Datadome

Konstantina Kontoudi is a Lead Data Scientist at DataDome. Her career started in academia, but she finds the tech industry much more exciting and says that even if you’re a team leader, you have to be ready to listen to your colleagues.From school to techI started my career in academia and was completing my PhD when I found myself at a crossroads: do I continue down the long, uncertain path of academia or do I give it all up for the dynamism of the business world? In the end I decided to do the latter and get a ‘real job’, as I like to call it.Unconventionality is an assetMy first opportunity in the tech world was as a consultant and it was all completely new to me. My colleagues at my first company were amazing: they understood my situation and didn’t see it as a disadvantage. In fact, they actually wanted someone who wasn’t pre-formatted with all the usual thinking that a software engineer may have — someone who was open-minded and ready to experiment with new technology and unconventional ways of doing things. We were a perfect fit for each other, and I found it surprisingly exciting.Talk, but also listenDataDome has the best culture of any company I’ve ever seen. The thing that stands out to me most is the kindness. People don’t get upset when a production issue happens, they keep calm and discuss things. Everybody has the right to voice their opinion. I’ve seen other approaches to management and this one is simply nicer. You do have to be ready to really listen to feedback, something that is important when joining. Humility over arrogance will prevail when it comes to our teams.Continuous learningI try to spend 30 minutes each morning reading through newsletters and feeds about machine learning so I can keep up with what’s happening in our world. If I find something that might be interesting for the rest of the team, I share the information in a dedicated Slack channel. Collectively, we also give presentations to each other on machine learning topics every two weeks. It might just be on something that interests us or something random that caught somebody’s eye. So we each take the responsibility to gather this information and put together a presentation for the rest of the team.&nbsp;This way you really get to spend some time learning by deep diving into a specific topic. By telling someone that they have to present something, you’re able to let them know that they have the right to look away from their tick list and take the time to read that paper or some blog so they can explain it to others.Colleagues make the best mentorsI picked up most of my people management skills by talking to my managers, sharing experiences or suggesting books to read and that sort of thing. At DataDome, we believe in passing down knowledge and skills, therefore, when you need help with a specific situation, you can turn to someone who has been there before and tell them really openly “listen, I don’t really know what to do here.” I find the best mentorship comes from your colleagues.Real leadershipJust because you’re the leader, it doesn’t mean that you get to make the decisions. You don’t just give orders to people — you have the responsibility to try to convince them. And sometimes you have to acknowledge that other people might have better ideas than you in a certain situation. People think that to be the leader they have to be the best. Sure, you have to be good technically, but you also need to be able to pause and ask yourself: could I do this better? That’s so important.

"Being a leader does not mean taking all the shots.”

Konstantina Kontoudi