Episode 2 : Getting Your Foot in the Door

Nicole Day, a Senior Program Manager at Spotify, shares her journey into the tech industry. She initially studied journalism but found her skills and interests aligned more with tech. She conducted informational interviews and discovered transferable skills from her previous work in production and entertainment that led her to the program manager role. Nicole does not regret leaving her journalism position and enjoys the better work-life balance and innovative environment in tech. She also discusses the challenges faced by black women in tech, the importance of referrals, and the need for more diversity in the industry. Nicole encourages aspiring black women to reach out to others in the field, learn relevant skills, and utilize available resources. She acknowledges the current slowdown in tech due to economic factors but remains optimistic about the industry's future. Code and Color, my name is Kendra DeMillo, your host, and today I have a special guest. Hey guys, my name's Nicole Day, and I'm a Senior Program Manager at Spotify. Each episode, we talk about inspiring women leading and charging tech, from CEOs to startup founders, and I'm very, very excited to introduce Nicole. Nicole, I wanna ask you, what got you started in tech in the first place? Where did this all begin? It's funny, because I actually never saw a career in tech from the beginning. We're talking about when I first entered college, or even when I graduated college in 2016. I mean, I started out as a journalism major, I wanted to do things, but I think as I went throughout my career and just thought of the things I'm good at, what I like and don't like about the entertainment industry, all roads led to tech. So around 2018, I realized that innovation is everything, and that's what drew me so closely to entertainment, just like the creativity of it all, but a lot of these old school entertainment companies run just like how they sound, very old school. And I wanted to be at a place that was super innovative, was open to new ideas and fresh perspectives, so I just started doing research as a journalism major and realized that that's when the tech industry kind of started to boom. So I set up a lot of informational interviews with friends in tech, people on LinkedIn that I was connected to, to just learn more about what are the possibilities? Because you hear working in tech and then you automatically think you need a technical background, which obviously for certain positions you do, but there's so much more you can do working at these platforms. So I realized that a lot of my transferable skills from working in production and entertainment led me to the program manager route. So yeah, I think after just doing a lot of gathering and seeing what skills do I already have that I can transfer to this industry and make this more seamless, yeah, that was my strategy and that was essentially how I got to where I am now. Do you regret anything about leaving your journalism position and what did you do beforewards? What did you do in journalism? Definitely don't regret a thing. So it's interesting, because I started off in hard journalism. Right after graduation I worked at the Today Show as a production assistant and that was like as tough as it can get. And I think after working the 2016 election, working a 17 hour shift, I was like, you know, this is not the career for me and that's fine. I'm more of a work-life balance type of person. I decided I love entertainment. Why don't I take like the entertainment route of like this side of the business? So I moved on to work at Bravo as a digital coordinator and that's where I kind of realized that I could be a project or program manager, just because a lot of the things that I was doing, helping manage their podcast, managing other digital products and projects. And after there, I went to HBO and I was a project coordinator there as well. So that was my last like true entertainment job before I got my job at then Facebook, now Meta in 2019. So I don't regret the shift at all. I think my life has changed for the better. And that's not saying that industry is terrible, but it just wasn't for me at the time. Like I said, I wanna be in new spaces where ideas can move quickly, you know, bigger budgets. Yeah, I definitely feel like the tech industry definitely has a higher income and definitely a better work-life balance. So you can just have a lot more time for yourself rather than working as many hours, like you said, a 17 hour shift. Like I'm pretty sure you working in tech is definitely not as vigorous hours. Like how do you think like that transition was for you? Oh, it was a great transition. I mean, the good thing is that I came in with like a very tough work ethic. And like coming from production, your mind is always like work the fastest and most efficiently possible. So I think that helped me. Yeah, I mean, kind of like you were overworking, like you thought it would be a lot harder or a lot more intense because you came from such an intense background. Yeah, for sure. So it was like a pretty cool transition. I think the hardest part about the transition was just the size of the company. Like going from NBC specifically like Bravo and like HBO to like Meta, which is like, I don't even know how many employees there are today, but it was just like a lot navigating that. Definitely. Now I wanted to transition into this really quick. Now, did you see a difference or like an influx of black women in tech? Like how was it navigating your way into a tech job and going through interviews and everything as a black woman today? So it's interesting because like, the reason why I got my first job in tech is because my friend who is a black woman referred me. And I think like there's like this unspoken thing amongst us all that like, we're