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Interface is a podcast where we connect technology and culture through conversation. Interface is brought to you by EMPOWER at PROS. EMPOWER is dedicated to attracting, developing and retaining Black talent at PROS. PROS helps people and companies outperform by enabling smarter selling in the digital economy.
Jenni: [00:00:00] Welcome to Interface, a podcast where we connect technology and culture through Conversation Interface is brought to you by Empower. At Pros, [00:01:00] empower is dedicated to attracting, developing, and retaining black talent. At Pros, pros helps people and companies outperform by enabling smarter selling in the digital economy. I'm your host, Jennifer Plummer, and I'm joined by Sierra Barnes today. Um, Hello. Hello. Uh, before I introduce our guest, I am really excited to announce that interface. I think when we recorded last, we were just kind of shy of 1000 downloads. We have hit that milestone, so yay for us. Um, we're quite proud of that.
Thank you. Everyone who's listened, download, downloaded an episode, all the crew. Um, Matthew's not here. Shana's not here. Uh, we got new team members as well. Um, and you know, others that have helped us in the past, everyone that's kind of part of the process. Um, we really appreciate all of you and helping us get to this point.
Siara: Side note to Maddie. Insert cheers here.[00:02:00]
Jenni: Today our guest is Kim Martin, director of Engineering at Indeed. Kim has been a professional computer scientist for over 20 years specializing in data engineering, machine learning, distributed systems, optimization scale, and tech leadership. She speaks in the communi community about responsibility in AI technologies with respect to underrepresented groups. She's been a speaker at Lesbian Zoo Tech, southbound by Southwest Women in Tech, Texas, and other places as well. So we're really excited to have you here today, Kim, on Interface Podcast. Thank you for joining us today.
Kim Martin: I am so happy to be here today. Um, just my normal kind of intro is that I am a black woman in my forties. I have on an indigo shirt that says Dev Color, which is an, uh, a software engineering, uh, organization [00:03:00] for black, uh, people that was started in the Bay. My hair is black, curly and comes down to about the chin, and I have a gray streak.
Um, I'm also wearing purple frame glasses and a, uh, gold necklace with the New York City subway token from the eighties on it.
Jenni: Nice. Nice.
Siara: Love it.
Jenni: yeah. Yeah. We're, we're in the same demographic, Kim. Um, you can't, the resolution isn't so good, but I, I have some gray going through here
Siara: Funny story about gray hairs. Last night I was in a group chat with my family, um, and we got, I don't know how we got there, but we started talking about gray hairs and they were just in an uproar about
Kim Martin: I get, I get the whole like, oh, did you add that gray? Because it's like perfectly streaked down the middle. I'm like, no, God works in mysterious ways, but you know that was not by choice.
Jenni: I, I got a, I got a gray streak in [00:04:00] the back, which I didn't know existed. And so I was getting my hair done one day and the hairdresser was like, so cool the way you have that gray streak in the back of your head. And I was like, what?
Siara: What gray
streak.
Kim Martin: yeah. What you talking about Willis? Exactly. Yeah.
Jenni: So you, you kind of started introducing yourself. We'd really like to start with your origin story. How did you get into technology?
Kim Martin: Yeah, this is, um, one that, that, you know, I always end up saying long story, long. So I'm actually gonna try and do a long story short here. But, um, I grew up in New York City and, uh, in New York City it is very easy to understand like career paths, like, um, academia, because there are some of the best universities in New York City.
There's, uh, doctors and, and lawyers everywhere in New York. There are, uh, people who work in fashion, [00:05:00] people who work in finance. So those were like the things that I understood leaving New York City as a high schooler, um, and having like proficiency in pretty. Pretty like strong, uh, leanings toward mathematics.
So I went to college to study math, but some of the requirements were computer science, um, because of like the, the science school and the engineering schools being so, uh, close together. And so I, my freshman year I took like intro to CS and my, at the midterm, my professor pulled me to the side and she was a small Asian woman named Lilly Howe.
And she pulled me to the side and asked me to switch my major. She said, you are made for this, like you need to switch your major. And I told her, I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm gonna be a math professor. Like, why are you trying to like, trick me into [00:06:00] some stuff that you know, I don't even know what you're doing.
And this was like 1996. And so, Prego, to be honest. Um, this is like the AskJeeves, you know, nobody has a personal computer, like the Gateway cow boxes are on every campus. You know that, that's this scene that I'm setting for you,
but
Siara: ass man.
Jenni: And, and, and the cow boxes. You just took me
back right. there.
Kim Martin: So like, you had to go to a lab to get your work done, you know, and hope for a computer.
Maybe you had to sign up for your name on a list for a certain amount of time or something. But, um, but I was, I was in undergrad at Carnegie Mellon and it's, it was the most connected university at the time. So we did have the internet and there were lots of people who were exploring really novel ways of communication.
So [00:07:00] like we were the highest, um, Like Napster and Limewire Downloaders to the point where the FBI came and cracked down on us and whatnot. Um, all of this happened while I was there. And Monica Lewinsky's brother went there during the whole, like, Clinton, uh, so he was in my year, not, he was in the business school, but you know, she was at our graduation.
Um, so it was just an interesting time to be like in college, kind of emerging, you know, dot com era. AI was just starting to be, um, college, like normal college course work in, um, in undergrad. Um, people were getting into different types of interfaces, so 3D modeling was a, a major breakthrough in that time.
And so I just, I ended up keeping my math major, but did lots of computer science courses almost enough to do a minor if I would've stayed [00:08:00] another semester or something like that. Um, It was hard for me to find a job like getting interviews, not as a computer science major at the time, and wanting to go into software.
Um, fortunately, HBO came to campus and they were starting this urban website called volume.com, which was like streaming radio when there was no streaming radio. It was like curated music, um, entertainment portal. And I interviewed with the VP and he hired me on the spot. And that kind of started my career in tech as a web developer doing, um, like Pearl C g I, um, a little bit of like Java, like just starting Java, j s P.
Um, and I. Went to, to New York, or I went back [00:09:00] home to New York to work at H B O down in the West Village. Um, at the same time, I was a full-time grad student at N Y U, uh, in like doing kind of multi-user interface and physical computing. Started to get interested in robotics and AI or like scaling, uh, interfaces.
So went to grad school again at UMass, um, in Amherst and just really studied robotics and um, and different machine learning techniques. But then I came out, came back to New York. Um, and there there weren't really jobs in this space. It was like everybody was still kind of doing these low data, um, websites.
