You Had Me At Hello World

Would you like the chance to have a mentoring session with a VP, Director or other influential leader from Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Rent The Runway, Zynga, Textio and many others? ? I did! So I scheduled time with these awesome people: ) Guess what? They did not tell me to write cleaner code or design more elegant architecture! Instead they shared with me their "career acumen" secrets, things they wished they had learned at school, but instead have had to learn the hard way. In this book, you will hear these leaders' secrets around: - Finding and using your superpowers, the qualities that make you completely unique and memorable - A script for how to negotiate your salary (in a non-aggressive way) and influence your managers and peers from day one - How to do that infamous "networking" thing everyone talks about, especially if you're not a networking event kind of person - How to have professional presence that sets you apart from everyone else - How to hit the ground running in the first 100 days and be the "rockstar" employee everyone talks about and wishes they could hire more of I've had all kinds of adventures during my 10 years of engineering at Microsoft but my absolute favorite thing has been building relationships, speaking to, and mentoring people (both in and out of the tech industry) on how to achieve their career goals "while still being themselves." When I interviewed 25 tech leaders for advice on the questions I get over and over, I wanted to share it with more than just my mentees. This book is full of practical, do-today things as well as "scripts" and email templates that we have all actually used. Read the book and let's talk. I love reaching and meeting new people and you can now consider me "in your network" and I hope I can do the same for you. My best always, "Dona"