Career Growth Advice from Lauren Hasson, Career Development Leader | Career Tips for Women in Career Development

2B Bolder Podcast – Episode 15
Featuring Lauren Hasson, Founder of DevelopHER

Episode Title: #15 Career Podcast Featuring Lauren Hasson, a Software Engineer and the Founder of DevelopHER – Women In Tech

Host: Mary Killelea
Guest: Lauren Hasson



Mary Killelea (Host): Hi there, my name is Mary Killelea. Welcome to the To Be Bolder podcast, providing career insights for the next generation of women in business and tech. To Be Bolder was created out of my love for technology and marketing, my desire to bring together like-minded women, and my hope to be a great role model and source of inspiration for my two girls and other young women like you. Encouraging you guys to show up and to be bolder and to know that anything you guys dream of, it's totally possible. On To Be Bolder, you're going to hear inspiring stories of how successful women, some I know, some I just want to bring to you guys, and they're going to talk about their careers in business and tech, and they're going to tell us their stories about their passion and their journey and their challenges, and we're going to learn some of their advice along the way too. So, sit back, relax, and enjoy the conversation.

Hi there, thanks for tuning in. Today with me on the show is Lauren Hasson. She is the award-winning founder of DevelopHer, which is a very successful nationally recognized career development platform for women in tech. She is a motivational speaker as well as a full-time software engineer. Her background is unique and impressive to say the least, combining software, finance, and business strategy. She completed a triple major with top honors in electrical engineering, computer science, and economics at Duke University in just four short years. In addition to her full-time engineering career, Lauren is on a mission to bridge the gender income gap and help mentor women on the importance of negotiation and building wealth. Lauren, thank you so much for joining me. I'm thrilled to have you on the show.

Lauren Hasson (Guest): Oh, thank you. I'm so excited to be here.

Mary Killelea: Awesome. Okay. Well, I definitely, definitely want to dig into the story behind DevelopHer and the great stuff you're doing there, but first I really want to learn about your personal love of tech. How young were you when you realized you had an affinity and a talent for a career in tech? And then I want to go into like your day-to-day job because I think that's so important.

Lauren Hasson: Yes. So I got, I've always had a passion and a natural ability for science and math from taking the afterschool build a rocket in fourth grade and being in advanced math classes and never having to work at it. I actually got into software engineering as a freshman in high school and it was because my parents made me. That's the truth. My, I had an extra elective, and my parents didn't know what to enroll me in. So they asked their friends whose son had gone on to MIT. They said, well, what do we put her in? And they said, well, put her in computer science, not how to use Microsoft, Excel or Word, but computer science. And so they did. They blindly took that advice, put me in computer science and it was miserable. I was the only girl in a class full of senior guys who coded for fun and make matters worse. Like my parents had no idea what the course was even about. There was zero support, like not even emotional support for what I was doing. And I actually ended up excelling, maxed out my computer science for the two years I could take it in high school. They didn't have a full four-year program 20 or 25 years ago, but and that got me, that got me a start into, into tech and laid the foundation for getting computer science as one of my majors in college.

Mary Killelea: So tell me about your, your career. I mean, your day-to-day job. I know DevelopHer has taken off and, and is such a great platform, but what do you do during the week, during the day?

Lauren Hasson: Yeah, thanks. So a lot of people don't realize this. I am very active with DevelopHer and what I do. What a lot of people don't realize is I work full time on the front lines of tech myself. I work as a software engineer at a Silicon Valley payments company and I wear not one, but I wear two big hats there. I was hired in to do their iOS SDK. I had made a name for myself in the iOS space, built their iOS SDK and then ultimately ended up retooling not once, but twice just about nine, 12 months into the new role. And I got into security and developed an affinity for application security. So, for the past three plus years, I have owned all of applications security at a payments company that moves billions of dollars a year, which means I'm basically playing in the big leagues. And there's not only not a lot of women in tech, there's even fewer women in security. I think it's like one in 11 engineers is a woman in security. And I am very proud that I have a seat at the table for that. And then I also in the architect of our entire voice application system and I own all of our messaging capabilities. So I own an entire code base at the company. And I'm really proud of it. I love working with product. I love building out new features and new systems and having ownership of it. And when I take the stage, I tell people, hey, I was just writing stacks this morning. I'm just like you.

Mary Killelea: That's fantastic. And I love that you're so proud of it because it is something to be proud of. And sometimes you find women who I don't want to say are apologetic, but they don't own their success. And so I think it's so great to see you so passionate. And it's inspirational.