They were, you know, tooling was still at such an early, uh, Stage that you really did have to be like someone who could solve complex problems to really be an impactful computer scientist. Um, and [00:10:00] over probably 10, 15 years, like big data emerged, um, tooling got better. Like libraries that we used to write by hand for, you know, MATLAB or R or whatever, were now just common libraries.
I mean, I remember being in college writing like link list libraries and like nobody used them anymore. It's just like the evolution of science in the first 15 years or so of me being a computer scientist, um, really became this, uh, way in which more pe it was more accessible to more people. And I, I think.
Because I'd been in, been in it from the beginning. I developed like leadership skills and try and ways to really understand how to problem solve. And I cared about businesses and the value that computing was bringing to businesses. And so I really understood both the business side and the technical [00:11:00] side.
And then, you know, eventually, um, just moved primarily into tech leadership. Um, so now I kind of consider myself an architect, um, a data architect, a systems architect, and a tech leader, um, as well as in evangelists for like diversity and, and, uh, fairness in, in ai,
Jenni: Awesome. Quick question, which language was your intro to CS class using? Um,
Kim Martin: c plus plus, C plus plus. Yep. But like c plus plus. I mean, when I returned to c plus plus at Google, it was like c plus plus 11 or 12 or something like that. And I was like, I think I was on like 2.0 or something, so everything was different. I was like, I don't even know what this means. I actually have [00:12:00] a 40 page program that I printed out in c plus plus here on my bookcase, so I might, you know, flash it, even though I know y'all can't see.
Um, yeah, this is like from the nineties. Lot of code here, you
Jenni: Lovely, lovely, lovely, Another indicator to show which, which generation you're in is kind of like what language was your first language that you
Kim Martin: Yep. Yep. Also like how many lines of code was like the simplest program? It was always over like 500 lines because nothing was simple.
Jenni: Okay, so
now you're director of Engineering at Indeed. Can you walk us through, um, what a director is? What's your day in the life like? What are you responsible for?
Kim Martin: Yeah. Um, I will say that there's this interesting thing in tech that [00:13:00] exists that doesn't exist in lots of other industries where, um, uh, like tech has an emotional element to how people interact with each other. Like there's, you know, some people who are more jaded talk about like, kid gloves and you have to treat everyone with kid gloves and manage their emotions and things like that.
But when I think about it, you know, computer scientists are creatives and everybody wants to be expressive. We have code style, we have like code review, which sometimes results in hurt feelings and, um, There are people who wanna assert their sort of dominance in the field, who are very opinionated and sometimes like offend others.
Um, so I would say that 30% of my job is like managing the emotions of full organizations and making sure that people are rowing in the same direction, whatever that direction be. Um, but the majority of my job is [00:14:00] understanding the business deep, deeply enough so that my team is always making the right decisions to improve the business.
And sometimes that means like, you know, uh, tech choices, like really advocating for tech choices and coordinated with other organizations on when to coordinate efforts. Um, Sometimes it means like spinning up new initiatives and, and sort of writing memos to show the need for something. Um, one thing that's, that has happened recently at Indeed is we went through layoffs.
We went through a reorg and our C T O left the company. So all of these things happened within about a two month period. And after being at companies that didn't have a cto, I actually deeply understand why larger organization groups need someone at the, at the helm. And so I'm like [00:15:00] in the middle of writing in a memo that I might finish this weekend, but might not, um, that, uh, talks about why indeed needs a CT O and it's like, you know, most of the senior leadership is not engineer, um, they're not engineers.
And so there are there different types of decisions that you make as an engineering leader? That really start to, um, have gravity when you reach that executive, like director level, um, where people kind of assume that you have enough experience to know what you're talking about. Sometimes people don't, and you know, other, other directors or or hire make them look bad.
But I mean, not on purpose, it's just like aligned. We're aligned to the business and we don't wanna do the wrong thing. So we try to stop other people from doing the wrong thing too. But, um, but yeah, it's, it's just a role that is responsible for a risk [00:16:00] mitigation and, um, driving the business forward. And ruthless prioritization, I would say.
Jenni: So, which, um, in your, in your long, uh, work history, what, what kind of things prepared you to be in that role?
Kim Martin: Yeah, I think it's, um, You know, if you can be a good decision maker, um, you know, you're, you're halfway there, right? The, you will always see three opportunities and you will always have to reason about all three of those to determine quickly which one is worth pursuing across different dimensions. And I think that being a decision maker, I tell people that the reason I'm a decision maker is because I grew up in New York and it's cold in New York in the winter.
And so my friends and I, we would say like, you know, I'm gonna meet you on the third train at this train station, like at this time. And I'm not [00:17:00] waiting, I'm not waiting outside like we're going to this place. And we were very decisive at a very early age. There was no like, somebody's gonna drop us off. It was like, either you're walking in the right direction.
And you're cold for a little bit, or you're walking in the wrong direction and you're cold for a long bit. And so I think that that like instilled in me the ability to, to like quickly evaluate opportunities and become a decision maker. Um, and that I think is like one of those things that like, as you learn that skill and you hone that skill and then you enhance that skill with just more experience and like understanding, like being able to synthesize about your experiences, that's where you like become really good in those roles.
Jenni: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I, I also like that you acknowledge that even though we're dealing with ones and zeros, there's definitely an emotional co component into which I think people are [00:18:00] surprised about at times. It's kind of like, um, There's a lot of heart that goes into, you know, one design or the other, and people have, you know, and sometimes it, yeah, it's an emotional decision or, um, managing emotions for that.
Um, what, what, um, I'm trying to see what
question I can segue into from that. Just, um,
Siara: I'm the
resident, non non-techie Kim. So
Jenny is the one that drives the bus here.
Jenni: Um, what, what is, um, kind of one of the more emotional rollercoaster projects that you've been on in your career?
Kim Martin: Yeah. Oh God, there's so many. I think like when you're invested, everything is emotional. Um, especially when you're working at startups and like [00:19:00] the best thing for the company to do is to, um, know, pivot onto something else after you've spent a year and a half trying to build this thing, right? And so I do find a lot of people, um, like doing things like giving up on a startup idea that they really believe in a mission, um, and feeling as if, you know, their work has no purpose.
And, and so for me, I. I think, uh, there are stages to your career, right? In the beginning you're like trying to learn as much as possible. You're probably not contributing a ton to the business, and you're just taking, you're taking, and that's, that can be emotional if you are, um, working on things that don't get launched, which was like my experience at H B O, it would take three quarters to of, of like deep changes and iteration [00:20:00] before something would get launched.
