There are so many ways for companies to go about offering career development perks. It can be as simple as focusing on specific skills and courses to advance them, or on a grander scale, creating space for teams to attend industry conferences and management training programs.
However, it’s one thing for a company to offer growth opportunities and another for employees to take them up with a hands-on approach to make something brilliant and transformative out of it.
When Anuhya Dommalapati joined iManage in 2016, she was a self-described introvert. But through intentional relationship building — and after taking on various roles to rise within the ranks of their engineering team — Dommalapati now prides herself on the active listening and clear articulation skills she’s gained through hands-on, client-facing experience.
Will Newby finds value in the learning opportunities he’s been given as squad lead of the DevTools team at SpotHero, particularly the company’s encouragement to learn through “discovery days.” But Newby believes it’s just as important to study the people who make up the team you’re managing: “I spent the first three to six months as a lead just learning about my team as individuals. This taught me to value agency, understanding and gratitude as a leader.”
Built In Chicago met with four local leaders who have taken advantage of the opportunities they’ve been offered to grow and rise within their respective organizations. We learned about the progress they’ve made, the roles they’re owning now, and the skills they’ve since acquired — none of which would have been possible without the support of the companies they’re proud to be a part of. The best news? Each company is hiring and looking to invest in new tech talent.
What role were you first hired for in your company?
I was hired as a technical support engineer at iManage — my first job. Initially, I was a member of the support response team where I was responsible for creating individual environments used to replicate client-related issues. I pulled support tickets and resolved issues related to various iManage products. This phase helped me build a wide range of technical knowledge related to our products and effectively communicate with administrators and end users. In this position, I also published a few knowledge-based articles for customers.
From technical support engineer, I was first promoted to senior support engineer, then to staff support engineer. Serving in these roles is how I learned to collaborate across various departments to resolve customer issues faster. Working with our talented developers taught me how to use advanced tools to troubleshoot issues efficiently.
Serving in different roles gave me many opportunities to build active listening skills and the ability to articulate clearly.”
What role are you in now?
Currently, I am working as a lead support engineer. I enjoy this position because it combines leadership and staff support engineer duties. An average day includes managing customer escalations and care engagements, supporting the team by assisting with complex issues, and defining and monitoring key performance indicators. This position also allows me to partner with the customer support senior leadership team.
One of the coolest projects I recently worked on involved implementing Azure Application Insights. It was exciting to work as a product owner because I represented the customer to the development team and learned to view issues and implementations from a developer’s perspective. I was responsible for gathering, managing and prioritizing the team’s product backlog items to ensure transparency and visibility.
What is the most important skill you’ve acquired on the job? How did you pick up and hone this skill?
Providing exceptional levels of service and quality to clients through successful relationship building is essential. I joined iManage in 2016 as an introvert with no prior work experience. Serving in different roles gave me many opportunities to build active listening skills and the ability to articulate clearly.
I was able to hone these skills through daily interaction with a wide range of clients and end users through various means, including phone, e-mail, on-site visits and in-person networking at conferences. As a lead engineer, I often work on highly escalated calls. On these calls, it is important to listen, acknowledge, problem solve and explain the next course of action to provide positive customer experiences. And I firmly believe customer satisfaction is the foundation that long-term relationships are built upon.
What role were you first hired for in your company?
I was initially hired in 2016 as a senior systems engineer working with our platform team, which is mostly a catch-all team for everything below our applications in the stack. When I joined, we were focused on stabilizing the infrastructure of our entire marketplace product. There were about three to five applications, including our Python and Django monolith.
One of my biggest projects was to migrate our monolith — and most of our other applications — from Elastic Container Service to Kubernetes. This included adopting more open-source tools, such as Traefik Ingress Controller, Jaeger and Prometheus. It was a big lift. This project allowed us to standardize our deployment tools across multiple applications to start building the foundation of the SpotHero platform — our internal developer platform — as a service.
I also did a whole network overhaul as we expanded our Amazon Web Services footprint into multiple accounts, added more virtual private clouds, and created better connectivity — twice! I’ve been on the front lines of major infrastructure updates, from Python to Postgres, and troubleshot more downed websites than I can count. I’ve loved every minute of it.
What role are you in now?