Lauren Hasson: I feel like it's my superpower that I can write code. And it wasn't until I retooled from iOS that I realized exactly how much I knew that I took for granted. Because it's like the boiling frog analogy. You know, frog dies because you raise the temperature really slowly until it's boiling and it kills itself. It's the same thing with your tech skills. You don't realize how much you know. And a lot of times that drives imposter syndrome with women. And when I retooled and I had to start all over and I went from iOS and Objective-C and Swift over to Ruby on Rails and doing application security and web development, it was a very grounding experience that not only taught me how much I brought to the table in terms of soft skills that accelerated my learning curve, but it also showed me how advanced I was on iOS that I took for granted.

Mary Killelea: How do you define women in tech?

Lauren Hasson: I'm very open with it and I'm also very narrow on it. The answer is all women who want to identify as women in tech. I have women in marketing who have very technical skills to automate the marketing process. I have women in operations who are very open to and product to have very, very fine knowledge of technology. I myself am supportive of that and inclusive. For me personally, I want to see more women with actual technical degrees and writing code and doing the technical work. I think that's where there's a huge gap and that's where I am raising my hand and saying, hey, I'm a woman in tech and I love having technical skills. Come join me.

Mary Killelea: Yeah. I used to do web design and I started off teaching myself how to code. It's fun. You just get to see numbers and transform into live functional websites. I can't even imagine all the stuff that you do. It's so rewarding to be able to put something technical yet have a display or an outcome that is consumable.

Lauren Hasson: I love it. I remember in college I was doing Macromedia Flash, which was Macromedia back then, not Adobe. It was kind of the precursor to apps, but it was a visual interface with ActionScript behind it. I just had so much more interest in programmatically building something visual versus building a tool under the hood. I thought everyone was like that. Everyone loves that. I talked to one of my strong allies in security and he goes, no, I'd rather build tools that has no consumer facing. I was like, really? It was an eye-opening experience that apparently not everyone loves to build UI-centered engagement-focused applications. I guess that's my sweet spot.

Mary Killelea: What type of personality traits, skills, or strengths do you think align with more of a technical career path? Would you say there is one?

Lauren Hasson: I think you have to have curiosity. You absolutely have to love to learn because what I know in tech is that you don't learn a tech skill once and then stop learning. You're constantly falling. What you may not realize is I have a degree in electrical engineering and computer science, but I actually left tech. I'm an attrition number myself. I left tech after some internships in college where they put me in a closed room and my office mate didn't talk to me. They said, don't bother your manager. I said, I don't know that I can do this for a career. I left tech and actually had a seven-year break where I did entrepreneurship, investment banking, investments and then hit rock bottom and had no marketable skills, no network. I couldn't even get a job interview for retail. It was rock bottom after getting wiped out in 2008. I started all over and had to reevaluate what is it that I do well? What can I bring to the table? When I graduated college, not only did the iPhone not exist, the Razr didn't even exist. We had limited capability SMS text messages where you hit the three key three times to get the third letter. That's where we were. iOS was the new technology. I had to relearn my tech skills from all over. I did that and was actually able to really accelerate my career back into tech in a very short period of time. Then five, six, seven years later I recognized that my front of the line skills, iOS, were no longer front of the line. They were more of a commodity skill set. I started looking around going, okay, it's time to relearn. That's something that I'm constantly doing in my career. If you're looking to learn once and then never have to iterate, tech is definitely not for you. It's for people who are curious on how to improve, how to change, and how to do things better and up your game.

Mary Killelea: Thank you for sharing that story. I think it's important that you left tech, experienced something else, and then like you said, hit rock bottom and it wasn't your thing. When you reentered the tech community, what was different about it the second time?

Lauren Hasson: It was very much more collaborative. There was a lot more opportunity. Tech was more front of the line. There were more resources to move you forward. For example, there were not IDEs when I was in college. It was all on a Unix box and compiling your code by hand. Then I stepped in and I had Xcode and this beautiful interface to build software in. There was a visual interface. I found it much more user friendly to learn those skills. I actually took an assessment. I had hired a career coach. I was stuck. I hired a career coach which was a huge risk to spend money that I didn't have at the time. She had me take a career assessment because I was looking for admin roles. Those were going away. Not only were they not hiring, those were disappearing. I honestly did not know where I was going to go next, what I was going to do. I'm 29 years old going, I've got a lifetime ahead of me. Where do I go? I was shocked that the results, I mean it was overwhelmingly said you should be developing software. It's just the way I think. I like to build repeatable processes, collaborate, solve problems, break it down into manageable solutions. It was an eye opening experience.

Mary Killelea: That's very cool. What misconception about women in tech would you like to debunk or clear up?

