Tech & Innovation Blog
Discovering Tech Bootcamps
Career Advice, Bootcamps, UX
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Video: Considering a career in Tech? Try a Bootcamp
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[TEXT: Samantha, Senior Platform Engineer]
I went to boot camp at Hack Reactor in 2016. And there I learned how to code, so everything from just JavaScript basics just to really get our feet wet, to learning how to work on Node, which is what we use here, and front end frameworks, databases, all the really core pieces of what you do day to day.
[TEXT: Stephanie, UX Designer]
I attended one at General Assembly. It’s called User Experience Immersive. And for me, I didn’t have the ability to quit my job to do this full time. So I definitely took on the part time study. And upon completing the course and getting my certification, I started looking for opportunities within ADP.
[TEXT: Jack, Software Engineer]
When I graduated from that programming boot camp, I was just looking for a solid job. And I just really appreciated all that ADP had to offer. It was a really fun product, for one thing. As I got to meet what would be my fellow software engineers, I found that I really had a really solid rapport with them and got along with them well. So between the culture, between the people, and the product itself, it really just seemed like the right fit for me.
[TEXT: Aimee, UX Designer]
After I’d completed my boot camp program, I was looking for a way to network that worked for me. So I don’t really enjoy going to events and just sort of talking to random people. I thought the best way to be would be to be involved in organization and that people would get to know me and how I work by actually working with me.
And the way that I found out was Margot, the Director at ADP for User Experience Design. She was actually on the board, and I was as well, of an organization called User Experience Professional Association. And she happened to post about an opening under her department. And I reached out to her. And I told her, you should consider me if you haven’t hired anyone yet. And she just kind of put me through the regular recruiting process by starting with the HR person contact.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[TEXT: Ready to design what’s next? Visit tech.adp.com/careers.]
[LOGO: ADP, Always Designing for People]
[TEXT: ADP, the ADP logo, and Always Designing for People are trademarks of ADP, LLC. Copyright © 2020 ADP, LLC. All rights reserved.]
As a technologist at ADP, there are many different ways you can find yourself working in one of our innovation centers. One of those ways is by being recruited through a technology Bootcamp. Our Associates share how they found their first job in their technology careers at ADP through Bootcamps. Added bonus- the networking they were able to do through the program!
Tech & Innovation Blog
Advancing Your Career
Lifion, Career Journey, Leadership
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Video: One Product Manager’s Take on Advancing Your Career
Video: One Product Manager’s Take on Advancing Your Career
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[TEXT, Chintan, Director, Product Management]
The opportunity that exists here, to anyone else you know starting out, I really kind of just showcase my journey here, which is that you have the ability to come into the organization as a developer, in my case, you have the ability to then contribute. If you decide to make a career change, you have opportunities within ADP to make those career changes. And I went from working in the development area to product management where I really loved it. And if you continue to enjoy what you do, be successful at what you do, then you continue to get more opportunities to continue to follow the path that you want to go down.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[TEXT: Ready to design what’s next? Visit tech.adp.com/careers.]
[LOGO: ADP, Always Designing for People]
[TEXT: ADP, the ADP logo, and Always Designing for People are trademarks of ADP, LLC. Copyright © 2020 ADP, LLC. All rights reserved.]
Meet Chintan, one of our product managers in our New York City Innovation Center. He started at ADP as a Developer and since that time has grown into new roles, like his latest one as Product Manager. ADP has the ability to offer new experiences and untapped opportunities for those who want it.
ADP Women in STEM Profile: Manjula Ganta
Manjula’s mantra: “Don’t focus on fitting in; figure out how to stand out.” After reading about her hard work, success and leadership, you’ll see Manjula walks the talk — and encourages others to do the same.
Growing up, Manjula Ganta wanted to be a doctor. She loved science and biology and was fascinated by how the body works as a machine. But med school was financially out of reach, so she chose a career in mathematics. Manjula’s mother encouraged her and her sisters to learn computers.
“My mother was a visionary and could see technology evolving even before the internet existed,” Manjula said. “From her experiences and struggles as a homemaker, forgoing a job opportunity due to culture constraints, my mom inspired her four girls to be independent and encouraged us to pursue our careers. She is the greatest influence on who I am today.”
