E48 Siobhán K Cronin: Getting To The Table

Today we talk with Siobhán, an Engineering Manager at Landed. She shares her experiences in working for a series A start up and what helped her when getting started in software development.

Siobhán advises small companies to be proactive and build intentional community connections during times when they are not hiring. This way once a position is open, they will have a pipeline to tap into with a range of diverse candidates. She believes that there needs to be a conversation to reexamine all the pathways to get started in a tech role. Opinions will vary on the value of a CS degree and perhaps some retooling of what goes into these programs is necessary. Siobhán shared how she worked alongside her husband when she was getting started in software development and is very excited to see the apprenticeship model being used in industry. Organizations benefit from having an apprentice program as it builds a talent pipeline right into their team and provides senior engineers a  way to cultivate the practice of mentorship. One way to retain diverse staff is to build a culture of inclusion where employees don't feel like they have to code switch to be accepted. Organizations talk a lot about getting folks to the table but what are you asking them to become to get to that table?

Siobhán is an engineering leader with a passion for platform engineering, machine learning, and nurturing strong communities of practice. She began her career studying how humans learn at Harvard University & Harvard Medical School, spent several years researching embodied cognition, and now helps teams of computers and humans collaborate to solve problems that matter. She is an Engineering Manager at Landed, the lead developer for SwarmOpt (an open-source swarm intelligence library), a guest researcher at Slow Research Lab, and an engineering mentor at Hackbright Academy.

• Siobhán K Cronin: www.linkedin.com/in/siobhankcronin
• Landed: www.landed.com
• More episodes of the SnackWalls Podcast: http://podcast.snackwalls.com

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