Lauren Hasson: I think the misconception is that women can't be technical. That's clearly not the case. So many top women in tech are my friends and they're very technical, very analytical. A lot of times when people think of women in tech, they think of Sheryl Sandberg who's in an operations role or someone who's in a marketing role. Women are just technical writing code and coming up with scientific discoveries and coming up with algorithms and pioneering new technologies. I want people to see that women are just as technical as men.

Mary Killelea: I think a myth that whether it's women in tech, but just tech jobs. You used to think of the hoodie in the dark room. That's so not the situation now. I think you guys are on the front line exploring things. The tech department's out of the basement and now into some of even the business decision making.

Lauren Hasson: It's on the top floor sometimes. The tech engineers are some of the heroes and celebrated faces of the tech companies. To be clear, I have my days where I show up on a Zoom video call where I have the hood over my head because I'm cold. It completely plays into that stereotype. I'm not beyond that. I also have those days where I'm sitting on my sunny patio and coding from elsewhere with a sun hat on. People were like, really?

Mary Killelea: That's great. Let's talk about DevelopHer. First off, congratulations. I love what you've built. I love the success of the community. Tell everyone who's listening now about DevelopHer and how it got started.

Lauren Hasson: Sure. This will resonate with you. I started DevelopHer as a single podcast and I had no idea it would explode into what it did. It started with I wanted to tell the stories of more technical women. I think the work that Sheryl Sandberg has done to recognize women in tech is fantastic. She's paved the way. Sheryl Sandberg is not technical. She's kind of the de facto spokeswoman for women in tech. I'm like, wait, where are all the women who have the electrical engineering degrees, the computer science degrees, who literally are the only women at the table? That's been me my entire career. I'm the only woman who's technical at the table in a technical engineering role. I set out and I just started cold calling CTOs, CIOs, VPs of engineering and CISOs and started telling their stories. Then our mutual friend, Sean, who runs the women in tech summits called me up and said, hey, what about you? Do you have a story? At the time I was like, who am I? I'm just an everyday software engineer. I'm no one special. I do have this incredible story about how I had just returned as one of 100 Americans alongside the likes of Craig Newmark, Kay Coppola, who founded USA Network, Craig Newmark, who founded Craigslist, and then me, who had been flown on a private 747 jet by British Airways to the UK to attend the UKJ Innovation Summit to present ideas to the United Nations. I literally hit the top of my field in only two years my work had just been featured in Apple keynote. I'd won all these awards and a male peer pulled me aside and he sincerely complained to me about how much he was making. I was just stunned because not only was he making exactly what I was making at the time, mind you, I was several years senior to him in training him. Let's be honest, fixing his code left and right. He had been hired at 50%, five zero more than me when I was at his level. Up until that point I had suspected I was underpaid, but that was my hard solid proof that yes you were.

So, I told Sean this story about how I found out I was underpaid and I went out, instead of getting angry, I went out and got the change that I wanted. I learned to negotiate. I invested seven to $10,000 in resources. A lot of the learning was how not to do it and then course correcting, but the result was I tripled my salary in just two years and that additional income that I was earning was a six figure amount, which is just life transforming. I told him that story and I didn't know if I had any, if anyone would care like who is this woman? Why is she talking to us? I didn't know if I was sharing anything that would be of value to anyone. In fact, the last time I had spoken was about on stage was about 12 years before and I had not prepared and I was so bad that one of my clients fired me on the spot and the other one told me you need to go to Toastmasters. I had the odds stacked against me and I had never worked so hard for 12 weeks of my entire life. I took the stage, got a standing ovation and DevelopHer has just taken off since. I was shocked when I won an award. They approached me and said, hey, you need to be considered for this award. It was not even on my radar screen that when I won, I wasn't even in attendance. It's just taken off beyond anything that I could think of and then Sean, our friend invited me back because I had one of the top rated sessions at the conference before and he said, well, do you have any other material? I said, well, it's really hard to beat. How do you make more money? But I've got this story about how I had to start over ground zero with no technical skills at the time. It was like six years before and how I went from literally ground zero starting over to top of my field. My work was featured in an Apple keynote, all these awards. I'd won South by Hackathon two years in a row. Like how did I go from zero to top of my field with global connections in only two years? And that was even more popular and the Dells, the Googles, the Armors, the Intuits of the world are bringing me in to talk to their women from entry level all the way to the executive women who are calling me up. And that's what I'm writing my book on right now is to get that full story because it's a repeatable framework. It's easier than you realize. And so DevelopHer exploded beyond anything that I could imagine. I just wanted to amplify and raise the profiles of more technical women because seeing is believing and I needed those heroes myself and I was willing to cold call and get turned down, which surprisingly I didn't. And then my commitment was I'll share these stories with other women as well. And that's where we got to today.

Mary Killelea: That's amazing. I love it. I love it. I love it. And so on your website, which I love your website, by the way, and you did it. You created your logo.

