As a software engineer and mother, Aisha needed a place where she could tackle complex data problems and still have time for school pickup. This is how she found a company that made both possible.
This article is part of the Life at Kit series to help job seekers learn more about the team and gain a deeper insight into the behind-the-scenes of what it’s like to work at Kit.
Aisha originally planned on being a doctor. But the closer she got to the realities of the career, the less it felt right for her; she wanted more flexibility for a family. When sharing her concerns with her cousin, he told her many software engineers worked remotely and recommended a coding bootcamp.
She attended the bootcamp and promptly fell in love with software engineering.
I like solving problems, and I like how there’s a logical way to do that when writing code.
Soon after the bootcamp she was hired as an apprentice. She loved her job, was moving up, and especially loved working remotely when she had her son.
But then, unexpectedly, she lost her husband to cancer.
Your career is not just impacted by what you’re doing at work; it also has a lot to do with what’s going on outside of work.
She took a month off of work and then returned as a single mother.
Later, Aisha attended a conference where an executive spoke openly on stage about the difficult season when her ex-husband died, and how she moved forward.
Aisha had never heard a woman in a professional context speak so openly about the ways life and work intertwine, or about how tragedy didn’t have to have the last word.
When Aisha’s son started school, she felt ready to pursue the next step in her career.
She got a new job, moved up to become a team lead, and eventually met her current husband.
And when he got a new job in California, they decided to move west. Her current job was based in Illinois, so she’d also need to find a new job. That’s when she saw an opening for a software engineer at Kit.
“It didn’t feel like I had to put on this performance.”
What first drew her to the job at Kit was growing her technical skills.
I was looking for more technical challenges. And working at Kit would mean working with large amounts of data, which I wanted to learn.
She applied and got an interview.
The Kit interview process was so empathetic. So real. It didn’t feel like I had to put on this performance, like sweating and trying to come up with stuff on the spot and feeling like half your brain isn’t working because of interview anxiety.
And Emily [Kit’s recruiter] was amazing. She sent me all the questions ahead of time so I could think about them. As an introvert, that’s very important to me.
She also loved that the technical part of the interview was a take home project.
It really helped that it wasn’t writing code in front of someone, which would equate to maybe doing improv or solving a math problem in front of the whole class.
The take-home technical interview felt more to her like how she works in real life, allowing her to better showcase what she can do and how she solves problems. She also loved the overall tone of all of the interviews.
I felt like each person was interested in learning about me and not judging me or grading me on the spot.
Interviews are always a two-way decision, and as part of Aisha’s research, she did something many women of color may be familiar with: she checked the team page to see if she’d be the only person of color at the company if she took this role.
Being a woman of color, being someone who wears a hijab, diversity is very important to me. And not just because it’s amazing and it brings so many benefits to a company, but it also lends to my safety at a company as well.
So when I looked up the Kit team page I saw there was another girl whose name was Aisha and who also wears a hijab. And I saw people from all over the world, with all sorts of backgrounds. And I was like, okay, this feels like a company that cares about diversity.
She also researched the benefits to see if the company would be a good fit for her as a mother.
I feel like companies have to have certain things in place to ensure that a mother can be successful in her role.
I got to look at the Kit employee handbook and one of the benefits that really stood out to me was this idea of a flexible schedule. We do have some common meetings, but with people working all over the world you can really have a flexible schedule.
She also loved the paid childcare benefit, and that the whole company takes off for winter break.
The handbook talked about how women are often underrepresented because they take on childcare, so Kit offers a childcare benefit; that was a selling point for me. And then with winter break, historically when my son is off I’m losing my mind trying to work while he’s at home. I feel like their benefits are very supportive of being a family person.
And finally, she loved the fair pay policy.
Everyone is paid based on market averages and levels, and that was amazing to me because oftentimes women go underpaid. So I didn’t have to think about negotiating.
All of that combined is what convinced me to come to Kit.
But that’s not to say she wasn’t still worried about a few things.
“That made me feel seen.”
Leaving a company you know for a company you don’t is always scary. So much is unknown.
I thought, what is it going to cost for me to leave the comfort of being an important person at my previous company and go to another company where I’m going to be this new person and have to prove myself? Prove that it was the right thing to hire me?
So that fear was definitely there.
And email marketing was also very new to me.
But she’s learned email marketing now, and feels both comfortable and challenged in her role.
I continue to feel challenged, but in a good way. I think that discomfort allows you to grow. And I’m getting more comfortable in certain ways and finding my rhythm, like having a routine and finding my voice within the company.
She also loves the amount of autonomy she has, even when it comes to AI.
With the AI adoption we’ve taken on this year, everyone has their own ways of doing things and managers have been ready to support each person’s way of working.
There isn’t handholding or micromanaging in projects either, but at the same time there’s still that collaboration across the company to make products successful.
Aisha says she sees that most of all at our bi-annual in-person retreats.
You have managers and execs and individual contributors all coming together to work on different projects.
Whereas at other companies, you don’t really see execs outside of all-team meetings, or you hear from them about revenue once in a while. Our execs show their faces a lot more here.
And my initial assumption about the diversity at Kit ended up being quite true, on multiple levels. You have extroverts, introverts, people from different countries and backgrounds, and there’s space for everyone to just be their true self.
One thing that I really appreciate at the retreats, for example, is you get to select a color wristband that indicates your level of comfort in coming into close contact with people. And for me, culturally, that is amazing.
I also remember for my first retreat we had a form asking about dietary preferences. There was an “other” section to write something in and I wrote “Halal.” And then, on the form for my second retreat, Halal was there as an option to choose. That made me feel seen.
“I get to decide when I’m working.”
Aisha said her hopes about how this job would support her life as a mother also came true.
As long as I’m making space for the meetings we need to have every week, I get to decide when I’m working and there’s a lot of trust that’s placed on me, and that makes me feel good. It helps me believe in myself as a worker; that trust is there.
I also have school pick up and drop off on my shared calendar, and if a new meeting goes up someone will ask “Hey I added this to your calendar at 9:00am, is that okay with your drop-off time and California traffic?
People are very respectful of that. I think the idea here is put yourself first, put your family first, and then work (within reason of course).
Sometimes there is a misconception that a “people first” company means “we play ping pong on Fridays and have pizza parties.” But people first comes through the benefits, and I’ve seen that with all of the ones we have.
And because of that support, she feels like she’s been able to grow her career even in her first year.
I feel like I have had a voice here.
Want to be a part of a driven, creative, and fully remote team that focuses on serving creators? Check out our careers page.
