How to Leverage a Non-Technical Background in Engineering Leadership | Melissa DePuydt

**Melissa DePuydt** (0:00)
When I became a product engineer at The Post, I felt like I really had to hide kind of my background. There's definitely imposter syndrome and kind of shame of not having a technical background.
But the longer I'm in engineering leadership roles, the more I'm really grateful for my background as a reporter, because it allows me to make decisions really quickly and gather information and look across contexts in ways that I think a lot of engineering leaders often don't.

**Conor Bronsdon** (0:29)
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Hey everyone, welcome back to Dev Interrupted. I am your host, Conor Bronsdon, and I'm delighted to be joined today by Melissa DePuydt. Melissa is the Senior Director of Engineering at Upstatement. Melissa, great to have you on Dev Interrupted.

**Melissa DePuydt** (1:19)
Thanks for having me, I'm so excited.

**Conor Bronsdon** (1:21)
It's a pleasure having you here. I'm very excited to talk about what you're diving into as well, because you have a background as a reporter and editor, and you've also been a leader of engineering teams at both the Atlantic and the Washington Post, which is a really unique background, I think. Most folks don't work in media, and it's led you to have this perspective on how engineering leaders need to learn how to think like journalists.
Can you unpack that a bit?

**Melissa DePuydt** (1:49)
I'm a career switcher. I started out as a journalist and reporter. As long as I can remember, I've been writing.
When I became an engineer, I found out that a lot of the things that I enjoyed about reporting and journalism, you still do them as software engineers. And so writing code is a lot like writing a news story. Editing and reviewing PRs is a lot like editing and reviewing story drafts. So it was very natural for me, with the exception that you don't have to talk to strangers and chase down an angry congressman for a quote. As a software engineer, so I was like, sign me up. And the longer I have been in product engineering, the more I have become really proud of my background as a journalist, because at first, when I became a product engineer at The Post, I felt like I really had to hide kind of my background. There's definitely imposter syndrome and kind of shame of like not having a technical background.
But the longer I'm in engineering leadership roles, the more I'm really grateful for my background as a reporter because it allows me to make decisions really quickly and gather information and look across contexts in ways that I think a lot of engineering leaders often don't. So for me, I think that my background as a reporter helps me think about situations differently and try to just discern the essential context for something versus just trying to wait for more information when I make a decision.

**Conor Bronsdon** (3:20)
This is really interesting for me in part also because I share a similar background. So I didn't actually tell you this before we came on the podcast to start chatting, but my background's in political organizing and communications. So kind of the other end of the journalism spectrum. So it's interesting for you to bring this up because I agree with this. I couldn't see my career unfolding differently because of the unique skills and challenges that were brought to me.
And it definitely has informed my perspective on software engineering and software engineering leadership. So I'd love to go a bit deeper into the areas where you particularly see these needs for changes.
What would you say are the keys to bring over from your background that you are now leveraging in the software experience?

**Melissa DePuydt** (4:03)
Yeah, I think the first kind of mistake that I see a lot of engineering leaders make is not preparing for the risks and disruptions that you're just going to encounter.

**Conor Bronsdon** (4:16)
Overoptimism.

**Melissa DePuydt** (4:17)
Overoptimism, overoptimizing. Overoptimizing for like, it's all going to be great. This is finally going to be the quarter where like our roadmap doesn't shift.