Navigating the Many Paths to VP of Engineering


Summary
In this session, Rajashree (VPE @ Twilio) and Chris Lyon (VP of Engineering @ Twilio) discuss the career path to VP of Engineering! They deconstruct different stages of their career and compare the inflection points, cultural influences and lessons that contributed to and accelerated their career growth.
Speakers
Rajashree is the VP of Engineering for Twilio Flex - the world's most flexible customer engagement platform, that powers customer facing sales and service teams with the context, data, and channel flexibility they need to turn ordinary conversations into opportunities to drive repeat sales. Previously, Rajashree led product development at Quizlet - the popular student application that helps over 60 million learners worldwide every month study, practice and become an expert in whatever they are learning. Prior to Quizlet, Rajashree led engineering for Intuit’s 3rd party Developer Platform and app store – enabling a thriving ecosystem of thousands of small business applications that connect to Intuit’s QuickBooks Platform. Prior to Intuit, she held several engineering leadership roles at PayPal building innovative global payment products for consumers and merchants. Rajashree started her career at Intel as a design engineer and subsequently worked on industry changing software solutions for semiconductor chip design at Synopsys. Rajashree is passionate about building purpose-driven teams that exhibit engineering excellence, customer-first thinking and an inclusive culture. She is a strong advocate for women and under-represented minorities in technology; and takes a personal interest in coaching and mentoring talent at all levels to balance the playing field and help them grow in their careers. Rajashree received a B. Tech in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from University of Maryland, Baltimore.
Chris is VP of Engineering at Twilio, leading the Segment Engineering Team spearheading tech initiatives to drive business growth. And was SVP of Engineering at ForgeRock and Mulesoft.