My Career Path

My name is Princiya Sequeira and I am an Engineering Manager at Anaconda in Germany. I am from India and I relocated to Germany 7 years ago. I have a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science engineering, a dozen years of experience building full-stack web and mobile apps, and leading technical teams.

During my initial years as a Software Engineer, I worked at a startup, so I had the opportunity to do full-stack, understand BE systems, dev ops, databases, UI design, etc. If I can recollect, it's this learning environment that I had that led me to learn and grow in my career. Sometimes I had to do photoshop, sometimes Java, or sometimes think about why our system was down and running slowly. I was also taking basic lessons on machine learning.

One important lesson I learned was that code should not be written for the sake of writing, but we need to understand what we expect to achieve and what we want the machines to respond to. I was working at a startup, and a lot of people including my parents were asking me to leave this company and join a bigger firm. But I stuck to it mainly because I realized how much I had to learn. As they say,

No risk, no story!

This is the career path I wanted, I chose it for myself and I have worked hard for this. Most important: I am very happy today and I continue to love what I do.

I also spend my time with the women who code community as a leadership fellow in the front.

Being a woman leader in tech has helped me to bring in more women, and under-represented folks into the tech world.

My philosophy about being a great leader is about being a good human being first. I like being authentic about myself. It is about who I am and being able to bring myself wholly into the job. I encourage others to do the same. Creating this kind of environment where everyone can be authentic about themselves is what I strive for. Empathy is the next important trait I care about.

I often advise people to chase their dreams. Create a learning curve for yourself, and get it verified by your peers or mentors. Find yourself a mentor.

Do not be afraid to ask questions and make sure whatever you choose for yourself, you are happy!

Thank you!