gonna help each other out. Like anytime a black woman reaches out to me via LinkedIn and I don't even know her. And she's like, hey, would you meet like 20 minutes just to talk about your career and blah, blah, blah. I'll always say yes. So I do think it's just like unwavering support in our community to bring each other in because we see how great the life is. Like everyone sees it and we wanna help our people out. I think interviewing at my first job in tech, I was very intimidated. We didn't see one black face in my interview process. And I interviewed with like five or six people, but I had a very different experience interviewing from a current role where like everyone, but one person. So five out of six people I interviewed for my current position were black, which was really amazing to see. And I could even tell a difference in like how I was in these interviews. I just felt more comfortable. I feel like you have to be like when you're with all the white people, like you have to put up a facade and pretend to be someone or like, make sure you look a certain way, make sure you act a specific way. And when you're with black people or people of color, you can more so let your guard down and be okay. I wouldn't say I was, I definitely was never pretending to be myself, but there's just like a level of comfortability that kind of comes from within. So like, for example, when I was interviewing at Facebook and Meta, I was like very nervous in interviews. I didn't change how I would talk. I didn't change how I would look. I came as myself, but I feel like I was very nervous. Whereas I was like visibly comfortable. I was able to really like, just talk with such conviction that I feel like I didn't have before. So do you think there was any challenges that were faced when applying to those positions? I know you said that definitely the community is a lot more tight knit because black women in tech are a lot less popular. So like, I know we have to stick up for one another and definitely look out for one another. Do you think that there's a lot more black women that were involved in tech as you started getting in? Like, do you see a lot more that have submerged into it? Or like, what do you think the demographics looking like? I mean, still very low. I mean, diversity in tech is just low in general. I think recently more people have been sharing information about their jobs, which is in turn going to make more people want to come into the industry. But I think overall, like there's just a lot of hurdles applying to jobs in tech. One, the volume of people applying. Like for one job, I can't even imagine how many tens of thousands of people are applying. So that's why I feel like referrals are everything. And if you don't know people who work there and they're often people in your community, then it kind of sets you back a bit. That's why like I've made it my mission in every tech role. So like, I am referring to a lot of black people. Like there's just a barrier that I can personally break down and help. You know, more black people get into the industry. Yeah, definitely. That's because I feel like even in like high school and growing up, like I've never, me being a black girl in tech as well, like in Rutgers, I've never really seen many other black women in tech. Like, and for you yourself in your role, you said there was a lack of black women. I feel like it's just more so intimidating or black women don't look to see like, oh, I want to be in tech or they see it as intimidating. So do you have any advice to give to black women or young black girls out there to see how they can get into tech? I would say just one, hop on LinkedIn, find other black women who are in positions that you're interested in and just really reach out. I feel like that's the number one way to one, figure out like what the industry is really like, like just grab minutes with someone and just hear about their experience. And two, like if there is a specific space that you're interested in, there are so many free and affordable resources on the internet. So if you want to learn how to do something, I know Google has like, or Coursera has a project management certificate program. So it's like, if immediately jumping into industry is intimidating because you may not have the tangible skills, I would, you know, encourage you to go and learn those skills on your own and on your time so that when it comes to applying, you feel more confident to, you know, get that position. Got it. And how do you feel about the tech freeze right now? I feel like everything's definitely on hold, especially because the meta fires, the Twitter fires, things like in shambles. Yeah, it's weird. I cannot deny that. It's very weird, especially because like two years ago, all these companies were hiring like crazy, of course, because consumption numbers were up. We're all home in a pandemic. And now that, you know, things are kind of crashing economically, everyone's trying to be very fiscally responsible, which I understand, but it's very hard to see a lot of my friends and peers get laid off. I'm hoping at one point the market stabilizes, but it's just really crazy. Like every time I hop on LinkedIn, it's like a layoff post. It's just really sad to say the least. Yeah, I feel like I've also been seeing a lot of those and I'm not even fully, like I just finished school. Like it's just a lie. It's kind of overbearing. It's kind of defeating in a sense because you want to apply to these jobs and now that everything is, everyone's getting let go and everyone's looking for a job and the job brief is like not as enticing to like, it's kind of depressing, like to go out there and look for jobs and not get it. But I guess the only way to try is to go and try for yourself. It is definitely not a good look because for these tech companies right now.