How 15 women in engineering discovered their passion for technology

It's not hard to find a good story in the tech industry. The problem is that due to the industry's staggering gender gap, most of these stories center on the struggles and accomplishments of men. In this article, we aim to provide a platform for female technologists to share the stories of how they got into engineering, the biggest challenges they've faced, and their advice to the next generation of women in tech. You'll meet a former geologist turned product manager, an academic who fell in love with data science, a senior tech leader who discovered her dream job after the first two companies she worked for folded, and more. CCC's technology solutions are designed to increase connectedness among companies in the automotive industry, including insurance carriers, manufacturers, parts suppliers and collision repair shops. Ranjini Vaidyanathan was in academia and earned a PhD before realizing she had a passion for data science. While changing focuses wasn't always easy, Vaidyanathan said the transition was made easier by some simple, yet powerful, advice from her mentors. "When the going gets tough, what'll help you pull through is your passion for the technical work." How did you get into engineering? I studied applied science and mathematics before finally switching to data science after my PhD. It took me some time to decide what, exactly, I wanted to pursue. I had been doing pen-and-paper theory work as a student, but after a certain point, I realized I found applied problems more interesting. What's the biggest challenge you've faced in your career, and how have you worked to overcome it? Switching fields from academia to data science was challenging. I had to brush up industry-relevant skills like programming, and also adjust to the paradigm shift in thinking, both in terms of technical and soft skills.