And that's demoralizing. It's, it's feeling like you're just doing busy work and nobody's ever gonna see it. Um, then there's like the stage where you're mentoring others and like seeing success through others, and that's emotional because you wanna be right. And sometimes you're not. And so like, there's like this emotional element of like, how do I, you know, Know that I'm senior enough to be like spreading my value, but know that there's so many things that I don't know yet that, you know, I'm not fully an expert on all things and I have to like, be okay with that even though I'm in this position of influence.
Um, so that can be emotional and you see that a lot in like senior level swes or like, um, mid or early level, um, managers. And then there's like the executive level [00:21:00] where, um, Some of the emotion is about like the things that you really believe in and the technical decisions that like, make those things come to fruition.
Getting deprioritized over and over and over for like months, quarters, and years. Um, and that's the emotional part where it's like, you know, you've aligned yourself now to a purpose driven business or like you're in the industry you wanna be in, or you're doing exactly what you wanna be doing, but there's so much red tape, there's brand protection, there's like risk mitigation, there's like organizational headcount issues.
There are all these things that stop you from doing what you know is the right thing. And that's extremely emotional because then you go home and your family is there and you're like, well, if I can't do it at work, I'm gonna do it at home. I'm gonna have like influence at home. So, you know, I have two little daughters, two under two, and.
I want them to be creative and, [00:22:00] and geniuses in their own right. And I'm trying not to influence, like their decision making process. Um, maybe about potty trading. I'm, I'm being decisive about that. But, but apart from that, like I do have more control at home in the people that I've made than the people that I work with who I spend much more time with.
And it's like, how do you reconcile those types of emotions of like, you know, being in a position of leadership and having very little control and like, you know, going home and being with your family. It's like almost like you have split personality every day. And so that there's like a lot of emotion throughout your journey, your career journey.
Siara: That's a really important lesson to, to learn through your career. No matter what sort of industry that you're in, in different levels, there's going to be, um, you're gonna be passionate about things and you [00:23:00] wanna stand firm on your ground and say, I know this is right. I really wanna push this forward.
Like, why is nobody listening to me? And then you feel defeated and deflated and your, uh, morality kind of goes down. And then you, you know, have all this
resentment, you know, what am I doing here? Am I supposed to be here? Do I need to be somewhere else? And sometimes it's just, You know, the, it is just the trick of the trade.
You, you just kind of have to stick with it. Um,
continue fighting for what you believe in, and then also understanding that sometimes no matter how much you believe in something, it's just not going to happen. Um, so that's a,
Kim Martin: And then tie that to your comp, which might be equity driven, where you have a stake in like making that, you know that equity go
Jenni: That is a good point. Yeah,
Kim Martin: know?
Siara: Absolutely.
Jenni: good point. Um, [00:24:00] like with kids, sometimes you gotta pick your battles, I guess it's kind of like,
Kim Martin: Yeah.
Jenni: and have a nice balance.
Siara: I know
I can identify for sure.
Jenni: uh, so I, I, I see you post a lot about positions that are open in your department, um, you know, for, you know, could you kind of explain, um, from your perspective, what kind of skills are you wanting people who are, you know, fresh coming in, early their career to have as you, um, get more and more senior, you know, what kind of skills are you looking for, um, individuals to have?
Kim Martin: Yeah, I like, I love hiring, I love meeting people and understanding where they are on their journey and aligning them to the right jobs, right opportunities. Um, and I tell people I'm always hiring cuz even if it's not for the company I'm at now, like all of my friends are hiring too. So [00:25:00] like we will find a job for a really good candidate.
Um, Uh, I would say that for the people who are, who are like fresh out of bootcamp, out of, um, college, sorry, uh, outta, I don't know if y'all heard that, but, uh, fresh outta bootcamp, fresh outta college, um, you know, fresh off of like, you know, code Academy or whatever it is that whatever taught them to be a technologist.
Um, I'm always looking for people who have shown that they understand that the world is not perfect and that they can work around that imperfection. So an example being I hired some data scientists like 10 years ago, um, from a very prestigious university. They were graduating with master's degrees in like statistics and, um, [00:26:00] Computer science, but in their experience, they had only ever worked with perfect data sets.
And so when I hired these folks, they had like really good, um, intuition about how to treat data, how to respect data, how to, um, work with data. However, they really struggled when we got to the point of imperfect or missing data. And I had to like take them aside and be like, most of the world has imperfect and missing data.
So you really have to come at this from a, a perspective that's different than, I can't work with this, or like, this won't make sense. This won't work. And come from a po a position of solutions. And even if you, even if you acknowledge that you may not have this solution as like someone new in industry, um, [00:27:00] The part where you give up.
That's the part where I'd like to see you have overcome some like technical advers, uh, technical over, uh,
Siara: Adversity.
Kim Martin: Um, right. I'm like, what word am I looking for here? Geez,
Siara: I couldn't get fast enough.
Kim Martin: Right. So you, you've overcome this adversity and or this hurdle and you've like come out on the other end of it. You didn't just give up when you saw it. And a lot of people do give up. They think it's too hard. They think it's not fair that they should try to solve this type of problem, but the business still needs to move forward.
So like, I'm looking for people who have that attitude, um, and then just are hungry. They're like, they wanna learn more, they wanna do more, they wanna take on more. They wanna wear six hats instead of one. Like, those people are the early career people that I'm looking for. Um, mid-career people. I'm looking for people who are compassionate, [00:28:00] people who have.
Recognized when they've done something wrong after the fact and either worked to mitigate that or they've acknowledged it and admitted to it and they, they have enough like experience to know that the next time they wouldn't do the same thing or, or at least how to identify that they're getting in that same trouble spot.
Um, and they can work with others. Like you have to by some mid-career. You have to be able to work with others because nobody's going to create the next billion dollar idea in a bubble by themselves. It's just not gonna happen. It ain't, um, senior, more senior people. I'm looking for people with opinions and.
Um, perspective. So they have opinions about like, what they think is the right thing to do in multiple, um, domains. Like when it comes to infrastructure, these are like general principles I align myself to when it comes to, um, like [00:29:00] code health and quality. These are principles I align myself to when it comes to team health and managing people.
These are principles I align myself to, but they also, they're also, they have perspective, like not every company is the same. Not every company has the same practices. So I have seen people who are, were successful at like large companies, Google, Amazon, whatever, and then they come to a different company that has a different culture and they don't even understand how to translate their experience.
And I'm like, but you've been in industry for 20 years. Like, you haven't figured out like what to throw away and what to keep. Like, you know, not to quote Tupac, but you know, Every company is like Brenda's baby. Okay. So they really need to like, be, have perspective and and opinion, but know when the scale when to, to, to pull or push on either of [00:30:00] those.
