Continuously Improve Yourself - Building a Career That’s Right for You

A Career That's Right For You - Advice on how forge your own path

HumanOps is a community of technologists who get together to talk about the human aspects of working in tech today. This time the theme is continuous improvement of yourself. Everyone wants different things from life and work, so we'll be talking about how you can build a career that's right for you.

Our speakers will be sharing their stories and offering advice on how to forge your own path. Whether you are starting a career in tech, pivoting into a new domain, working towards that promotion or you want to level up your technical skills as an individual contributor. The talks will be followed by a panel session where the speakers and you can continue the discussion.

We will be at Pivotal (211 Old St) kicking off at 19:00 with food and refreshments.

The Plan

19:00 - 19:30 Arrive
19:30 - 19:40 Welcome Talk
19:40 - 20:00 Paula Kennedy - Everyone’s Free (to Wear Sunscreen) - Lessons Learnt from 18 Years in Tech
20:00 - 20:20 Salma Virk - Comeback Kid
20:20 - 20:40 Robert Shilston - Mistakes I remember I've made
20:40 - 21:00 Panel Session
21:00 - 23:00 Continue Networking at Pivotal and then the pub

The Talks

Paula Kennedy @PaulaLKennedy
Everyone’s Free (to Wear Sunscreen) - Lessons Learnt from 18 Years in Tech

Ever find yourself thinking about things you know now that you wish you’d known at the start of your career? Or maybe you’re at the start of your career and you’re looking for some tips and advice to help you on your journey? In this talk, Paula will reflect on her career of 18 years in the technology industry and will share past experiences as well as lessons learned. Though technology itself has changed and continues to evolve at a fast pace as described by Moore’s Law, there are many areas such as balancing work and home life, working in a team, dealing with conflict etc that remain consistently challenging. As Baz Luhrman’s song says, “my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience…I will dispense this advice now”.

Paula joined Pivotal in 2015 and in her current role as Director of Pivotal Cloud Foundry Solutions, EMEA she is focused on working together with clients to drive innovation, disruption and transformation. Paula was previously Chief Operating Officer and co­-founder of CloudCredo.

Robert Shilston @rtshilston
Mistakes I Remember I've Made

In an age of social media and carefully crafted online personas, you'd be forgiven for thinking everyone else is getting it right. That they have some secret recipe for success that you don't. Obviously that's rubbish, we all make mistakes. Today I'm going to share stories of my most spectacular failures and the lessons I learnt along the way.

Rob is a technology entrepreneur. He founded OnOneMap and Assanka (which he sold to the Financial Times). At the FT he went on to become Director of Engineering and Professional Services. Rob has a PhD in Computer Science, a patent and several academic publications. He also mentors with the 30% Club and the Mosaic Enterprise Challenge. But secretly, he's a techy and sysadmin.

Salma Virk @SalmaV
Comeback Kid - Salma tells us about her journey returning to work

Salma will share a very personal story of returning to work. How she took her career and her life in a new direction, and ultimately landed the perfect job in an awesome company.

We won’t tell you where Salma is working… that would spoil the surprise!

Code of Conduct

We are a welcoming, inclusive community. We have a strict code of conduct, read it here: http://hackcodeofconduct.org.
We'll point out the organising team at the start of the meet.
If you experience or observe any issue, please tell a member of the organising team.