In our Women in DevOps blog series, you’ll hear from talented women in DevOps. They will share their experiences in DevOps, their thoughts on leadership, lessons learned and also how we can encourage more women to focus on an IT career.
Riddhi Bhide works in a software support and DevOps role at Microchip Technologies. While there are several traits one needs to be successful in DevOps, she says being detail-oriented and flexible is key.
First, please tell us a little about yourself, where you work, what you do, and a few other interests that really define who you are.****
Hi! My name is Riddhi and I work in the Engineering Services department at Microchip Technologies. I’ve been in the industry for around three years and during this time I’ve worked in a Software Support/DevOps role. At Microchip, I’ve had the opportunity to work with several software tools used in the software development flow, and have recently dived into the Jenkins world! Other than work, I enjoy participating in any causes that encourage women to pursue careers in STEM fields. During my undergraduate years, I had the privilege of serving on the executive board of my university’s Women in Engineering group. One of the best aspects was being able to mentor new students and help them navigate through this field and encouraging high school students to pursue engineering! I also enjoy classical and contemporary dancing.
**What set you on the DevOps career path?**
I happened to land a job opportunity in this field after my graduation! Although I did not know exactly what this field entailed, it allowed me to pursue a wide range of software skills – from coding to testing and deployment. Moreover, it provided an insight into the “big picture” of development – compelling me to think about what pieces can be improved or streamlined.
**How can we encourage more women to get into this industry?**
I have previously spoken to high school students about technology fields and many times they do not know what it entails. For example, most students know what a path to medicine or law may look like, or what courses they’ll take in university, but many do not know the same for engineering. As a result, simply providing more exposure to subjects of coding or circuits from an early age might be the key so that everyone can see just how impactful this field is, and hopefully spark some interest into the relevant subjects!
**If you could have given your younger self some advice for the future, what would you tell her?**
I doubted myself and experienced failures when I initially decided to pursue engineering. I would tell my younger self to keep going and that I would soon learn that pursuing this field was one of the best decisions I ever made!
**What does career success mean to you?**
I think there are two aspects to career success – one is personal and the other is people facing (what others see). For the latter, knowing I’ve helped people resolve their problems by providing quality work would make me happiest. On the personal front, having the opportunity to grow and work on different challenges would define success for me. Lastly, I think having a supportive group of co-workers and fostering good relations means a lot to me.
**What character traits/habits make you successful in DevOps?**
There is a wide range of skills one develops being on a DevOps team, but a couple that I’d like to highlight are:
Communication – Since the work we do impacts an organization as opposed to a team, it is vital to ensure you can effectively communicate changes and requirements.
Attention to detail – whether it is testing a new change you recently coded or ensuring you understand feature specifications – being attentive to detail will go a long way!
Being open to change – making changes to a workflow is often an unwelcome change, but we encounter this scenario daily, so it’s important to be open to change and prepare for it!
Read more from the Women in DevOps series: Lena Feygin of Taboola, Tanu McCabe of CapitalOne and Charity Majors of Honecomb.io.