Lauren Hasson: So, the logo I have to share. So, the logo for DevelopHer, which is a nod to female developers, but it's also developer like career development. And but the square brackets are a nod to my iOS objective C coding roots because every line of code in an objective C is encapsulated in a square bracket. And so I had to get a little bit of my objective C roots in the logo and I'm very creative. I mean, a lot of people think engineers aren't creative and I completely buck that norm. I love the creative side of DevelopHer.

Mary Killelea: Yeah, no, it's awesome. It's beautiful. So, I'm looking at it now. So you've got modules. Talk briefly just about you have six different modules. You have toolkit. You have scripts and questions. I mean, you're literally giving everyone the framework.

Lauren Hasson: And I tried to make it affordable. So and so there is there is more info coming to the website soon. I'm actually in the process of adding even more. So, you're talking about my become a negotiator online course. And that is what has won a ton of awards. I it is how I tripled my salary and earn six figures more. And I knew it worked for me and it worked for a few close friends. And then I was not prepared for the work it would have at scale. Women have gone out with the framework and negotiated anywhere from 30 to 65 to $80,000 more in a single negotiation. I mean, it's just astounding. And I broken it down into online solution so you can go and learn the framework. I have a free webinar on that right now. And then the course is designed to be two and a half hours broken up into six modules. And so, it's two and a half hours total because a lot of women wait to the last minute and go oops, and I don't want you to have to sift through 10 hours. So this this can still cover you. But the best results are when you plan in advance broken into six modules.

The first thing you have to do is know where you want to go. And this I actually loop this in because I did this myself four years ago. And if I hadn't done this exercise, I would still be on the search for my dream job and my dream lifestyle. And because I did this work, I'm in that role right now. And it helped me get there faster. Then fundamental to my whole platform is ground yourself in data. And data is I mean, that's why we're good tech to begin with is we are data based. So like, why would we treat anything, especially something like a negotiation any differently. And so I've done all the research for you. I you I have four different strategies, I look across research guides, salary calculators, salary databases, and the one I call my secret weapons. And then I go deep within each of the strategies, so that you can have without a shadow of a doubt and know exactly how much you're worth. And oftentimes know exactly how much your company or another company like yours pays people in a similar position on that data is out there. Then you put together your own numbers, your ask your target and your walk away. And that's based on your numbers going to look different than mine for the same role because we have different employment and financial situations. So, it's very personal to you.

The other type of data that I really focus on is leverage data. So that's kind of the intangible. That's where you uniquely solve a problem for the company, whether that's driving more revenue, or saving them money, or something that you bring to the table that you can tie monetary value to or, or something as simple as you're the only candidate who has the skills that you're looking for. Well, in that case, you can ask for a premium. And that's exactly what I help you identify. And that's how I got an offer up by $50,000. As I figured out, I have leverage here. And I was able to negotiate an offer at $50,000 from what they initially offered me because I knew that I could do that. And it worked. And I nearly fell to my chair when I did that myself.

And then I also help with pushback. So you identify your talking points based on the leverage, and then prepare scripts and questions to handle the pushback. And that that's key, especially for women who are just learning to stand in their value. And if you're anything like me, you have imposter syndrome. If you're asking for the right amount of money, you're absolutely gonna get pushback. If you do not get pushback, you did not ask for enough. And so I give you here the scripts that I have used when someone asked me up front, how much do you want to make? And of course, I don't know anything about the rules. So I don't want it. It's a tactic to paint you in to a number up front and negotiate your salary down. And I go, here's the scripts that I use to answer that. And then 95% of the time, they just let you through. And here's what I say the 5% of the time when they continue to ask you for a number. And then here's what I ultimately say if I absolutely have to give a number and how I handle it so that I'm not negotiating against myself up front. And all these all these are tried and tested by myself, where I learned the hard way how to use them and how equally as important how not to use them.

Mary Killelea: That's fantastic. The value is incredible. And I can't wait till listeners hear this and check this out. And I honestly am doing it for myself, because I don't think you're ever taught how to negotiate properly, especially women, I don't think.

Lauren Hasson: And I should tell you, I also have a new pilot program that's going to be up on my website soon. But I'll provide you the link, if you want to share it out with your listeners. So, the course is affordable, it's less than $500, it yields huge results that more than pay for themselves. That said, I listen to women, and a lot of women who are underpaid, and don't have $500, they're living paycheck to paycheck. And that's a that's a huge, I mean, to me, it's like, that's an easy, no brainer investment for myself. I remember nine years ago, I would not be able to make that happen for myself. And so, I'm doing something completely innovative and disruptive, I'm doing a pay for results program that I'm piloting. It's not yet live on my website, but it is open, I'm taking pilot data participants, and that's pay for results. So, you get upfront access to the award winning program, you get access to DevelopHer slack, you get access to a monthly coaching call where I answer questions. So you get real, real, real access.

