Thriving in the AI Era with Human Skills | Maryam Ramezani-Bartsch

The transcripts are edited for clarity, sometimes with AI. If you notice any incorrect information, let us know.

Human Skills in the AI Era

Alexey: Hi everyone, welcome to our event. This event is brought to you by Data Talks Club which is a community of people who love data. We have weekly events and today is one of such events. It is actually a second one today. It just happened that we scheduled it this way. (0:00)

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Alexey: Last but not least we have an amazing Slack community where you can hang out with other data enthusiasts. During today's interview you can ask any question you want. There is a pinned link in the live chat. Click on that link, ask your questions, and we will be covering these questions during the interview. That is the usual intro. (0:41)

Alexey: Now for the interesting part, the interview. I have Maryam today and we both live in Berlin. We already met a few times. When we talked she was a very interesting person and I thought we should have her on the podcast. That is what we are going to do today. (1:05)

Alexey: We are going to talk about using your human skills to thrive in the AI era. Maryam has been working as a leader in many companies. This is what we will talk about today. Maryam is a data and AI leader with twenty plus years of experience leading data teams across big corporates such as Adidas, Sky, Delivery Hero and Zalando. I am very happy to have her on the interview today. (1:32)

Alexey: Welcome to the show. I already told everyone that you have so many years of experience leading teams and working in many enterprise companies. Can you tell us about your career journey? How did you get there? What did you study? (2:06)

Alexey: What was your career path to get where you are right now? (2:25)

Maryam: That is a good question. If I want to talk about my career journey, the whole hour will finish. (2:27)

Alexey: We will keep it short. (2:31)

Maryam: I can summarize it a little bit. I am originally from Iran where I was born and raised. Unlike western countries and unlike how people think, women study much more there in technical majors. I started doing my bachelor degree in electrical engineering. After that I felt I was really interested in going into computer science and doing a little bit more with data. (2:33)

Maryam: That is when I wanted to do my master degree. I found an interdisciplinary major where you could study a little bit of business, data, and engineering. I was very curious to do that but I talked with my professors and they told me I would not get expert knowledge. They said it was useless and to continue my electrical engineering background. I felt this time I wanted to really follow my passion. (3:04)

Maryam: When I wanted to study my first major I was interested in computer science but they told me I was really good and had to do electrical engineering. At that time it was very hot. Sorry I turned on my fan because it is very hot. I thought it was going to be cooler but it is not. (3:35)

Alexey: You would wish. (3:56)

Maryam: It is not getting as cool as I thought. My first time really doing a data project was when I did my master thesis in a data mining project called prefetching web pages. At that time the reason was not really personalization but more because the internet was so slow. You wanted to know the next page the customer wants so you can prefetch it. That later changed to become web personalization. (4:03)

Maryam: When I was doing that I was very interested in the topic and I fell in love with how you do data mining. I started using the log files from my university and did a lot of analysis on that. I decided to do my PhD on the topic. I went to the US to Chicago DePaul University in the web intelligence lab where Bamshad Mobasher was a pioneer in web personalization. He started this center for creating recommender systems and web personalization. (4:34)

Maryam: I started my PhD there. After three years I came to Europe mostly for personal reasons. I met my husband at IBM Research New York while I was doing research work and he was an exchange student. That is how I came to Germany in 2009. First I was in research continuing to work on semantic web ontologies. (5:12)

Maryam: Then I joined a startup company called Nugg ad where we were building a data management platform for ad tech. It was basically about creating audiences for advertising. If you go to different pages we would recognize you are interested in travel or identify a woman in a specific age range. These were the audiences we were building and I was a data scientist there. One of the technologies we built at that time was very unique because all the data management platforms were twenty four hours delayed. (5:39)

Maryam: What we built was real time in 2011. At that time having real time technology was very special. The company was acquired by an American company because they were very interested. They wanted to bring this technology from only Germany to the globe. That is when I changed to product management from data science because I wanted to help them build the technology in a new tech stack. (6:11)

Maryam: I knew the nitty gritty details of the technology and the models. I was also very good at translating what needs to be built for the customers and the developers. From there I moved to Adidas as a director of marketing intelligence. When I joined it was the early days of Adidas wanting to really increase their direct to consumer business. Before that Adidas was a huge brand with a lot of wholesale but e commerce was not something anyone thought about as a real business. (6:45)