Jenni: No, that's very, that's very helpful. Um, as a black woman, um, um, how is your, you know, how does that affect the role that you're in and how has that affected your career?
Kim Martin: Yeah. It's so interesting. I, um, I had a conversation with some other directors last week, I think, where we were reflecting on the recent promotion cycle that we just did at Indeed and, um, Uh, there were, there were these questions that people kept bringing up about like time and level. There were a lot of people who were going up for promo, but they had only been in their current level for about a year or a year and two months, a year and four months, something like that.
Some thing that I consider to be a short amount of time to switch from like a junior level to a senior level when it comes to like exhibiting, uh, behaviors consistently. And so we had this [00:31:00] discussion and there were people in the room, mostly white men, who were talking about like, yeah, I agree that, you know, timing level matters because you solidify like your things, you know, these learnings, these like tendencies.
Um, But two of them said that they had, um, like people took a chance on me early in my career and I was able to quickly excel to these higher, uh, roles like pretty quickly within my first two years, within my first five years to be this senior, senior, um, technical person in, in these companies. And I had to remind them that not everybody gets the benefit of the doubt.
Not everybody gets treated that way. There's all this similarity bias of all those people who are empowered to like move you into those, uh, opportunities that does not exist for people like me. And so there's so much of, and I, they absolutely acknowledge that like race probably [00:32:00] played a factor in their ascent to a certain role or the speed of their ascent to a certain role over other people that they were aware of.
And so sometimes including me. Um, and so I think that like, Race, um, in hiring is a huge problem when it comes to tech. Um, when it comes to like mobility within a company, it's a huge problem. Um, sponsorship, as much as we like, talk about everybody needs sponsors and mentors and all that stuff, it's still a huge problem.
Cause a lot of times it's not authentic. Um, it's performative. Um, and there's just a lot of like people who've been in the industry for a long time because they were able to get in, in a, at a point where biases against women, black women, um, were so high that we didn't even get a chance that they're in roles that they're [00:33:00] not qualified for or the, the stakes have changed, right?
Like you have to be better than whatever they are today, but they're in those roles and they ain't leaving cuz they can't get another job at another company. So they're saying put, so, so I do think that there is something to be said for like kind of the struggle that black women go through in tech and how like knowledgeable we are.
How well prepared we are, how like vocal we are and how uh, easy it is for someone with those characteristics to actually find another job that pays you as much that you know, that puts you, doesn't under level you anymore. Cuz that's the, that's what was happening before everybody was under leveled.
Everybody was underpaid and nobody got the benefit of the doubt. Now it's a new day, right? It's a new day. And all the struggles that we dealt with over the last like 15 plus years and even breaking into the industry [00:34:00] have come back to be the, the characteristics that people really need in their businesses, especially in startups where you need somebody who is just about getting stuff done.
I was going to enter the, the poop word, but I was like, you know, mixed
Jenni: Thanks for cleaning it up for us.
Siara: We appreciate that.
Jenni: Yeah, definitely. All good points. All good points. Uh, which kind of segues into my other question, but I, before we get to the big question that I like to ask everyone, I did wanna ask you, um, you know, I saw, I gave you, I saw you gave a talk on, like introducing people to Jeff Chat, G P t, what is it? And I hear a lot of discussions about what it means for writers.
There's a writer strike going on and all that stuff right now, and
artists and, um, things, you know, your, your branding, your work. What does chat G B T mean for software engineers? What is, how is that gonna transform the industry?
Kim Martin: yeah. [00:35:00] Oh, I, I actually think that like any of these kind of chat, G P T generative AI things are good. Um, For so many different, uh, types of people, uh, in the software space. Like there are definitely people who are using chat G B T to solve problems and generate code. Um, I haven't used it in that way. but it, it still comes down to like style, right?
Like you as an individual have your own style of coding, have your own style of like how you think about problem solving, the order in which you execute operations. Um, and the amount of work that it would take to get chat u p t to match your style on one particular problem is probably like more than just solving the problem yourself.
So if you care about style and you're like a person who prides themselves on like, um, all the things that, uh, that you [00:36:00] know, make you an individual, um, coder, then you probably wouldn't use it in that way. But if you are. Like a person inside of a tech company and you need something done and you don't quite know how to do it yourself.
And so style doesn't really matter yet. You could probably make leaps and bounds on like implementing new functionality if you asked Chad g b t for some code snippets. I mean, I think about, I worked at a company, um, called S ts Travel, which was the number one spring break travel, um, website, booking website, uh, in America for, for two decades.
Um, and the original website was written by the president and ceo and like as I go there and become their head of engineering, um, I was like, it was so hard at times to talk to him about how bad the code was because he had ran it, you know, [00:37:00] it was his code. And somebody like that would've benefited from Chad G b T generating code because it probably would've been better than, than what he had in there.
But what he had in there work than it was his style. He was super proud of it, super, like, passionate about, you know, sustaining portions of it, you know. Um, he would, I remember he would say things like, um, we were creating an admin backend, and he was like, oh, well we have this, isn't that enough? Like, th this part of the code that I wrote.
And I'm like, no. Mm-hmm. No it's not. And it's not, it's buggy, you know? So I do think that there's like, You know, startup people who don't have like the full technical skill that could really benefit, you know, and they, they don't have the money to pay a computer scientist or a software engineer or, or a data person or whatever, and they just need to get a prototype out or, you know, to, to somehow get their idea out into the world.
Um, and so I, [00:38:00] I believe in it for those purposes of people putting more out into the world that could benefit humanity. Um, but folks need to be careful. There's a lot of like bad stuff that comes with scale.
Siara: Our team did a, a, a huge exercise. So, um, at Pros I sit on our like customer education team.
And so we were trying to figure out, you know, how could we use G Chat G p T to help us do our jobs? And so we did this team exercise where we kind of came up with a general prompt and everyone used their individual style to put their prompt into chat G P T. And then we kind of analyzed the results and we had some people on our team who were kind of fearful of the tool because, you know, is this gonna take over jobs
eventually is
gonna, you know, replace us and things of that nature. And we found out very quickly that there is still the need for a human to [00:39:00] perform functions. There's a lot of fact,
fact checking that needs to happen. You cannot rely solely on the data that, that it spits out. To be
truth. And so, um, I think that sort of eased a lot of fears, but also,
you know, on the flip side of recognizing this is a really good tool. If you're stuck and you kind of need something to get you over the hump, Chad g b t is a
great tool for that.
