Leaving Her Comfort Zone Helped This Engineering Manager Succeed in a Male-Dominated Field
By | The Muse Editors | www.themuse.com
When faced with picking her college major, Xinhong Yuan was confident computer science would be a natural fit. “Growing up, my favorite subject was math, and I also loved logic games a lot,” she says. “Writing computer programs was basically sorting out the logic of it all.”
Her degree helped lay the foundation for a successful career in software engineering. Today, she’s a senior manager of engineering at the voice, video, and text app Discord. “My favorite part about being an engineer is solving real-world problems using skills and creativity and making an impact in people’s lives,” Yuan says. “It brings me a great sense of satisfaction to see something I’ve been working on take shape for real.”
Here, she shares what engineering candidates can do to stand out, how the company supports working parents, and the impact Discord has had on her son’s Boy Scouts troop during the pandemic.
I wasn’t a Discord user before joining the company, but I knew about it for a long time because I saw my son use it and knew how much he loved it. So when my hiring manager described the role to me, I was super excited. During the interview I learned about the great culture the company leaders have built, and many of the engineering values really resonated with me. I knew quickly that I had found what I’d been looking for.
