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>> I'm Lisa Martin with theCUBE on the ground at Google
for the sixth annual CloudNOW Top Women in Cloud Award Event
and we're very excited to be joined by one of the
award winners, Neha Jain, Engineering Manager at LinkedIn.
Welcome to theCUBE.
>> Hi, thank you, Lisa.
>> And, second of all, congratulations on the award.
We'll talk about that in a second, but one of the things
that I found very inspiring when I was doing some research
about you is how you describe yourself on LinkedIn.
A lot of us use LinkedIn, of course.
I love that you said that you love to work on technology
that empowers users and uplifts the society.
What a beautiful statement. >> Thank you so much.
>> Tell me a little bit more about what you mean about that.
>> Growing up, I always wanted to be in a space
where I was doing something for the community.
A little bit about myself is
I'm an only child and my father
passed away when I was barely a year old.
So my mom, who's also disabled, raised me literally
single-handedly and we had a lot of help on the way.
So the thing that always kept me going and inspired
is if I could do it, then anyone can.
And I have to make that happen,
and that is an obligation
or a responsibility that I have toward the world.
That's basically what I did.
Initially I wanted to become a doctor and help the patients
get the best of their health but I couldn't deal with blood.
>> That's kind of a key.
That was a good decision.
>> I was really interested in math as a child,
so I was like, "Yeah, let's try this engineering thing.
"It also sounds pretty fun."
And then that's how I started in the engineering field.
Initially I joined a company directly from college,
but the work didn't inspire me as much.
And then I found out about SlideShare.
It was a company in the user-generated space,
user-generated content space, and they had a female CEO
and I was like, "Oh my God, this is just perfect,
"and I have to get there."
So I joined SlideShare, and six months later
it got acquired by LinkedIn.
Interesting turn of events.
And then now at LinkedIn, we are in the process
of creating economic opportunity
for every member of the global workforce.
And that's a mission I can live for.
That's something that inspires me every single day
and gets me up in the morning, gets me to work,
where we are trying to get the right talent matched
with the right job, get the companies the right hire.
That's very inspiring work to do.
>> As an, and I would say, inspiring female in technology,
what are some of the things that once you finished
your education, you said your first job,
you realized, "This isn't quite what I want."
But you have the drive, it sounds like
probably innately for you that, "I want something else."
You kind of knew what you were looking for.
Or maybe you knew, "I know when I get there."
>> Yeah, you could say that.
It's something that, ah,
what I was doing was interesting work,
but in terms of impact, it wasn't very clear.
So I'm sort of a person who's driven more by results,
by metrics or something like that.
There should be something tangible that's
coming out of it, that I can measure.
>> Right, yes, validating, right?
>> So then I was like,
at that time, internet was taking off,
and it was all very -- People were all over
the place and there were so many things getting shared.
And then Facebook came around and then there was
Arab Spring and so many other things that were happening.
People were taking ownership of
their own lives and their own values.
I thought that something in the internet space would be
an interesting place to be where you could
make the change and empower people, empower your users.
And I wasn't willing to move out of India at that point,
so it was like, "Let's just join SlideShare."
I'd been using SlideShare when I was in college
doing researches and working for Google Summer of Code.
So then I saw that they had a banner that they were hiring,
and I'm like, "Okay, yeah, let's just interview for them."
>> And here you are.
Within the last couple of minutes here,
I want to talk about the Top Women in Cloud Award
that you're being honored with tonight.
And also something that I thought was really, really honest
that you wrote on LinkedIn was your experience
with imposter syndrome, which I've had for many years
and didn't even know what it was until I read about it.
And I think that's so, it's such a strong message,
knowing that you've had that, but also seeing how
accomplished you are, what does this
CloudNOW Top Women in Cloud Award mean to you?
>> That's a very good question.
That's something that I'd been asking myself as well
when I first got nominated for it.
So my friend, who is the co-founder of Haliburton School,
Silmar, he nominated me for the award.