From India to Omaha
Manjula grew up in a small town in southern India near Hyderabad. In school, she was very outgoing, smart, and well-rounded – a trait she carried into adulthood and her career. Manjula pursued a bachelor’s degree, majoring in mathematics. She simultaneously enrolled into a Diploma in Systems Management program that introduced her to computers. Manjula later earned her MBA with a major in finance, and graduated as class valedictorian.
She moved to Hyderabad to work for a financial services company as a management trainee. Manjula was quick to learn the intricacies of the business and even as an intern courageously presented her ideas. Soon she had an opportunity to design the development of an integrated app to better manage the company’s branch reports. “Curiosity and rapid technology changes led me to learn relational databases and the integrated enterprise application software,” Manjula recalls.
A few years later, Manjula married her high school sweetheart, who had moved to Omaha, NE. She moved from Hyderabad to Omaha, and they started a family. “It was a big adjustment for me, both culturally and professionally,” Manjula said, “and it took a while to figure out how to balance my career and family.”
Manjula began working in Boston as a Peoplesoft consultant for the state of Massachusetts, going home only every couple of weeks. “It was a very challenging time in my life, being a young mother with a traveling job – staying away from home and my toddler son,” she recalls.
Manjula then worked as a Peoplesoft technical consultant for a project with General Electric (GE) in New York in variety of roles. She successfully implemented various Peoplesoft modules, leading offshore teams. After a few years, Manjula’s husband took a new job and they moved to Atlanta, where she continued to work with GE remotely.
Have grit and break your own expectations – expectations can be a weight on your shoulders.
– Manjula Ganta, Director of Application & Development, GPT
After her nine-year project at GE, Manjula joined ADP National Accounts Services (NAS) Outsourcing (COS) division as a senior business systems analyst. “It was a big shift going from development to a business systems analyst role,” Manjula recalls. “I would still get into the code and give the developers inputs about the issues.” She laughingly added, “I think they got frustrated sometimes, but it also helped improve our communication.”
Manjula’s role soon expanded to managing the same development team across analytics, robotics process automation (RPA) and other web/cloud tools and technologies, and she was tasked with managing diverse virtual teams as a single global team. “I was responsible for helping the team see and execute the vision, removing any roadblocks and partnering with other leaders to make it successful,” she recalls. Manjula’s ability to combine business acumen and technical competency, along with her pragmatic approach, enabled her to be decisive and impactful across the COS business.
Manjula then became the Director of Strategic Initiatives for the NAS Tools & Technology Operations, where she worked on several technology and transformation initiatives to develop, support, and enhance ADP’s internal and client-facing tools.
Manjula says she’s taken this approach throughout her career: “As a thoughtful leader, I strive to create a positive and collaborative work culture with emphasis on employee recognition – helping teams to look beyond their differences. Celebrating associate birthdays, work anniversaries and key project milestones helps everyone feel valued and included.”
Currently, Manjula is a Director of Application Development, Global Product & Technology (GPT), where she takes an even broader responsibility for building ADP’s core products from a technology architecture, design, quality and user experience standpoint, to make them more effective for ADP’s clients.
Developing Self and Others
“ADP has a unique culture in which they put their associates first,” she says. “Prior to ADP, most of my development was self-initiated, but here we have many career development opportunities, mentorship programs, stretch assignments, networking events through employee resource groups, technical workshops, etc. You just need to be motivated and find the time to develop yourself.”
Manjula had the opportunity to enroll in an external Pathbuilders mentorship program. “The program helped me to become more self-aware, building my own personal brand inside and outside of ADP,” she says. Manjula is thankful to the leaders, mentors and sponsors who invested their time by providing her exposure at the business unit level.
Carrying it forward, Manjula helps mentor others at ADP and through various non-profit organizations. She is an active volunteer for Women in Technology based in Atlanta, which helps girls and women succeed from the classroom to the boardroom. Manjula recently joined the ADP GPT Women in Technology Leadership Mentoring Initiative (WiTL) that helps develop a diverse leadership talent pipeline through a formal mentoring program. She also volunteers for the American Heart Association, Special Olympics of Georgia, and leads several ADP business resource group events in the Alpharetta location, creating awareness and raising donations for causes she cares about.
