October 22, 2020 by Carol Ng, Trisha Walsh, Manasi Goel and Suraksha Pai

About this event

Yelp’s mission is to connect people with great local businesses, and one of the teams working behind the scenes to make that happen is our five star engineering and product teams.

Playing an active role in our community is a value that we have strongly prioritized over the years. Typically we would invite you to come to Yelp’s HQ to network, grab a slice of ‘za, and learn about the technology and culture behind Yelp. With stay-at-home orders across the globe, Yelp (like many of you) has had no choice but to adapt to these changes. We understand that this is a strange and challenging time for many, so we’d like to invite you to join us as we navigate this new normal for the tech community together.

To stay connected, create space for folks to collaborate and share some of the things Yelp has been working on, we are launching our very own virtual tech talk series. This series of talks will feature Yelpers from engineering and product and will focus on themes such as career development, technical skills, workplace challenges and Yelp’s response to COVID-19.

Talk: How AWEsome is this?

Learn more about Employee Resource Groups with this deep dive into Yelp’s ERG Awesome Women in Engineering, whose mission is to build a strong community for women in engineering, related teams, and their allies at Yelp by facilitating professional career building activities, networking, leadership, and mentorship opportunities.

We will hear an overview of the group’s history, structure and value to engineers from Carol and then move to a panel discussion with three leaders in AWE: Trisha, Su and Manasi. We will discuss what it is like to lead programs in AWE, how COVID-19 and WFH have impacted ERG work, and why this is important to Yelp’s success.

Speakers:

Carol Ng: Carol joined Yelp a year ago as an Android engineer on the Local Services team, which is reinventing the hiring experience for home and local services businesses. Before starting at Yelp, she studied Engineering Physics at the University of British Columbia. Outside of work, she enjoys reading speculative fiction and watching horror movies.

Trisha Walsh: Trisha, Director IT, leads our internal IT support and Technology Sourcing organization ensuring all employees have the software and hardware needed to be their most productive selves. Trisha has been at Yelp for two years. In her spare time, Trisha enjoys walking the Berkeley, CA hills where she lives and serving on the Board of Directors of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights out of Oakland, CA.

Manasi Goel: Manasi is an engineering manager on the Services Leads team. During her journey with Yelp she has moved from intern to backend engineer to engineering manager. She currently works on building leads products for our local services businesses. Manasi is especially passionate about creating a fair and inclusive workplace and is grateful to be at a company like Yelp that prioritizes diversity, inclusion and belonging. One of the ways she helps these efforts at Yelp is by being a program lead in the women's ERG, Awesome Women in Engineering.

Suraksha Pai: Suraksha is an Engineering Manager at Yelp. In the 4 years she has worked in the industry, she has been a feature developer and a frontend infrastructure developer before wearing the hat of a manager. She also leads the Showcases vertical for AWE (Awesome Women in Engineering). The vertical focuses on building a community around showcasing the stories of members of AWE! She enjoys learning about human behavior, physics, and socioeconomics and spends the bulk of her time reading books about them.

Moderator:

Aryana Shandel: Aryana is a Technical Recruiter on our Engineering Recruiting team. In her 3 years with Yelp, she’s been able to explore a variety of responsibilities including industry and university recruitment, sourcing, and coordinating our Engineering and Product internship program. She is enthusiastic about authenticity, both in the office and throughout her recruiting activities. Outside of work she enjoys painting, playing guitar, and cooking.