6 years of Growth in 6 months: Life at a Startup
Summary
There are so many different ways to grow in our industry, and one of the best potential shortcuts to turbocharge your growth is to join a hyper growth startup. You will be given responsibility beyond your title, you will wear many hats—you will experience a ton in a shorter, intense period of time.
We’ll discuss ways to succeed at these startups: how to have a growth mindset, to keep an open-mind and optimize for learning above everything else. During your time at one of these companies, it's imperative to try and absorb the enthusiasm and knowledge that you will be able to glean from everyone around you, and to in-turn learn to foster and share your energy with others.
We’ll also touch base on learnings beyond engineering: you will be in a position to influence cross functional partners—there are few other roles where you as a senior leader will have such a critical part to play in the running of the company.
Speakers
Xiao is currently SVP of Engineering at Bolt—democratizing one-click checkout for independent retailers and building a decentralized shopper network. Before coming to Bolt, she helped Instacart’s products and systems scale due to the massively increased demand during the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to that, she was at Uber and LinkedIn where she focused on building consumer products on a large scale. She graduated from Fudan University in Shanghai, followed by a postgrad at Harvard University.
Xiao is deeply passionate about making technology useful for people’s daily lives. She is a strong advocate for women in tech and has served as an executive sponsor at Bolt’s Women ERG, and co-chairs Uber’s LadyEng and Instacart’s Women@ ERG with a goal of improving the diversity and inclusivity of engineering organizations.