Building ML Systems at Adidas

Maryam: This was something Adidas wanted to change. When I joined there was no customer data and no real data science. These are the things I built there from scratch. I started building the customer data by bringing all of it across different channels from email, web, and the app. I created a full 360 degree customer data platform and built data and machine learning models on top of them for personalization. (7:07)

Maryam: Do you want to know the rest of the story? (7:54)

Alexey: Maybe briefly because this is pretty interesting. You worked at Zalando and Delivery Hero at pretty high positions. For me it would be interesting to see your career trajectory because the next questions I am going to ask will be based on top of that. From Adidas in 2015 to now it has been more than ten years. Just briefly you can tell us what you did. (8:00)

Maryam: Absolutely. I started at Adidas in 2015 and left around 2021. I really loved Adidas. It is a beautiful company with a very great culture. I am still very proud of what we built there. (8:37)

Alexey: Do you have a discount? (8:55)

Maryam: Yes, of course. Any of these companies you work for you get the discount. You can get up to a forty percent discount. You even have sample sales where you get really beautiful products for 5 euros. My family was very upset when I left Adidas. (8:55)

Alexey: You joined Zalando where you can get the same discount for Adidas and many more things. (9:14)

Maryam: You do not have sample sales which is a big difference. Sample sales are when the developers or product managers want to know if a product will work. They create a product but it is not in mass production so it is very cheap. You might sometimes get very unique things that never actually came to the market. (9:19)

Alexey: It is different to be on a real brand part versus Zalando. (9:42)

Maryam: Zalando has a really good forty percent discount. (9:49)

Alexey: What did you do at Zalando after Adidas? (9:54)

Maryam: I first went to Sky after Adidas. In Adidas I was responsible for data science, CRM analytics, and customer analytics. I was focused on the business side of data science. Then I went to Sky where I was responsible for the full end to end data. Sky is where you can watch videos. (10:02)

Alexey: Game of Thrones was streamed through Sky. (10:26)

Maryam: Exactly. The main reason people buy Sky is because they want to watch football and the Bundesliga. (10:26)

Alexey: There is also a fiction part to it. I think Game of Thrones was through Sky because I saw posters everywhere. It is basically a TV network. (10:40)

Maryam: It was recently bought by RTL. Before when I joined it was a part of Sky UK which is very big. I was responsible as a chief data officer for Germany reporting to the global chief data officer. My responsibility included everything data related, such as data engineering, data architecture, and platform. From there I moved to GoStudent which was a startup. (10:51)

Maryam: I was responsible for everything in data at this startup company. It was either take it or leave it. I could become a millionaire or I could lose my job, which the second one is usually more possible. From there I went to Delivery Hero and after that Zalando. In Delivery Hero I was responsible for marketing analytics. (11:22)

Maryam: It was basically everything because both in Delivery Hero and Zalando analytics and data are a little bit domain oriented. Some companies have centralized everything. Companies which are a bit more modern in their structure return to the distributed way. Marketing has its own analytics team in Delivery Hero. In Zalando I had the same role in product analytics. (11:44)

Maryam: My responsibility was everything happening on the Zalando website. I looked at how we test, how we collect customer data, and customer segmentation. I was mainly helping the company with AI transformation. (12:18)

Generative AI vs Big Data Era

Alexey: You have been in the industry since 2010 or 2011. You have seen a lot of things and it has changed a lot. Everyone is adopting AI right now. How drastic is the change and how did it alter the way things work? (12:49)

Maryam: That is a very good question. Sometimes when I see how people talk or what happens I get deja vu from 2015 when Adidas wanted to first have big data. They wanted to do big data and released requests for proposals to find who was going to do it for us. Coming from a very ad tech background sometimes I feel the same way now. This is the journey that companies have gone through. (13:03)

Maryam: There was big data and then digital transformation which many companies have done. This AI transformation seems to be the next level. It is a lot about not only using these tools but how it really changes the operating model of the companies. AI is very powerful so there is absolutely no doubt it will change the way companies work. What I have seen so far is a lot of companies doing micro optimization in terms of how teams work individually. (13:39)