Or kind of even helping, you know, processes to kind of streamline and be more efficient. Um, you can plug it into chat, G P t, um, to kind of help you get through things
that a little more quickly. So it was a very interesting, uh, exercise to do in conversation to have. And it was, it was kind of crazy. A lot of people who were hesitant to use it were like, okay, I could see myself using this for different things.
And then we had some folks who got really nerdy about it and were, you know, and I was like, [00:40:00] everything that you're saying sounds great, but it has gone way over my head. I don't understand that you're saying.
Kim Martin: yeah, yeah. That fear is real. I hear it all the time, especially from women. Um, but there's al, there's always gonna be this need for like cultural context. There's gonna be, need to be like some sort of, um, Uh, voice and tone that chat. G b t definitely does not nail for me. Um, but, you know, I write little, I use chat G B T to generate little poems for my boyfriend.
You know,
Jenni: Aww.
Siara: I love
that.
Kim Martin: think he, I don't think he would read them if I ever sent them to him. I've never sent him one, but I've been like,
Jenni: Put it in
his birthday card.
Kim Martin: and I know, I know. I'll like print him out and put him in a journal. I'm, I'm like writing for him now, so. Yeah.
Jenni: Aw, I, I relate everything to Star Trek. So in Star Trek, they're definitely asking the computer to help [00:41:00] them analyze data or,
um, generate a program that's gonna do A, B, and C. So it, you know, I
definitely see it as a future thing and Right. Maybe roles will shift a little bit going forward, but there'll, there'll be space for it.
Kim Martin: yeah. Oh, for sure. And then people who need to keep us safe from it, right? Like, those are all new jobs.
So,
Jenni: Exactly.
Kim Martin: yeah.
Jenni: Uh, so what advice would, you kind of went into the things you're looking for for, you know, people in technology, but what advice would you give to people that are interested in going to the technology space?
Kim Martin: Um, I think I have different advice for different populations, right? So like, people fresh out of, like people who have formal training, um, in computing of whatever sort. Um, you know, find your voice, try to be like, Figure out how you're different from the norm [00:42:00] because unlike, you know, hiring for a symphony or something like that, where you want people to play the piece exactly the same in, in computing.
We're looking for people who are different, right? Like, who think different. They, they execute like efficiently, but in a manner that's individualized. So try to figure out. How you're different from the, from the masses. Um, and then figure out how to like express that in a way that people understand. Um, for people who are not trained, who are interested.
Um, I think that like the idea of a straight line to the job that you want is like a ridiculous fallacy that people just need to like, give up on. Um, you know, I'm trying to think of like the last time a straight line resulted in like successful, innovative, you know, pro billion dollar companies. And I don't think it ever did.
Like you [00:43:00] see all these people who are college dropouts. You see all these people who like learned in their basement on their own or whatever. So people who aren't. Getting that or aren't like, you know, they can't afford to go get the schooling. They are smart. They don't have opportunities in their area.
They don't have like access to computers or whatever would like, could consistent internet. Maybe they live in a flood zone and like their home is, is closed down and they just need a place to go work. I think that, um, like tapping into your creative, um, side and really trying to figure out like how to break into the industry, um, without the, the straight path and really like people who are switching careers, you know, bakers who wanna be programmers, um, take all the things from what it is that you already do.
Well. [00:44:00] And try to translate that into the things that would make you a good technologist and then like double down on those things. Like, don't do everything, just do the things that you already do well in the technology space and you will find an entryway. Um, I, I do work with like people in the military who have a hard time translating their military experience to industry experience for tech.
And, um, in, in that, I've learned a lot about some of the different roles in the military and like some of the different responsibilities and the way that, um, people kind of have measures of accountability that aren't really, you know, they're not ingrained in computer sciences. Computer scientists are like, ah, this is play like, it doesn't work, it doesn't work.
If it takes like, you know, 500 milliseconds longer, that's okay. And you know, but there are people in the world who like, if something [00:45:00] went wrong, people die.
And that level of accountability and like attention to detail and like follow up and all those things are such great leadership, technical leadership skills that, you know, quantify and risk, all of that stuff.
All of that is like such great technical leadership skills that military folks tend to have and don't know how to translate to industry. And I'm like, Let me help you cause we need you. Cause there's a bunch of people who just like, do whatever they want and stuff goes to the left and then they leave the job and it's somebody else's problem.
So like, I would rather have people who are at least thinking along those dimensions. And, um, so my advice would be different, like, figure out what you're good at or how you're different and then double down on that because there's always gonna be an opportunity for whatever it is that you're, um, doing.
And if, if it doesn't exist in like big tech or big companies, then maybe that's your like, [00:46:00] opportunity for a startup. So, yeah.
Jenni: Good advice. Good advice. What programs do you think companies should implement to increase black talent and technology?
Kim Martin: Um, I, this is one of those like really tricky questions because I think that there's like a timeline for investment and then outcomes that's pretty long still. Um, you know, Getting, getting from like 15% female representation in computer science to 51% took a long time. But there were investments in like Grace Hopper, there were investments at the university level.
And so like all the women are kind of the same, but there's more of them, you know, so they spent, you know, a decade or so really building out like programs for women in [00:47:00] universities that then kept them engaged and interested. And then more women were in the industry. And then they created like, welcome spaces for other women, um, that weren't on that same like, you know, academic CS path.
But it took like 10 years to go from like 15% to 51%, maybe 15 years. But something like that. Um, the same thing is kind of true for, um, black people, black women. Um, in that the, if companies are not willing to put in that long-term investment, they shouldn't benefit from the outcomes. So we need to look at what these companies have done and decide whether or not that's the space that really wants me there, that really needs my voice there that should benefit from me being there, right?
If they're not putting in the work, I don't know how you gotta think about [00:48:00] like getting a promotion and stuff like that. Cuz if they're not doing it, they're not doing it probably across the board.
And so, you know, it really does become this conversation of, um, you invest back in the people who invest in you or the companies that invest in you.
So I think companies should be put in a program without expecting a lot of outcome initially from those efforts. Like it will take years to increase your population, but challenge. Um, the whole company with these hard problems. Um, when I was working at YouTube, uh, the population of black software engineers at YouTube was 2%.
And, um, the US census said that there were 4%, um, uh, like black, uh, software engineers in industry. Um, and this was like five years ago maybe. [00:49:00] And I'm in this like black student or student black, um, uh, e r g. And Susan, our c e o is there and she's talking about like, we need to reach market, um, share of black representation in our software engineering group by whatever year.
