By Justin Reyes In collaboration with ESPN we will be hosting our next Femgineer Forum, in New York City! You’re probably wondering why a …
By Justin Reyes
In collaboration with ESPN we will be hosting our next Femgineer Forum, in New York City! You’re probably wondering why a sports network was interesting in partnering with Femgineer? ESPN does not solely focus on television, but also digital technologies, which includes mobile apps such as SportsCenter and WatchESPN. Its technical team also focuses on website design, functionality, and user experience.
Swati Vakharia, a member of the technical team sat down to share her experience working at ESPN and particularly her journey as a Femgineer.
Ever since Swati was young she knew she was going to pursue a path of technology and engineering. The inspirational moment for Swati was when her father, an engineer at Bell Labs, brought home a Commodore 64. Her passion for engineering developed further during her freshman engineering orientation class in college, when they had to build a website for a disabled person.
“I remember using FrontPage 98 and going to the HTML view because I had more control in that view,” says Swati. “It was a great feeling to see my code actually build something that I could show off to someone else. Back then, the challenges were tools and resources.”
Right after college, Swati moved to Seattle and was working as a Software Engineer at Cobalt, which provides websites and dealer software for all major car companies across the world. She was later recruited by Walt Disney to work in their Technology Shared Services team in which she naturally transitioned over to ESPN and has been there ever since.
Working at ESPN, Swati and her technical team are always monitoring site traffic, keeping an eye out for the next big event to happen in sports such as the World Cup or the NBA finals to see if they can accommodate the uptick in traffic, and activity around their mobile apps and website. Together they brainstorm digital products that can enhance a sports fan’s experience (coincidentally ESPN prefers the word Fan instead of user).
Swati mentioned that one of the coolest projects that she worked on at ESPN was launching an online streaming video product for fans outside the US.
“It provided an online experience to watching video content that was also localized in three different languages. Definitely on the cutting edge of how our fans consume content and the fact that we were able to localize the experience proved that we can do even more outside the U.S.,” remarked Swati.
Although, ESPN is part of the larger Walt Disney Company, team that Swati works on is approximately 100 people and they contribute to the larger Technology group at ESPN. They operate as a lean team would, nimbly, and they have great pride and a sense of ownership in the digital products that they are working on. The small size has also given many members of the technical team an opportunity to be promoted into management roles, and advance themselves further, which is why they were interested in sponsoring our forum entitled: “How to Prepare Yourself for a Promotion”. Swati and members of their staff plan to share their experience.
Swati has learned that, “It doesn’t hurt to just ask… whether it’s for a promotion or for help or anything. You will always find someone that is willing to give you a chance if you ask for it. This definitely takes confidence and that is why I feel people should look into training on such topics to help them along the way.”
The ESPN technical team believes that you shouldn’t be hindered by corporate process, but free to innovate within the company. At ESPN this mean you won’t just be sitting down working on a small backend product but rather you’ll be immersed in the whole immersive product development process along with other team members.
In an effort to expand this awareness, ESPN has been traveling to conferences such as Grace Hopper and the NSBE (National Society of Black Engineers) to promote ESPN not only as a popular sports brand solely focused on television but on its digital products as well. Besides being lean, ESPN also has another competitive advantage through parent company Disney and its abundance of resources as well as mentorship. Swati shares her experience with a female mentor and role model that she had at Disney.
“I’ve had a mentor at every position I’ve held throughout my career. There was a time at Disney where I had a female technology leader as a mentor and I learned so much from her because she was the only female VP in technology at the time. There was a lot to say for that and the challenges that she faced in her in her own role, let alone being a female. There’s so much we can learn from one another and I encourage everyone to seek a mentor no matter where they are in their careers,” says Swati.
Employees at ESPN are also given the opportunity to explore other career opportunities amongst the Disney brands such as ABC or Disney Interactive. They hope that the upcoming Femgineer Forum will build awareness of what it’s like to work at ESPN and the long term career development opportunities that are available to employees there.
If you’d like to learn more about ESPN, meet Swati, and hear from our founder, Poornima Vijayashanker, then come attend our next Femgineer Forum on Tuesday May 13th in NYC. You’ll learn how you can prepare for your next promotion whether you’re looking to continue down a technical track or take on a management position. Hope to see you there!
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