I am the squad lead for DevTools and I currently manage two engineers — soon to be six. I started leading the team when our manager went on parental leave for three months, which meant I got a crash course in management by handling the processes he couldn’t. After he returned, I continued managing the squad and the product roadmap, taking on people management responsibilities and eventually leading hiring, promotions and joining engineering leadership.
It’s been a pretty incredible growth experience. I started out managing the technology we use, and now I can use that to inform my day-to-day people leadership.
The coolest project we’re working on right now is rebuilding the organizational system we use for squad-to-application management. This is a powerful abstraction for us since it allows us to manage maintainers — those responsible for uptime — and contributors — those who are to be informed of changes — for a coherent permissions model within our growing fleet of microservices. We’re also laying the foundation for multiregion, active-active instances of our site, and doubling the SpotHero engineering team at the same time.
I want my team to have a voice in the work they’re doing, understand how our work is important and feel valued for completing it.”
What is the most important skill you’ve acquired on the job? How did you pick up and hone this skill?
Two of the most valuable skills I’ve attained in my career are how to learn and adapt on the fly. When I joined SpotHero, my primary goal was to learn as much as I could about a system, then take that information and turn it into a plan to make the system do what we needed it to do.
SpotHero has a practice called “Discovery Days” where we take about ten percent of our time and learn something new. But because the DevTools team supports all engineers with whatever problems they happen to find, our work is, in its own way, like having Discovery Day every day! There’s always something to learn and we try to create space for our engineers to take advantage of that.
Learning is not just about systems, it’s also about people. I want my team to have a voice in the work they’re doing, understand how our work is important and feel valued for completing it. This is the lifeblood of what my first manager at SpotHero gave me in DevTools, and I intend to carry it onward.
What role were you first hired for in your company?
My first role at PEAK6 in August 2015 was as a data reporting analyst on the operations desk. I focused on reconciling internal numbers for net trading income and reviewed all fees and electronic invoices. I also performed daily operational tasks. I did a project where I looked for new tools for dividend forecast management and break review, and created a new workflow and process. I was very involved in the operational risk reviews.
What role are you in now?
Since January 2019, I have been the operations manager at PEAK6 Capital Management. I went from being a daily contributor on the team to becoming the manager. The coolest project I am working on currently is the Hardcastle merger. PEAK6 acquired Hardcastle and we are merging them into our capital management firm as one broker dealer. Working on a merger is something completely new to me, and I am learning a ton. I am also integrating two new members who live in Budapest onto my team. It has been really exciting to see how we can all work together despite the long distance and time differences.
Learning more about the way I work helped me to understand how I can be a better leader and the best ways to communicate with others.”
How has your company supported your career growth throughout this journey?
The firm has done a lot to support my growth as a manager. When I first began leading the team, I didn’t have a lot of prior experience managing people. I participated in PEAK6’s new manager training program offered by our leadership and development department, which included getting upward feedback from our direct reports and many other useful resources.
Also, the all-women leadership cohort in 2019 was such an amazing experience. It allowed me to learn a lot about myself with the Myers-Briggs questionnaire and an emotional intelligence assessment. Learning more about the way I work helped me to understand how I can be a better leader and the best ways to communicate with others. Being in a cohort with all women was great because we were better able to connect and discuss shared experiences.
What role were you first hired for in your company?
I was initially hired at Machinio as a business development executive for the company’s advertising product. This was my first sales role, and when I moved to Chicago, I did not feel confident that it would work out. Up to that point, I’d worked odd jobs at the YMCA, in security and as a busser.
The coolest part of my job right now is the confidence that management and leadership have in me to help grow this product.”
What role are you in now?
I am an account executive for the Machinio System product now. I was promoted into this role a year and a half after joining Machinio. My first eight months here were a blur, honestly. The company invested a lot of time in me and I tried to pay it back with good work and study habits. I didn’t mind working long hours because I know a good salesperson is extremely valuable. If I can sell well, I’ll always have a job.
In my current role, I’ve had to rescue that intensity. It’s been a progression into a more complex selling style, which has required me to learn and adopt an even more consultative approach. The coolest part of my job right now is the confidence that management and leadership have in me to help grow this product. I’ve pitched multiple endeavors that are now in effect and getting results.
How has your company supported your career growth throughout this journey?
I’ve always enjoyed being a jack-of-all-trades and never thought a straight 9-to-5 would fit my personality. Machinio has given me that leeway. I’m now coaching new team members, leading a few projects and selling a brand-new product. It’s been great!