Um, And so moving from 2.2% to like 4.1% or something like that. And I had to take a step back and say, why only 4%? Like why not 8%? You know, why not 10%? And I think her answer was like, oh, it's a really hard problem to solve. I was like, okay, so we solve hard problems every day, all day. You expect us to solve hard problems on the platform,
but you don't wanna even like suggest this hard problem.
Like are we, are we YouTube or are we not YouTube? And then I was like, and then remember that this 2.2% equals [00:50:00] exactly the 32 people in this room right now. Like it is not more than 32. Like it sounds like, oh, 2.2% sounds like it could be a big number.
Like, you know, it's 32 people.
Jenni: Mm-hmm.
Kim Martin: And I was like, if one of these people leave, you are under like one per or under 2%,
Jenni: Yeah. Yeah. Every person makes a big difference, right? Yeah.
Siara: absolutely.
Kim Martin: so I'm like, let's really invest. Like if we gonna invest, let's really invest. And so then the YouTube started changing things like creating, um, opportunities in the, the, um, performance evaluation cycles to talk about your d e I efforts. And that's when people who were taxed by doing that extra work that represents the company's like commitment to D e I, um, actually started getting credit for it, but they had been doing it for years, getting no credit, getting no promotions, getting no like acknowledgement of like, this is time spent on something [00:51:00] that's important to the business because we know that diverse teams increase, uh, product revenue, you know, like period.
Um, And so the business is benefiting, but the individual is not. And so that investment had to change, and it did. And, and they are, I don't know, maybe they're at 3% now. I'm not sure. I, I haven't looked at their d e I report, which comes out every year. Um, yet, so
Siara: That's a very interesting, uh, I don't know if interesting is the right word to use, but a great perspective to organizations is that this investment, just like most other investments that you make, is the long game. This is not something that you're going
to reap the benefits for immediately. It may not be one year or two year.
You may not even see
benefits of this until five years down the line, but it is a, an investment that is absolutely worth it. And if you know you want to be a destination company and you [00:52:00] say that you care about your people, it's a definitely a worthy inver investment to
make.
Kim Martin: I think what you see now when it comes to startups is you see people who won't go over like five people without having some diverse representation in that group. And that is like how all these other companies should have started, but they didn't. And it would've led to different outcomes because then you get like more authentic sponsorship.
You get like people who are in networks where other folks are like, oh, I'm uncomfortable. Like go into this like black software engineering conference. I'm like, yep, you want me to show up to like, you know, Norway and like the, you know, I, I was invited to um, a conference in Romania. I'm like, you know what?
I'm not gonna go, I'm just not going. But it's that kind of thing. And you think it's okay to ask me for that, but it's not okay for me to ask you for that. So people just need to like be where the people are, meet them where they are.
Jenni: [00:53:00] Yeah. I actually gave a, a talk on that once about how, um, cause I used to lead our women's organization and a lot of men would, you, we'd have events and the men would be like, well, can I go? And I was like, look,
I show up every day and I'm the only
black person. I'm the only woman in the room. That
feeling that that feeling in in your stomach is the stomach is the, is the feeling I have every day.
So like, embrace it and,
Kim Martin: and get over it. Yep, yep. Exactly right.
Siara: Now it is time for the heat check. The heat check is where the interface podcast crew shares an interesting or hot topic that's happening in technology or black culture. Um, as our guest, Kim, please feel free to chime in where you feel and offer your thoughts and opinions. Um, Jenny, I'm gonna pick on you to go first today.
Jenni: Oh, man. Okay. I, so I read an article or [00:54:00] actually listened to a podcast, but it was linked to an article, um, that was, um, the title of. The post is Stack Overflow. Didn't ask how bad its gender problem is this year. So every year, stack Overflow sends out a developer survey, um, and asks a lot of different questions about what languages you're using, where you are in your career, yada, yada, yada.
And there's usually like a demographics portion where they break down, um, age, gender, um, race. And it get pretty per specific too. Like it was African bi, you know, multiracial black. Um, and in the latest, uh, survey, they did not include those questions. So we do not know how that has changed from 2022 to 2023. So the article talks about, um, stack Overflow did say, Hey, our code of conduct change, we took these questions out because [00:55:00] of um, uh, what do you call it, the. Um, not litig litigation, but basically the policies for data privacy. And so this was a way for them to protect, uh, identities and that they're, you know, they're trying to address the fact that, I mean, cuz if you look at the, if you look at the past reports, you know, women and persons of color are not using Stack overflow as often as white males. Um, so they said they're updating their code of conduct, um, to, you know, help solve that problem, but they're no longer measuring it. So, um, I thought that was pretty interesting. I mean, if any, I, I know Sierra, we've been talking about measuring what matters. Um, you, I think, Kim, you just mentioned about how, you know, getting from one per what percent to another percent and having some sort of goal, or at least knowing where you are. Um, so if you're not measuring it, what does that mean? Does that mean. What do you guys think? [00:56:00] Does that mean it's not important? Um, does it mean, you know, is is there a shift? Um, you know, I, I get it. You know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's tricky situation, I'm sure.
Siara: I'll let you go first
if you have comments.
Kim Martin: I think it, I mean, it can mean so many things. It can mean like, like they give up, like it could mean that they're embarrassed to, to, to say. And so not collecting it is like, but I, it's interesting cuz we know, we deal at Indeed we deal with people's personal information. They're looking for jobs, we have demographic information for them, or we're willing to collect it if they are willing to offer it to us.
Um, so there's not, that's a company-wide decision, right? It's like stack overflows decision to not do that. It's not like the government came down and said, you can't do this anymore and you can't report on it. That's just not what [00:57:00] happened. So, um, so yeah, I, there's some of these things where I. The culture inside the companies are leading to, um, kind of divisiveness.
And, um, the more you create opportunity for people to sort of react, um, even just within the company, like the people who work there, not the users, but the people who work there, um, the more, uh, risk you're putting yourself in, the more, I mean, I was at Netflix during the Dave Chappelle, the closer, um, uh, walk out by like the trans community.
Um, and I know that there were people on my team who did not align with like the idea of supporting a walkout. And the more you make that part of where you work, um, the more opportunity you have to like, Isolate or [00:58:00] other people and companies are now in this protection mode of like, we ain't doing nothing.
We don't have to do, like, that could provoke any p subpopulation of employees, um, or land us on blind, right? Like there's, there's just like, we're in that stage of like, um, how companies manage the emotion of the people who work there and their user base. But I mean, at the end of the day, like if you're not being transparent, like you're sending a message that there's not a problem, the problem is solved or you don't care, and you know, even if it's logistics, it doesn't matter.