And then the flip side is you pay on the results. So for example, when you go and negotiate $100,000 salary up from 60, you get a $40,000 increase, I get paid a percentage of that. So I get what $5,000 on that you earn $45,000 or $35,000 more in the first year, and then you keep the 40 every year after. And I get paid on the backside. And that's because I have to make DevelopHer sustainable. I don't have investors, I don't have a rich uncle, it costs money to build out these tools and build new tools out. And I'm trying to make it a win win for everyone. And that's really how I teach you to approach negotiations is make sure it's a win for everyone involved. And so that's something that's disruptive, that I'm trying to, I really am trying to make this accessible to everyone and also make it so that DevelopHer sustainable and can even increase this reach. And I'm happy to share that out with your listeners.

Mary Killelea: That would be amazing. Damn, that's innovative. I love it.

Lauren Hasson: I mean, I'm winning awards before and I'm like, wait, you haven't seen anything yet. I'm going to make this, you know, accessible and my zero to hero program, which is all about like, okay, maybe you're maybe you don't believe that you're there yet. I'm going to help you build your value so that you can confidently ask for more money.

Mary Killelea: I want to tell everyone about this program. It's amazing.

Lauren Hasson: I need it. I need all the help I can get. Look, I'll tell you, I am not some smooth salesperson, or I am not, you know, a sleazy founder who's just looking to make a quick buck. I am literally a woman just like everyone else who's on the front lines of tech going, Okay, I want change in this world, I need to stop looking around for someone else to do it and get out and do it myself. And I took my life savings and invested it into DevelopHer because I believed I was crazy enough to believe I could actually have an impact. And I need all the help I can and getting the word out about what I'm doing with my equal pay program. And then also, which I'm really excited about my zero to hero program, which is how do you build your value and become more confident, and also stand out? How do you raise your profile within your company so that you're considered for that promotion, so that you're seen as one of their standout women in tech. And that's what I'm writing my book on. It should come out later this year. It's how I'm spending the pandemic. But my goal is to have every company bring me in to deliver this program to the women and I need all the help I can get and getting the word out.

Mary Killelea: Oh, happy to do it. So, you know, something you just said resonated with me. It's like, in corporate America, really, you have to be your own advocate, and you have to. And it's hard for me personally, I'm always like, well, let my work do the talking for me.

Lauren Hasson: No, no, no, no, no.

Mary Killelea: Yeah, exactly.

Lauren Hasson: At its core, DevelopHer is all about owning your outcomes and self advocacy and building and knowing your value. And that and look, I will tell you, I'm an introvert, I am incredibly shy. I slept until two o'clock today because I needed to have energy to be extroverted for our interview call. That's how much of an introvert I am. And it is it is just like building muscle to talk about the work that you do to do that work. And I'll tell you a story that I share in my zero to hero training that I learned that is one of the best hard lessons that I've ever learned. Right out of college, I was an investment banker. I left tech and went into investment banking. I worked for Morgan Stanley's Investment Bank in their Silicon Valley office, which is actually considered a branch office. Even though it's in Silicon Valley, their headquarters in New York is considered headquarters. And at the end of the year, they rank you have an analyst class and they rank all the analysts into five tiers and the tier you're ranked in determines your year-end bonus. And we're not talking like a $500 difference. We're talking like tens of thousands of dollars difference between the different tiers. So, your tier actually matters. And I heard nothing but great things about my performance in the review. But I was ranked in the second to top tier. And bless my heart, I'm 23 years old, I know what held me back from the top tier. And what I learned changed my life.

They said, well, Lauren, you're fantastic at what you do. And everyone in the Silicon Valley office knows that. But not enough people at headquarters who have influence over your career know you and know the work that you do. And right then and there, I knew that it wasn't enough to do good work in a silo and hope someone on your local team knows you but people you have to advocate for yourself. You can't leave it to chance, which is what a lot of us women do. You have to tell people. And I'll tell you, I am I have one of the most active LinkedIn profiles is what I've been told. And I barely put any effort into it because I am just consistent in making authentic posts out there. And that's what I teach in my zero to hero program that I'm going to that I'm going to pull back the cover on in my book is how do you do this in an authentic way that's genuine to you that doesn't feel like he right, he'll move you forward. And that's what developers all about is like, look, I'm just like you, I'm shy, I undervalue my technical skills. And how do you really unearth the value that you bring to the table articulate that in a way that's meaningful to the business leaders so that you are considered for the promotion and you climb the ladder and pull other women up with you. And that's what I'm trying to do.

