Laurent BugnionHumans of Microsoft is not about tech, it's about humans just like you and me, but they all work for Microsoft. Discover a new guest every week in this series, either live on Learn TV or on the Hello World show page.
This week we meet Tasha Scott, a Business Program Manager based in Seattle WA.
Laurent: Welcome to humans of Microsoft. This is a segment where we meet people just like you and me, but they have one thing in common. They all work for Microsoft and today I'm joined by Tasha Scott. Hello Tasha, how are you?
Tasha: Hi, I'm doing great. How are you Laurent?
Laurent: I'm very good. Thank you. And Tasha, you are a business program manager and you are based in Seattle, very close to Microsoft Headquarters, right?
Tasha: Yes, Yep, beautiful lovely, great day here in Seattle as one would expect. It's not really cold
Laurent: Cool, so let's go into the questions. So the first question is what was a key moment, a pivotal moment in your career.
Tasha: So a pivotal moment in my career was when I actually got my first mentor and that's what really started my career in tech. I joined a user group. My first user group and the the woman who ran the user group became my mentor and if it wasn't for her, I wouldn't be here today. She was an incredible mentor for me and made sure that I was set up for success.
Laurent: Oh, that's fantastic and really mentors and mentoring people and getting a mentor is very important for careers in tech, right?
Tasha: Absolutely 100%.
Laurent: Yeah, I completely agree. So then if you could go back in time and find yourself like years before now. What would you tell yourself to help you getting started?
Tasha: Uh, so I started out, uhm, I don't, I'm not a typical tech career path person and so the thing that I would tell myself is I would, I would say like hey, a career in tech is possible for you and just so I could get started earlier. I never pictured myself having a career in tech and so I I just never, like, it wasn't something that I considered and so I didn't really pursue it. And I really wish that I could go back in time and just tell myself, hey this is a thing that's possible for you and you know, here's how you can, here's how you can do that. And I I would, you know, get started earlier if I could.
Laurent: Yeah, that's really interesting. And and that kind of brings me to the next question, which is do you even need a computer science degree to work at Microsoft?
Tasha: Absolutely not, and I am proof positive of that, so I don't have a computer science degree. My degree is actually in English, and before my tech career, I worked at a newspaper for a bunch of years.
Laurent: Yes, and we in fact have a lot of roles at Microsoft, so it's not just developers and programmers and we have a lot of developers who aren't computer science, you know?
Tasha: Yeah and I'm still in a technical role. I'm a citizen developer inside Microsoft, building programs for our sales operations worldwide.
Laurent: Fantastic, what would you say has been the key to the success in your career in tech?
Tasha: Uh, absolutely community. 100% tech communities are really the way to learn anything that you want to learn in tech. Whatever your chosen stack is, go find the community that that you know that stack belongs to and join that community. Participate in that community and you'll get so much support and you will learn so much through your community. It's really 100% the best way to get started and find success in your tech career.
Laurent: I cannot agree more. This is also how I got started and what brought me eventually to Microsoft. The last question I have. What is one more thing you want to tell to all our viewers to inspire them?
Tasha: I just I really like for all the people out there that think to themselves that maybe a tech career is out of reach or you just don't think you belong there or you think that you you couldn't make it. You really do have something to offer and it is something that you you can have if that's what you choose to do, there's there's nothing keeping you from having a tech career you absolutely can. You can come, you can work at Microsoft, which if you had told me, you know however many years ago, that one day you'd be working at Microsoft, I would have told you that was bananas, but it's not bananas. You should absolutely try if it's something that you want to do and find that tech community, find a mentor and you will make it. I believe in you
Laurent: Fantastic message. Well, thank you so much Tasha. It's been awesome talking to you and thank you to all our viewers for watching and we'll see you next time on another Humans of Microsoft. Thanks Tasha.
Tasha: Thank you. Have a great day.