That's just the message that people pick up.
Jenni: Yeah.
Siara: I think it's, uh, I mean data is king or queen since we have three ladies here today. Um, and I think if it were me, that data I feel is still important [00:59:00] because. While it, some people could view it as opening the door to biases, right? It's important what you do with that data is this data telling us that there is a problem that we need to be looking at, that we need to be solving for.
Again, big problems is what runs businesses, right? Um, do we care that there are not as many people, uh, black women using our tool? Do we need to do something about that? And I think just turning a blind eye to it and just saying that we're not looking at it at all, I think could be in a sense, irresponsible or maybe just bad business practice. Um, data is important. We all know that. And it's, I think it's just how you use that data. Being responsible about it is what's most important. And being transparent with your organization. Like we notice this trend in the [01:00:00] data. What are we gonna do about it?
Jenni: Yeah, for me it's just concerning as far as just the pendulum. This is kind of another thing on the pendulum swinging, you know, the other way, um, and remembering history and, you know, it does make me concerned and even fearful about, you know, my position in the community going forward. It's kind of, you know, this, these are the thousand cuts that, you know, might at some point blow up, you know, a few years down the line.
So, um, it's definitely something that is important to me. And, um, I'm gonna keep, uh, my eye on how this trend keeps con continuing.
Siara: there's a lot to pay attention to nowadays.
Jenni: Yeah. So what you got Sierra for your heat
Siara: So today I am going to talk about the Supreme [01:01:00] Court ruling that happened on yesterday, Thursday. Um, June 29th, uh, the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action programs at the University of North Carolina and Harvard ending the systematic consideration of race in the admissions process. Um, the court ruled that both programs violate the equal protection clause of the constitution and therefore, and are therefore unlawful. Um, this court's decision is a major blow to the most selective universities, which say, um, some consideration of race is vital in ensuring they have diverse student bodies. Um, among these universities, um, that take race into an account are Yale University, brown University, Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Chicago, and Dartmouth College. Um, Um, I'm, my thoughts from yesterday, um, I was really disappointed to, to hear about that ruling. Um, I'm raising two black children who I hope will [01:02:00] go to college, um, or university at at some point. Um, and I think while our nation has made many strides, strides, oh my Texas really came out right there, um, strides towards, uh, right wrongs as it relates to, you know, racial issues. This ruling was a stark reminder that, um, there's still a lot more work to be done and. The citizens are gonna have to do the work. You know, we cannot rely on the, the government to advocate for us, and by us, I mean black and brown people, um, to do what is right. Uh, access to college and universities in America can be a challenge, especially for those who are economically disadvantaged.
And now this is another hurdle, um, that we would have to, to overcome. Um, affirmative action wasn't perfect, right? Um, but it [01:03:00] was a way to help combat the bias that can happen, um, when considering who's qualified or even to some worthy of admission to these prestigious schools. So, My hope is that, you know, the people who have decision making authorities at these universities won't, you know, deviate from their practices of trying to, uh, culminate a diverse student body, even with this ruling coming down that doesn't give them any guardrails that they have to do this. Um, and then one of my fears is this ruling will open the doors to now businesses being able to dismiss the consideration of race and their hiring practices. Um, and then fear and empathy for incoming black and brown students who aspire to attend these prestigious universities, um, and that they may not. Seem worthy, um, or considered at [01:04:00] all no matter what their qualifications are? No. How, no matter how good your grades are, how good your scores are, um, we don't have to consider you, um, for admissions to these very selective universities. Thoughts around the horn.
Kim Martin: Yeah, man. The, the meritocracy is, is a lie, first of all. So like, trying to like, use, you know, grades and test scores and whatever to say who's better than whom in a broken system is just like failing from the bat. I will say this, when it comes to Harvard though, most of the research around like diversity is king, comes from Harvard.
So it feels to me like even if there's not policies, um, uh, like instrumented for, um, increasing their diverse student body, [01:05:00] there are believers there who understand the benefit of diversifying the student body that in absence of process would do it, the work anyway. Now, So that's like one extreme, like Harvard might be all right.
The rest of 'em, they probably gonna like look very, very different five and six and seven years from now than they look today, you know? Um, but there's also this notion, I mean, everything that you're saying, I totally agree, like this extends well beyond, um, academics into corporate culture and, um, kind of the, like in the long run, like the wealth gap in America.
Um, but there. Is sort of this day and age that we're in where if these universities did work to start to, um, diversify their [01:06:00] staff. Like there may, the blow may not be as, as like hard or heavy as it would've been, like if it were immediately, um, kind of turned over, right? Like if these challenges were immediately accepted.
Um, because I, I mean, I know people at Harvard admissions who used to be at Car Mellon admissions and they are like black people looking for more black people to like, you know, attend the university and really round out the voice of, um, talent there. Um, There's this, uh, podcast that I've listened to a few times, um, Malcolm Gladwell's, uh, revisionist History, and in, in season one, I think it's episodes like three, four, and five, or four, five and six.
It's like a three part series on, um, diversity in education and some of the ways in which black and brown people don't have the opportunity to have even one [01:07:00] setback before they get to college or while they're in college, um, compared to white students. Um, so if something happens in their family and they're out of school for some period of time, or, or they have to take care of someone or they have to get a job or whatever it is, like that is, uh, could be.
Like devastating to their academic, um, progression. Now also in one of the episodes, they talk about the people who are there in the endowments of these universities like Harvard, where they have like, you know, hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars that they sit on instead of like giving free tuition to really high excelling, um, uh, students of color.
And they, there are all these like references to interviews with people who work in like diversity inclusion, who are not black, whose, you know, once they leave that, that, um, job and go to either a different university or a different role or something like that, they [01:08:00] don't care anymore. And that right there is the problem, right?
Like the fact that these people are doing it because it's their job and not because it's right, it's the right thing to do, is the crux of the problem in which
that has been overturned, right? So now it's no longer part of their job.
Jenni: Yeah,
I'm very surprised by that.
Kim Martin: I, I highly recommend, I, I send people to like this podcast, like these specific episodes cuz they talk about this, this, um, Hispanic kid who is like, clearly at the top of his class, like clearly excelling, but keeps getting met with like economic or socioeconomic, um, uh, barriers and, you know, amazingly smart kid.
And then they start, they try to break it down. And I, I think that we'll see a lot more of like, people who are like, oh, my job is, you know, I'm a, I'm a college admissions person, or I'm on this D e I committee or whatever. And then they leave and they're like, oh yeah, yeah, we should have spent the money on [01:09:00] this instead of holding out for like this space research.