Mary Killelea: That's fantastic. So, what's been your biggest learning from starting DevelopHer?

Lauren Hasson: The biggest learning. It is hard to make everyone happy. That is that is the hard part. I'm a people pleaser. And I want everyone to be happy. And without a doubt, there's always one or two people who just are unsettled in. And that's hard for me. I think I wasn't I'm not a super athlete or celebrity. And I kind of got into a position where I was getting unsolicited criticism. And that's really hard for me because I want to make everyone happy. I care. And it's coming from a good place. And yet it's nearly impossible.

Mary Killelea: Well, and I think that goes back to some of the fear I personally like if you put yourself out there and you make yourself more seen, which is what you have to do. It also, there's a risk of being judged.

Lauren Hasson: Absolutely.

Mary Killelea: What skills can women today build or focus on to make themselves more marketable in the tech space?

Lauren Hasson: Oh, absolutely. So this is key. This is I can divide an entire framework point around this. You have to learn new and valuable skills. You constantly like you have to always be learning. So my answer is going to quote my favorite computer science professor in college. The answer is it depends. It depends on the company you're at. It depends on what you want to do in your career. But my answer is look to the front of the line. You don't want to play catch up in tech. You don't want to go learn a technology that's been around for 20 years that people have 20 years of experience. You're never going to catch up with them no matter how hard you work. What I do is I look for the front of the line. I look for the new technologies that are not only in high demand, like every company wants to hire someone, including your company that has that skill set, but they're so new that you can't have five years. I remember when I got started in iOS, it was perfect because people at most had two and a half years of experience. So I was able to quickly catch up and get a seat at the front of the line. And so for me, when I did a reevaluation four years ago, I started recognizing, look, iOS is no longer front of the line. A lot of people have these skills. I saw the writing on the wall that it was moving towards commodity skill set. And I wanted to position myself to be front of the line, new technology, and ultimately position myself to be a premium. I never want to have to look for a job. I always want to have multiple offers. That's the way my mind thinks.

And so I started asking recruiters. I talked to recruiters. I talked to hiring managers. And I asked the question, I said, what skill sets does every employer want to hire for that they can't find enough candidates for? And I got a number of answers, but the two that I heard consistently were security and IoT. At the time, I'm not saying those are it right now, although I will say security is in high demand. And at the time I was working remote and I want to continue working remote, and IoT sounded like something that needed to be in a lab. So I literally decided overnight, okay, security is next for me. And I was at an event that night, and I took a picture, or I had someone take a picture of me on the panel. And the next day I went and I shared it at work. And the head of engineering messaged me and he was like, remember, we're hiring. And I go, oh, well, out of curiosity, what are we hiring for? And he goes, well, we need a security person. And I go, oh, well, that's interesting. Like, don't get me wrong, I love my role. I've just been hired into it. I was only there for six months so far. And I go, but I would be interested in this in a long time. Next thing you know, I'm a fly on the wall on the security team at a payments company that views billions of dollars a year. And within three months, I owned all of application security. And I was the right hand at the CISO. So for me, a lot of times it's just taking the initiative, which is what I talk about in my zero to hero framework, you have to take action. I step up, I show up and I ask over and over again. I've gotten afraid of being embarrassed for asking the stupid question because honestly, I find that a lot of people also want to ask it. And it's not as stupid as you think. So I step up, show up and ask all the time. And because I did that, I have an incredibly valuable skill set.

Mary Killelea: That's great advice.

Lauren Hasson: That's how I got into security. And so security was the answer for me at my current company. There are lots of different answers. And so ask your boss, read your company annual report, talk to your leaders, talk to recruiters about like what skillset, talk to your recruiters at the company, which are the jobs that they're having trouble hiring. For example, I wear two hats at my company right now. And I wear the AppSec hat and I wear the engineering hat. And I've gotten pulled in so many directions that engineering said you need to choose. And I ultimately chose engineering. And I been actively trying to hire my replacement through this pandemic. We are still hiring and we cannot find a person to replace what I do in AppSec. That's how valuable the skill set is and hard to find it is. And I'm like, well, this is good news for me. I mean, I have job security and it's got a skill set that like you literally can't find people hire for and I'm a woman on top of it. So I think security is great. Not it's not for everyone. I mean, I don't even want to do security full time myself because I love engineering so much. But there is a front of the line for everyone.

And I will also add, I actually jumped to two front of the lines. I picked up voice. I think applications are going away from touch. So I picked up voice. And so I own our entire voice capability, the messaging and interaction. So it's not around app. So I actually learned voice applications as well, which is what I can say. It's not as new, but it's new in terms of how we're using it in applications. And so I also consider that front of the line.

