Datadog

Margot Lepizzera is Product Manager at Datadog. After transitioning from business into engineering and tech, she discovered a fascination with product management.&nbsp;Good entry pointI come from a business school background. During my school years, I pursued three different internships that were all in tech startups. I genuinely loved it and it became very clear to me that I wanted to work in the tech industry, so I started looking for opportunities to finish my education at an engineering school. Luckily, there was a partnership between my business school and a French engineering school.&nbsp;Datadog was the first company I joined as a full time employee. I was part of the Solutions Engineering team which is in charge of helping users get the most out of the Datadog platform by educating them on the product. The work back then was mostly about sharing product expertise through demos and presentations as well as support tickets and live chats.&nbsp;I could not have dreamed of a better entry point than the Solutions Engineering team. If you have a minor technical background, like I did, this kind of position teaches you all about the different layers of IT systems — infrastructure, applications (backend and frontend), network, etc. It’s a great experience in terms of technical knowledge and gives you an amazing toolbox for the future.Career progressionAfter a few months as a Solutions Engineer, a new product called Synthetics got launched. The management needed somebody to do the interface between the support team and the product and engineering teams, so I helped with that. I made sure we were able to onboard customers to the beta version of the product, and that the support team had enough knowledge to answer any questions about that new product.&nbsp;Finally, early 2020, I moved to the product management team for this Synthetics product. Currently, I’m working on an alerting product which allows users to be notified in case there is an issue with their systems (servers, applications, etc.).Diversity fosters connectionOur team, especially in the US, is full of people with very different backgrounds who have studied subjects such as geography, philosophy, or art. It’s such a nice work environment: because the team is so diverse, everyone has different levels of skills, but nobody is judgmental, and everyone is willing to learn.&nbsp;Being part of such a diverse team makes me feel more comfortable in an industry that is still overwhelmingly composed of white men with similar engineering backgrounds. I also do feel pretty lucky because Datadog people are overly friendly which makes it even simpler to feel included. But still, having other women around me helps me relate to my colleagues and discover common interests, which also helps create connections at the personal level.&nbsp;Becoming conscious of biasProfessionally speaking, having people from diverse backgrounds and with different opinions can be a plus in terms of creativity. It fosters ideas you might not even have considered. People approach problems differently depending on their background and who they are. Diverse teams also help raise awareness of bias. It makes you become a bit more self-conscious, in a good way, about certain topics and makes you think twice before arriving at a specific conclusion.&nbsp;Datadog offers mentorship programs for minorities and regularly throws events to raise awareness, during Black History Month for instance. They also often encourage us to donate by matching our donations to various charities and social causes. For International Women's Day last year, Datadog also offered all women individual coaching sessions on various topics, such as work-life balance and other career advancement tips.

“Diverse teams help me identify my bias and be more self-aware”

Margot Lepizzera