You know, but they don't care enough or they, they're not, they don't need to care enough cuz it's not directly infect impacting them and their kids and it's just their job. So, I don't know. I, I, I have feelings about this, but I think the better use of my words are just to point people in the direction of, like, there's a lot of Harvard research that says that Harvard might be all right and these other folks might be in trouble.
And then there's like this podcast that um, kind of walks you through a, a bunch of different players in the same sort of college admissions, um, landscape that can really open your eyes to like where the problem really lies.
Jenni: Yeah. Um, yeah, I've mentioned this before. I was in a program in undergrad, the Meyerhoff program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Right. And that started as getting more blacks in stem. And I started undergrad in [01:10:00] 94, and it was a few years after that where, um, there was a change to make the program not exclusively for black people so that we wouldn't be impacted through policy or federal funding or whatever, whatever. But. Kinda like you said about the Harvard study, the, there was a vision for what that program was and you knew like the students are, you know, really indoctrinated into, you know, excelling in STEM as a black individual and, and, and mentoring people into becoming, um, professionals in that space. And, you know, 30 years later, you know, we have, uh, you know, reunions and stuff, that spirit has not changed.
So yeah, if, if at the core, you know, that if, if there is a program that that's, that's what their goal is, the mission statement is this what I'm gonna do? It's still definitely possible. [01:11:00] It's, again, it's one of those thousand cuts to me that I mentioned before is kind of just another blow. Um, and yeah, the community's just gonna have to get involved in kind of more private, um, investment into this because, you know, any first generation. Um, you know, if it, my being in that program definitely changed my life. Like, I don't think I would be here if I didn't have someone show me. You know, I was just one of those people who didn't know the possibilities of careers or what I can do. And if, and I'm sure there's millions of kids across the United States and elsewhere that are also in that position that maybe you're a good student and, but you know, no one's really reaching out to be like, okay, you're a good student.
Do you know what you wanna do? Do you know that you could do this? Do you know you could do that? You know, I got good grades. I'm like, yeah, I'm sure you're going to college. But no one really realized that I didn't know college is, or what I was supposed to study or, you know, where, where I wanna go. [01:12:00] And, um, so important.
It's just definitely something I'm really passionate about. And yeah, it's just, it's another blow, it's another sad day for the cause.
Siara: So one of, it's part of our, the mission of this podcast is just providing exposure and introducing the world to black technologists who are out here doing amazing things in technology. And no matter what your path is, you know where you started from, you can be successful, you can go and do amazing things, be amazing decision makers like Kim here. Um, and there's just really something about the exposure. Just knowing what's possible, um, can propel you way beyond what you could ever have dreamed of. So, um, I'm hopeful that we've ha that we have diligent people who are actually sitting in those seats, have a voice at the table to [01:13:00] say. I heard what they said, but this is what we're gonna continue to do because it is important to me and we know the benefits of it.
Whether you want to say it out loud or believe it, um, the data shows data's important. The data shows that it's a benefit to everyone.
Jenni: Yeah. And that being said, cause I like to leave things on a positive note. I was telling Sierra Sierra earlier, I saw like a Buzzfeed article that had, um, generated images for different careers and the, the software engineer and each, each career had a pair, a woman and a man. It was binary, but yeah. You know. Um, but, um, at least they had a, a woman and a man. And, um, for the software engineer, the woman looked like me on a typical casual day and I felt attacked. Cause she was wearing, [01:14:00] she was wearing like a hoodie and a t-shirt. And so I went to work the next day dressed just so I could be like, wear sweatshirts. I know how to get dressed though.
Kim Martin: It. I, I love the tech uniform, like the, the hoodie and the t-shirt and the jeans and the sneakers. Like, you know, you can catch me in that almost every day. Now, you know, I, you know, I deal with, in Austin, they're not, it's not a huge tech community, so people are like, What is,
Siara: what
Kim Martin: all that? Um, right, right.
Or like, I'll come home from something and immediately switch it to like my yoga pants and, and a hoodie or whatever, and people are like, you really needed that, didn't you? And I'm like, you know what? It is my identity, you know, it's part of my identity. It makes decision making very easy when you're like choosing between blue T-shirt and, and other blue t-shirt.
Jenni: Also, I have so much pros gear that it's literally like, let me [01:15:00] just pick the latest pro shirt I got and a sweatshirt. So
Kim Martin: Yep.
Jenni: maybe
pros needs to start making some dress, so I'll look better every day.
Kim Martin: You know, we got, we got sneakers this like holiday for, from Indeed and I'm like, you know what? I'm not mad at these. These are all birds. I love them. They're actually, they're right behind me on the rower, so I use them every
Siara: Oh, nice.
Kim Martin: But yeah,
Jenni: That is nice. Um, we're we're still beaming over the, well, Sierra didn't get one, but she was quite jealous of the sweatshirt that I got. She was like, why did I get sweatshirt? It's the sweatshirt. I.
Siara: oh, she loves to brag about it. Speaking of which, I need to email someone about that. Can I just get a sweatshirt please? All right. Well thank you so much, Kim, for joining us. Could you let our listeners know where they can connect with you out on the [01:16:00] interwebs?
Kim Martin: Yeah, so on the interwebs, I have a, I'm on LinkedIn. Uh, typically people find me by typing in Kim Martin, Googled Kim Martin, Netflix. Um, I don't know if people are finding me by Kim Martin indeed, but they, those, either of those two, uh, first ones will, will find me to connect. But, um, Like in the pandemic, I kind of took a little bit of break to have kids and not play as much golf, but I do have an open Instagram account that's black girl golfing.
Um, my one where I post pictures of my kids is private. So don't even try and and get in there. You won't, you won't get there. You will not get there. But, but black girl golfing is open and I plan on going back to playing, uh, on Monday. So, you know, you'll see lots of posts. And I also use that to post, um, publicly, like where any kind of speaking events or like [01:17:00] conferences I go to.
And I love to meet up with people in the wild. Um, so if you are going to a conference and you see that I'm going like, hit me up and be like, Hey, can we meet up for a coffee? Um, I'm, I'm down.
Siara: I love that.
Jenni: Yeah.
Siara: Fantastic. Well, thank you again, Kim, for joining us today as well as all of you listening in. If you enjoyed this conversation, share the show with your colleagues, friends and family, or drop us line at Interface podcasts@pros.com. Your feedback is important to help keep the show valuable and relevant.
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