Best Advice
Manjula offers this advice for women starting their careers in STEM: “Have grit and break your own expectations – expectations can be a weight on your shoulders. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes; it’s important to learn. Life is not just about success; it’s also about failure, difficulty, and learning to recover. Focus on the present, stay positive, and keep going.”
Manjula also recommends finding a mentor. “Mentors have helped me realize my worth and have inspired me to speak up, be myself, and encouraged me to take on the next challenge. One of my leaders would say, ‘I wish you had had your voice earlier.'”
“Always find your support system, family, friends or coworkers and don’t be afraid to seek help or delegate,” Manjula said. “You don’t have to be a perfectionist or do it all.”
She is very grateful for her husband, Ranjith, and two sons, Abhitej and Ritvik, who have always supported her career, helped at home, and offered new and different points of view.
“Have fun, no matter how hard things can get. Humor and fun can always make the journey (personal or professional) easier.”
Through all the learning and big changes as an Asian Indian immigrant and a woman in STEM, Manjula’s best advice is: “Don’t focus on fitting in; figure out how to stand out.”
Read about other ADP Women in STEM and learn about careers at ADP.
Tech & Innovation Blog
Meet Anshuman: ADP’s Inventor of the Year
Inventor of the Year, Voice of our People, Career Path
Through ADP’s patent program, Anshuman’s name appears as an inventor on ten patent applications filed within the last five years, seven of which have registered.
Anshuman Gaur was named ADP’s Inventor of the Year. Through ADP’s patent program, his name appears as an inventor on ten patent applications filed within the last five years, seven of which have registered.
Since joining ADP 11 years ago in Hyderabad, India as a Test Analyst, he’s been an amazing contributor to our organization. We recently caught up with Anshuman to ask him about the patent process, his advice for other inventors, his cricket experience, and more!
What different roles you’ve had during your time at ADP?
I started as a Test Analyst in the Next Gen PayExpert team. From there, I moved to a business analyst role, and then a Sr. Business Analyst role within the same group. By this time, PayExpert had transformed into a single database Workforce Now (WFN) solution with HR, Payroll, Time & Benefits all running on the same platform.
In 2014, I moved to Alpharetta, Georgia, as a Product Manager for WFN shared products such as reporting, analytics, PaaS, etc. In this role, I had the opportunity to work on the launch of DataCloud, an HCM analytics product targeted at mid-market clients. After a short stint with the DataCloud product team, where I had the opportunity to pilot ADP’s compensation benchmarking and predictive analytics features, I went back to the WFN team as a Director of Product Management in Parsippany, New Jersey.
Video call with the team
In early 2018, life came full circle when I received the opportunity to lead the WFN Next-Generation product. We work on the future of work and pay every day, including some cool features like on-demand pay, punch to pay real-time calculations, etc. We have an awesome opportunity to challenge the status quo and lead in the market with a competitive next-gen offering.
In a nutshell, I’ve had so many roles and so much fun! 🙂
What did you think when you first learned you were ADP’s Inventor of the Year?
It was quite surprising, to be honest! Many great products and features are being built across the organization, so it’s an honor to be recognized with this award. Also, being on the same list as Frank Villavicencio, VP, Product Management, is an absolute privilege.
What’s your process for coming up with ideas that would be great for a patent?
That’s a great question, and something we focus on quite a bit in our day-to-day work. It’s a combination of client need awareness, market and competitive awareness, and problem-solving skills. I am lucky to have a great team of developers, UX designers, and product owners who bring these skills to the table. We look at how we can solve problems that give the customer a delightful solution and, at the same time, gives us a competitive advantage.
We recently filed a patent for a solution that not only eliminates some key challenges and pain points but also exceeds the competition. It’s worth securing those features with a patent.
What is the patent process at ADP?
It’s quite straight forward. Once you have identified a feature or an idea for a patent, you can submit an invention brief on our internal associate portal under the ADP Patent Program. In this document, you provide a brief summary of the invention, the problems it solves that couldn’t be solved before, and how the solution is unique.