Mary Killelea: That's amazing. I love it. Yeah, I think voice definitely is a sector that, like you said, it's not new, but growth area, huge potential.

Lauren Hasson: And it's huge. I mean, and I use Twilio. So I'm an expert in how to use Twilio, which a lot of companies use. So heaven forbid my company doesn't need me anymore. Or something happens that I part ways and I'm on the market. I immediately know how to use Twilmo programming API and can go immediately implement it at some other company. And so that's a valuable skill set that I bring to the table.

Mary Killelea: That really is super valuable advice that you just shared about doing your homework and finding out how to target the jobs that are at the front of the line. What are three tips you would give to women on networking?

Lauren Hasson: So I'm an introvert and networking is really hard for me. So and I'm actually writing this chapter in my book right now. So, you're getting the advice that I'm going to give you. I make micro commitments to myself. I don't try to look at the whole picture. I try to make a commitment and going to an event and only meeting three people and then I can peace out. And that'll get you to get there.

Mary Killelea: Right.

Lauren Hasson: Getting there is 90% of the battle. And then the other thing is you have to follow up. There's so many people who've met me who don't follow up and they just completely miss the window of opportunity. So, you need to follow up immediately. It’s a very narrow window whether you know and that needs to be you taking the action to follow up especially if you want the connection not waiting on someone else to do it. And then always bring an offer to the table. So if someone doesn't tell you how they can how you can help them don't just walk away taking something from the conversation. Ask them how can I help you. And always have an ask yourself a lightweight ask. You don't want them to solve world peace for you or get you the next job but have a lightweight ask that doesn't cost them a lot or doesn't take a lot of energy on their part that they can easily move you forward in the right direction. And those are things that I've learned over the years on how not to do it. And I'll have even more tips in my book coming out on that too.

Mary Killelea: Alright. Good advice. When it comes to work what's been the best piece of advice you've ever received?

Lauren Hasson: Best piece of advice I've ever received? Well you know it really comes down to that that lesson that I learned where people said you know people have to know you. And then to that point it had been high school and college good work gets you ahead gets you noticed and it was all resume based and made a case for that. And you know if you don't tell people about the work that you're doing if you're not visible you're invisible. And you know there are there are people who are lucky that people take notice and help them stand out. That has not been the case for me and that has not been the case for most women that I know about. And you have to be your own best self advocate.

Mary Killelea: Who's been your biggest inspiration over the years.

Lauren Hasson: My biggest inspiration. I don't know if it's inspiration. Someone who I learn a lot from, and I would admit he's not a mentor but he is a mentor. It's Tony Robbins. He talks about the different tools and technologies you can use to change your mindset. And it's really a lot of the work that I've done between my two ears to change my mindset. And really what makes me different is I accept responsibility for the change that I want in my life and go it's not my fault the things that have happened to me like being underpaid and the other stuff. You know it's not all on me but it is my responsibility to get change if I want it for myself. And so I've been I'm a real student of self-help and professional development. And I have not had a mentor or a sponsor come alongside me and show me the way if I've wanted change in my life. I've gone out and I've paid big bucks to get those experts come alongside me and get me that expertise and short circuit the path to learning.

Mary Killelea: Yeah absolutely. I assume over the years you've had some self-doubt and if that's the case how have you overcome it?

Lauren Hasson: Oh, absolutely self-doubt. Well you know it's funny I got back I got back from the UKJ Innovation Summit and I had all these awards and it was I mean I had arrived. I was getting recruited by top companies. I mean Apple, Google, Facebook, they were regularly recruiting me. And it felt like this is a once in a lifetime opportunity and what I hadn't realized is this is this is my new normal. It hadn't caught up. I still have to this day overwhelming imposter syndrome. I mean I remember when I took the stage for the first time with DevelopHer really I was like who's gonna care about me? Like I mean something as simple as walking to get lunch after speaking to all of Google's women. I was nervous to go ask to sit at the table of women. I'm super shy. The best advice I've gotten and I'm sure everyone knows about this is Amy Cuddy. So I am bought her Power Stance that she does. She has a great Ted Talk on this and I think she also has a book Presence. Talks about it but I use open body language in Power Stances to help shift my body into a state and Tony Robbins is really big about where energy goes and or so where focus goes energy flows. And so I focus on the outcome that I want and I visualize myself being successful and then I imitate. I keep my body in action and when I'm in a meeting I use a temple pose with my hands and that's a power that's a small power pose that you can use while you're sitting versus sitting and clasping your hands or using your arms across. That's a closed body position which fosters a feeling of weakness and so I try to do things like that to trick my body and you're doing it and what I learned is that over time I become confident and I'm in that position because it's natural because I have the confidence in it.

