come a point when you wonder whether to continue growing as an Individual Contributor or transition into a management role. At the mid-career level, this decision can be particularly challenging, as the path you choose can significantly impact your career and life.

Growing Your Career

Get WEIRD to Plan Your Career: Ideate and Implement (Part 3 of 5)

This is the midpoint in a five-step process called the WEIRD process that we’re applying toward gaining career clarity and determining what’s next. As a career coach, I love helping people discover next steps that energize them. Figuring this out can be a challenging task, especially if you haven’t followed a cookie-cutter career path.

Growing Your Career

Get WEIRD to Plan Your Career: Educate on Solutions (Part 2 of 5)

The second step in the WEIRD Process is Educate on Solutions. During this phase, we explore and research various options and paths we can pursue in an actionable way toward achieving our goals. We then run small tests on some of these in the third step, Ideate and Implement.

Growing Your Career

Get WEIRD to Plan Your Career: Want to Change (Part 1 of 5)

Career planning is like embarking on a great adventure. Whether you have a map and a destination in mind, or you’re exploring uncharted territory with only your heart and the stars to guide you, it can feel daunting to get started. What would you tell a friend feeling overwhelmed upon contemplating their career plans? Would you quote Lao Tzu and say, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” ask what the easiest forward-moving task is and cheer them on as they check it off their list? Would you listen to them vent about their challenges and invite them to sit with their feelings without judgment? Or would you offer to tackle the challenge together and revisit your own career plans at the same time?

Growing Your Career

Navigating Career Crossroads: Individual Contributor VS Management

Turn your review into a great opportunity for professional development and align with your manager

Growing Your Career

How to Tell an Empowered Career Story by Finding and Defining Your Throughline (Cee Reel, Cultivate Your Weirdness)

Designer and coach Cee Reel on using storytelling to define your career throughline

Growing Your Career

Making Networking Work For You (Rachel Serwetz, WOKEN)

Rachel Serwetz from WOKEN shares seven steps to make networking work for you.

Growing Your Career

Should SWEs be paid for on-call time?

What you should expect if you're an engineer expected to be available 24/7

Growing Your Career

How to Make the Most of Your Performance Review

Turn your review into a great opportunity for professional development and aligning with your manager

Growing Your Career

How To Support Coworkers Who've Been Laid Off

Practical ways to help colleagues affected by a layoff

Growing Your Career

How To Write Good LinkedIn Recommendations

A great reference can be a game changer for coworkers who are job searching... and writing it doesn't have to be a game breaker for you!

Growing Your Career

How To Tell Your Boss You're Pregnant

How to share about your pregnancy at work, WITHOUT having to hide, wait, or deny what you're entitled to!

Growing Your Career

Navigating Your Career in UX & Design

Learn how to start, thrive, and grow in a career in UX and design from an industry expert!

Growing Your Career

Should You Get A Career Coach?

A career coach can help you can supercharge your professional growth - Find out how!

Growing Your Career

How to Grow Your Network Strategically

Your network can be a professional superpower -- Find out how to build yours easily and effectively!

Growing Your Career

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