Maryam: This includes taking meeting notes or following up, which have been revolutionized by AI. The core business of what the company really does has still not taken that shape of changing. Companies have started adopting AI to see how they can do that. It is obviously impacting a lot of the code parts. I have not seen a company that fully gives it to Claude without checking it, although I hear some companies are doing that. (14:23)

Maryam: The ones I have been in are usually using it as a copilot while the engineers are still in the loop and understand what is happening. Changing the full core of what the company does has not completely happened. It is very fast changing the role of the people who are working on specific tasks. You can obviously see this in the data roles. (15:05)

Alexey: If we compare the big data time when everyone said to do Hadoop and Spark, I can see some parallels with the AI hype right now. Everyone was just trying to sell you a Hadoop distribution back then and now they are trying to sell you AI solutions. What is different between these two things is the expectations companies have on the individual level. When it comes to developers, it seems the expectations are that everyone is an AI empowered generalist. Previously you were a data scientist, but now you can do anything from creating a Linux kernel to developing web apps even if you had no prior knowledge. (15:37)

Alexey: The expectations from managers are shifting from just doing your job to being more productive with these AI tools. There is also a push from management for people to use AI more. Do you see this too and is there a shift happening in many companies? What should individuals do with this? (16:35)

Maryam: Over the last year I have never seen people so stressed and unhappy about the job situation. This includes people who are on a job and those who are looking for one. I get a lot of requests for career coaching and I try to support people on how to land a job or what to do when they are in one. I hear a lot from people who are frustrated applying for many things and not getting answers. People on a job feel stress and anxiety over the expectations placed on them. (17:07)

Maryam: Top managers see where Claude is or hear the news, but they do not see how it is changing the work and they push a lot. Roles are changing and we need to find how to cope and adapt to it. The blurring of lines you mentioned is something I also observe a lot. Previously we had specific roles like data analyst, analytics engineer, data engineer, and platform engineer. Now you see these roles blurring and coming together. (17:54)

T-Shaped Data Engineering Roles

Maryam: Those who will succeed are the ones who create a T shaped profile. They need to create a core strength they are really good at. They can say they are so good they can judge if this AI work is correct or not, whether it is SQL code or anything else. The other part is blending these other skills together. It can be how close they are to the business and understanding the domain. (18:39)

Maryam: It can also be getting more technical to understand how to bring these AI tools and platforms to enable the rest of the company. (19:20)

Alexey: This T shaped thing is not a new concept. We heard it was a good idea to be a T shaped profile five or ten years ago. My background is data science, so you are good at data science but it is also a good idea to understand software engineering, data engineering, data analysis, and product management. You do not have to be an expert there, but your core expertise is data science and it is good to understand all other things. My impression is right now this T becomes very broad. (19:37)

Alexey: With AI I do not have any knowledge about assembly language, but if I want I can just go and implement whatever I need. Does it change the expectations from individuals? If I am a manager who needs to hire new data engineers, I can just give my current data engineer access to Claude and expect them to become twenty times more productive. I can say here is this Claude subscription, we are not hiring anyone new because now we expect you to deliver twenty times more. Do you see this happening? (20:14)

Maryam: I do absolutely see that happening a lot. The work that was being done before still has customers, but there are also new things coming. The old work is there and the new work arrives. Take dashboards as an example, where the business intelligence person had to create them and do the ETL. Now there are a lot of talk to data solutions. (21:09)

Maryam: I think the future will be without dashboards and people will go ask their questions directly. You can put Claude on top of your database for people to ask questions. That analyst still has to manage those dashboards because some people use them. They are also expected to potentially do these new things or create new pipelines with code. That is definitely happening. (21:41)

Maryam: Is your question how to deal with that? (22:09)

Alexey: Exactly. You mentioned it creates a lot of stress and anxiety. You mentor people and have career consultations where they ask how to cope and adapt to this situation. What is your recommendation? (22:15)

Maryam: That is a very good question. First of all I do not have a crystal ball to say what the future is and which direction to go. The most important thing everyone has to face in this new era of AI is uncertainty and change. We as humans are not comfortable with uncertainty. We want to have something we are sure about and know where to go. (22:32)

