July 21, 2020 by Yenny Cheung

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.

Speaker:

Yenny Cheung, Hamburg

Bio: Originally from Hong Kong, Yenny is an engineering manager at Yelp. She leads the Women in Engineering Group at Yelp in Germany and she facilitates ally workshops regularly. Yenny is a keynote speaker on engineering culture and public speaking. She recently spoke at EuroPython, the Grace Hopper Conference, and the European Women in Tech Conference.

Talk: Why you should pursue public speaking and how to get there

Starting a tech career as a minority is challenging. It could mean being the only one to speak against the popular opinion, or becoming more visible to get the same level of recognition.

Public speaking helps you achieve that and more. This talk shares tips on how to overcome the fear and ways to get started. Attendees will be prepared to brace for presenting from a team meeting to a conference.

Moderator:

Ellen Heirbaut, San Francisco

Bio: Hi, I'm Ellen. I was born and raised in Belgium and moved to the Bay Area over 8 years ago. After my first experiences in tech and being a stay at home mom for two years, I was lucky to join Yelp almost 5 years ago. I started at Yelp as a Technical Recruiter primarily working on Engineering roles and since then grew into a manager. My team hires the talented people that build Yelp. I also lead our Yelp Parents group in SF and am a co-lead for our Awesome Women in Engineering's Public Speaking program.