Once this is submitted, IP lawyers make the magic happen coming up with claims, preparing the filing documentation, etc. You need to participate in reviewing these documents during the process. Once the application is submitted, you can easily track progress on the portal.
What advice do you have for other inventors?
We solve many large-scale problems here at ADP. Our inventions are unique to our size and our business, and so I encourage everyone to take a moment to ask a couple of questions as they discover new ways to solve problems:
“Am I creating an intellectual property?” If the answer is yes, “Does the solution solve a problem in a unique way that can be secured by a patent?”
These questions are a simple way to guide inventors through the decision-making process of securing IPs. There is no doubt that inventions are happening here. We need to take the additional and essential step in securing it.
What do you like best about working at ADP?
There are many things, from passionate people to amazing culture to great opportunities. But if I were to pick one, I would say it’s the large-scale problems that I love to solve working with various cross-functional teams.
What advice would you give to your 16-year-old self?
Don’t ever stop playing cricket no matter how hard and busy life gets! For the cricket fans out there, I used to bowl right arm, medium-fast.
What is your must-have app? Yelp & YouTube
Anshuman Gaur is a Senior Director, Product Management at ADP based in New Jersey.
Being a first-time Engineering Leader
“You did a great job as a senior engineer. You are now promoted to a manager to lead the new team that we just formed. Congratulations on your new role!”
It is something on these lines that most people get promoted or at least that is how I remember when I was promoted to a manager. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with promotions such as this. The key though is in recognising that the expectations change when this happens. As we moved up the individual contributor (IC) ladder we learnt to solve harder technical problems. This change in role, though changes the operating field a little. It is in this context that I am listing out a few things that would have helped me transition into my role as a manager better, when I started out.
Transition from a maker to manager schedule
Staying hands on — in other words writing production quality code is a reality for most first time managers making this transition. It is also likely the first time where you end up navigating both kinds of schedules on a daily basis and it is a hard thing to do. Learn to be protective of your calendar. You could do this by:
Blocking your time in the calendar where you need to stay heads down. I’d suggest at least 3 hours at a time and then adjust up or down depending on what is an ideal chunk of uninterrupted time for you to get something meaningful done
Being ever more mindful of how you now schedule time with your direct reports. Just because you have moved onto a different schedule does not mean they should have to. If you are conscious of how you set up these meetings, that is one more thing you are doing for your team
Doing what you can to string your meetings into one contiguous block. Better yet, define your meeting times and agree with your peers. With a little back and forth, this usually works well for everyone and is another barrier for folks who gatecrash into your time with unplanned meetings
If you want to know more about different types of schedules, Paul Graham’s article explains it quite well.
Stay hands on
You are most likely a manager of a team with highly opinionated ICs. You need to be able to have a conversation with them, ask the right questions, pressure test their approach.
Pressure on your time as an IC will only increase as you grow and if you don’t strive to stay hands on, very soon you will find yourself too far from where the action is. You don’t necessarily have to pick up the most critical problem to solve but do what you must to stay relevant and make a meaningful contribution.
Impediment remover, not always a problem solver
After years of being an IC where you are used to solving problems yourself, it can be hard to take a step back.
Be the person who helps your teams get over the hump even if you are not the one who identified the problem or fixed it. Serve the team in the capacity that is best needed at the time and avoid being a seagull manager. With a young team, it could mean leading with a solution while with more mature teams, it could just be about asking the right questions. And in some other cases, maybe it is just carrying pizza!!
Carve out time for career development
A key reason you choose to be a manager is that you genuinely believe that you can have a greater impact on your purpose by developing a strong team. Be interested in each member’s aspirations, be on the lookout for their strengths and biases. Provide timely feedback. Help identify opportunities that will help them hone their newly acquired skills. These are all things perhaps any standard course on “New Managers” will refer to. There are many talks and articles out there to drive home the point that when you can align aspirations with the organisational goals that is when you are likely to have the most impact, but also derive personal satisfaction. Do the most you can to make this a practice.