And so it's a learned thing and I'm constantly in situations where I don't have confidence like what am I doing? I don't belong here. I mean I was on a panel a year ago at the Texas A&M Tech Summit and I had the CIO of Texas A&M University system on the stage and two other CIOs of Texas like their whole system and I'm like someone asked the question about imposter syndrome and I was like oh I have it right now. I clearly do not belong on the stage with these women and yet women were relating to me, and I think that the reason women relate is I'm very open about when I'm having imposter syndrome including owning it on a stage saying I don't belong here.

Mary Killelea: So do you think of yourself as a role model?

Lauren Hasson: I didn't at first. I really didn't. I was like who am I? No one's going to care about me and what I've discovered is that women do look to me for how did I do it? For hope and so that's why I've distilled my equal pay program into repeatable framework. That's why I've got my book coming out and my corporate program for Zero to Hero, How to Build Your Value and Really Stand Out. I don't think there's anything unique about me other than the fact that I'm willing to openly talk about my failures and then also share the secrets about how I got change in my own life and then inspire other women to do the same for themselves. I'm so glad you are.

Mary Killelea: What would you tell your 20-year-old self?

Lauren Hasson: Oh, okay so this is easy. I would tell myself to live on considerably less than you make and invest the difference. I am huge about that. I mean I was broke and I just paid off my last debt within the last four years and that was a huge deal for me and now I'm building my wealth and part of my position of strength and especially in negotiating but also in bringing my best work product to the table comes from I'm not afraid of what happens if I get laid off because I have the financial nest egg to know that I'm okay and that I can negotiate well because I'm in a position of power where I don't have to say yes, I can actually walk away. And of course you know my dad growing up he said live on a third, save a third, a third goes to taxes but I credit this with my boyfriend of 15 years who is the consummate saver and invests and lives below to those means and my 20-year-old self when I was making good money investment banking I wish I had gone out with my annual bonus and invested that instead because that would have given me the confidence to really stand in who I am in a lot of situations in my life where I really didn't feel I had an option and kind of just had to withstand really difficult situations.

Mary Killelea: Yeah that's great advice. Where do you see yourself in five years?

Lauren Hasson: Five years. Oh if you told me even two years ago DevelopHer has been around two and a half years. I didn't even have the podcast two and a half years ago or three years ago, so five years seems so far out. I mean hopefully I am completely financially independent. That is something that I'm working on for myself. I hope I have a seat at the global table. One of my goals is to meet Melinda Gates, we have a lot in common actually. She's from Dallas like me, we both went to Duke, we're both computer science majors, we're both software engineers, and we're also both Kappa Alpha Thetas, so I'm determined to meet her. But really I'm hoping that I have an international role seat at the table, driving role change and that for me. My goal to be financially independent is that I no longer have to worry about holding down a day job, and then I can make decisions and really influence change, the change that I want to see in the world from a position of abundance. And I'm not I'm not there yet. I'm on my way, but what I hope for me is that money is now not something that I worry about. Paying the bills every year that it's a tool for me that I can use to leverage to get change on a wide range scale, and I hope every corporation has my zero to hero program in house and that my book is a must have resource for every woman.

Mary Killelea: I have no doubt you will be hanging out with Melinda Gates sometime soon.

Lauren Hasson: I hope so.

Mary Killelea: Alright. Last question. What comes to mind when you hear to be bolder?

Lauren Hasson: Well what comes to mind is that it's already in you, that like you just don't recognize it. And I think that it's augmenting what you already have and discovering that you can go to the next level. And so I think that it's a powerful question because it assumes it already exists.

Mary Killelea: Awesome. How can people get in touch with you learn more?

Lauren Hasson: So there are a number of ways. Number one go to DevelopHer. The website is constantly being updated, but number one get on the newsletter because when I roll out my book, when I roll out new pilot programs, that's the way you're going to find out about it, and I'll provide you the link for my beta program for the salary negotiation program. And then also LinkedIn. I accept all incoming connections, I post frequently on LinkedIn on resources, but if you want to hear about the book, get on the newsletter. If you want to to bring me into your company, I'd love to hear from you.

Mary Killelea: Fantastic. It has just been a joy getting to know you. Part of this podcast was bringing women to my audience, but also it was literally because I want to meet women like you. Thank you for being on the show.

Lauren Hasson: Oh well, thank you for doing that. I just love what you're doing for women in tech, and it was just a fun way to spend my afternoon. So thank you so much Mary.

Mary Killelea: Thanks for listening to the episode today it was really fun chatting with my guest. If you liked our show please like it and share it with your friends. If you want to learn what we're up to please go check out our website at tobeboulder.com that's the number two little b bolder.com