I got the email and I was very excited that
okay, this is really interesting.
How could I become this person?
And then I read the application form.
There were five questions and I'm like,
"I'm not good enough.
"I'll not be selected.
"I'll just spend a lot of time filling out
"this application form, and it will all be futile."
So I thought, "Let's just not do it."
But then Silmar, he just didn't nominate me for the award,
he pushed me to apply, to fill out the application.
>> Because he knew how accomplished you were.
>> And I am so grateful to him for that.
He started a Google Doc where he copied all the questions,
and he started listing all the things that I'd done.
>> That's fantastic, Neha.
>> He is the kind of mentor or the kind of friend,
the kind of force that I guess if
all the females and all the people had,
the world would be a different place.
So that's the kind of inspiration, the kind of support
that you want from people. >> Absolutely.
>> Then I was talking to my husband and my husband was like,
he's a very logical person, he wouldn't give you
direct prescriptions that, "Okay, no, you should do it,
"you should do that," or this or that.
He would ask you questions and then make you decide
what you want to do, but in those questions
will steer you in the direction.
>> Right. >> Which is very clever of him.
Very few people have the kind of smartness to do that
where you don't even realize
that you are being pushed into some of the things.
>> It sounds like he helps you think through,
and you realize, "I have accomplished a lot.
"I am deserving of this award."
And here you are, being honored tonight.
>> Yeah, so it's like, maybe that's not what I thought.
What I thought is that there are things,
and I should probably apply for it
and not wait, not give up because of the result.
So that's something that I've also learned in my life.
My mom always tells me,
"Don't bind yourself to the result.
"Just give your best shot.
"That's all which is in your control,
"so just do that."
And that's basically also what my husband
also ended up pointing out to me.
So then I was like, "Okay, fine, I'll apply."
And it was basically like just three days
before the application deadline.
So I filled out the application form,
sent it out to the LinkedIn's comps team for review,
my manager reviewed the entire work-related stuff,
and I'm so grateful that they were able
to do the review process in time
so that I could apply right before the deadline.
I don't know what the CloudNOW award will mean for me,
and I hope that we are able to drive real change
in the tech field and bring more women
and more diversity and inclusion and belonging
in the community.
So today, Vint Cerf was the keynote speaker.
And he was saying that when he joined the tech industry
there were 50 percent women,
and there were women who were programming.
And if you've seen the movie Hidden Figures,
>> Oh, yes. >> There were women who
figured out how to program.
>> A very long time ago. >> Yeah, a long time ago.
And we've had people like Grace Hopper
and all these other women leaders.
And now just 20 years later, you would think
the situation would get better,
but it has actually gotten worse.
>> Right. >> So why is it?
The thing that falls on us as a responsibility
is to figure out why would we change direction
for the worse.
And, people have gotten smarter,
not lesser intelligent, right?
So why would women not opt into computer science
and give up?
There is something that we aren't doing right.
And I think a lot of companies
have started asking the right question.
Like in LinkedIn, we have the diversity, inclusion
and belonging initiative.
And we try to make these differences in real time.
When I joined LinkedIn, when I moved
to the United States, I couldn't recognize people
because of the variety of facial structures.
And I had a lot of difficulty.
I had always grown up seeing Indian faces.
And I could easy tell that you were Calcutta
or you're from Bangalore.
And I could tell it from their faces.
But that wasn't something here.
And I would always confuse people,
and that bothered me a lot.
But at LinkedIn, all the things that we had,
all the initiatives that we had,
the culture and the values,
they help me feel belonged.
And not a single day has passed
where I don't feel that I am not
the right person for this job.
>> You're making a contribution.
>> Yeah.
>> Well, congratulations Neha on the award.
>> Thank you. >> Thank you so much
for stopping by, and I think you're quite inspirational.
>> Thank you so much.
>> And we want to thank you for watching.
I'm Lisa Martin on the ground with theCUBE at Google.
Thanks for watching.