Bar raiser
You have to do this at every opportunity you get, not just when hiring someone into the team. You have to be the cheerleader during your team’s journey towards excellence. Raise the bar when it comes to technical excellence; be the torchbearer when it comes to upholding your organisations credos and values. Often in the quest for an organisation’s immediate imperatives culture takes a back seat. Protect, sustain and improve your organisation’s culture like your organisation’s life depends on it; because it actually does.
Manage upwards and sideways
Managing upwards or to the side is typically seen by engineers as an ugly part of organizational politics. Other than the typical activities that are required to manage information, the biggest reason to do this is because software development is a collaborative activity. Managing in its purest sense is about aligning priorities across teams. You will be able to achieve your goals better if you can influence your peers to row in the same direction and are aligned with the direction your manager has in mind. At the same time, this is also about course correcting if need be and ensuring people on the impacted teams understand why a correction is better for everyone.
Conclusion
Doing some or all of these things will not turn you into a super manager overnight. I like to compare this to going to the gym. You will not notice any change after your first day at the gym, but keep at it long enough and the results will be clear for all to see.
Tech & Innovation Blog
On Elephant Graveyards
Career Mobility, Career Advice, Voice of our People
Some years ago, I heard someone sarcastically say, “This is where elephants come to die” in response to me asking them why such intelligent people as themselves were still at that company.
Since then, I have been referring to “elephant graveyards” when describing companies and teams that don’t have headroom for intelligent people to rise the ranks and grow as engineers.
An elephant graveyard, when applied to a corporate setting, is a team, company, or some other set of conditions, in which otherwise bright engineers take positions or assignments where there is no hope for future career growth. In this post, I hope to define the conditions that must be present for an elephant graveyard to form, how to detect them, and how to navigate them.
Defining career growth
An engineer’s career growth has three dimensions: skills, recognition, and compensation.
Skill growth is a function engineer learning new skills and becoming an expert through practicing newly acquired abilities on real-world projects.
Recognition is a function of showing initiative, applying new skills, and being recognized by supportive leadership.
Compensation is a function of recognition and skill growth.
Conditions required for an elephant graveyard to form
An elephant graveyard forms when the three dimensions of career growth become stagnant.
Skill growth stagnates when the project reaches a certain level of maturity and is either no longer growing or is in a terminal decline. Projects reach maturity when they reach a critical mass in production and are no longer rapidly evolving. When the active development phase is over, the projects are often scaled back. When projects don’t rapidly evolve, there is no room for the acquisition of new skills.
Another reason for skill growth stagnation is the presence of the Smartest Person In The Room. The Smartest Person In The Room is either the developer themselves (which means they’ve outgrown the project and are now a toxic influence on it) or someone else (who created the conditions in which only his ideas are good).
The emergence of the Smartest Person In The Room is toxic to the team, and good leaders should discourage it. Since only their ideas count, the rest of the engineers can’t grow and earn recognition.
Recognition stagnates when skills stagnate, or the engineer loses leadership support, including management incompetence. When leadership is unsupportive, new skills don’t often earn any recognition.
When both skill growth and recognition stagnate, compensation stagnates as well. Chances are higher if you work for a well-run company, the reward system is in line with skill growth and recognition. Poorly run companies, not so much. Companies that create artificial limitations barriers, like title hierarchies, run the risk of losing technologists for compensation reasons.
What to do if you find yourself in an elephant graveyard
First of all, try and detect an elephant graveyard before you join the company. Ask questions about team dynamics and the project maturity cycle. Don’t join a company or a team where elephants come to die.
If you find yourself in an elephant graveyard, however, it’s not all over. Evaluate your overall situation. Is work-life balance important to you at this phase of your life? Are you fairly compensated at this moment in time? Are there opportunities within your company on other projects? Is there an opportunity to shake things up on your existing project?
As long as there is room to grow, there is no reason to be restless. You are not an elephant, and you are not in a graveyard. Not yet, at least.
Published by Oleg Dulin
I am a software engineer and technology architect in New York City / New Jersey area. All opinions expressed here are mine and do not represent the opinions of my employers and customers, nor should my opinions be construed as opinions about my employers and customers.
Reprinted/Edited with permission. Read the original post.