Maryam: To change your mindset and become more comfortable with uncertainty is to work on resilience and adaptability. It is not about knowing what will happen in the future, but focusing on what you can do at that moment. You take small steps toward something that feels good for you. You need to fight against perfectionism or thinking you must know the exact direction for the next five years. You just take a really small step towards something you want to try and see. (23:06)

Maryam: It is about thinking about prototyping or making an example without being too worried about failure. This is what I call fail forward. You learn to bounce back because failure is just another step toward success. This is something I learned with hard lessons. As a kid I was very hardworking and always did the hard work. (23:56)

Overcoming Perfectionism in Tech

Maryam: I believed I would be successful if I did the things I needed to do. I was always a top student scoring twenty out of twenty in Iran. I thought this would be enough for me at work, believing hard work pays back. There are a lot of other elements when you come to a corporate world. It is not just the hard work that pays back. (24:04)

Maryam: You are in a company with a lot of other people, expectations, stakeholders, managers, and change. It was hard for me to hear the first time that I had not delivered what I needed to deliver. Learning how to fail is one of the very important skills. Learning how to fail forward is doing what you think is right at the moment, moving ahead, and taking your next steps. (25:02)

Alexey: It is interesting that you bring this up. I have a Substack publication where I publish something every Friday. The idea I had last week was to talk about projects that did not make it. I start a project with a lot of ambitions, and now with AI I can experiment a lot. Most projects actually do not make it. (25:35)

Alexey: In this article I wrote about six projects I stopped working on. (26:02)

Maryam: What is the definition of not making it? (26:09)

Alexey: I had some ideas for the project and a vision of how it would be used. I create a prototype but it just does not do what I want. I see it is not what I wanted and I kill the idea. Another thing is you have a prototype that is kind of working. You start investing a lot of time and energy into making it work. (26:16)

Alexey: It becomes so complicated that you do not know what to do and it just does not work. Another thing could be developing a project where it works at the end, but you do not actually use it. I was reflecting on all these patterns. It turned out not to be a waste of time just because the project did not make it. I learned something from every single project. (26:55)

Alexey: Individually the projects failed, but I extracted useful things from them. For some projects the way I approached dealing with them helped me deal with future projects. What I learned from the project was useful. (27:27)

Maryam: It is very much dependent on the definition of a project making it. That is why I was asking you about that. AI is making things simple and there are so many brilliant ideas from founders creating things. I see these nice ideas and think I will be a customer of those. This is becoming more common as I see a lot of solo entrepreneurs. (27:46)

Maryam: Because it is becoming simpler, there are a lot of people doing these things. It becomes more difficult to distribute and bring it to the level of success that previous technologies had. Previously you had an idea, created an app, and got millions or billions of users, but that does not happen as easily anymore. The definition of product success is changing. If you change the definition of success to learning something and doing something meaningful, it makes a difference. (28:19)

Maryam: You try to understand your values, your purpose, and what you want to do. As long as you are traveling toward that, it is not a failure even if it does not become incredibly successful. Learning is a big thing. I wanted to show you a book I am using now called Designing Your Life. I use this book with people who are trying to find their next step in their career. (28:58)

Maryam: I combine its concepts with what I have learned through data companies and organizations. I try to help data professionals understand how this transformation is going to work. The way it is organized is that the first thing you do is assess where you are. You look at the level of happiness you have in your work, your life, and your health. (29:34)

Design Thinking for Data Careers

Alexey: Can you finish the steps so we can try to walk through them and apply them to my situation? (30:34)

Maryam: Let us do that. The full concept is using design thinking for your career and life. The idea of design thinking is that you do not just have one version to create something. It is not like engineering where you have specific requirements and create something based on them. In design thinking you create a lot of different versions and ideas to understand which one matches where you want to go. (30:38)

Maryam: The first step is seeing where you are. The next step is creating your life and work vision. What does life mean for me and what does work mean for me? For some people work is only something that creates money. For somebody else work is something that helps create connections with other people. (31:01)

Maryam: For somebody else work might mean creating value for the world. You also write your life view to understand why you are here. This gets a little philosophical and spiritual, but I like it. I feel the more you can align why you are working with why you are living, the happier you will be. When you have these two things, one step is to follow your energy. (31:21)

Maryam: You look at your current work to see what activities give you energy and what drains your energy. You identify when you feel a state of flow. With all this information you go to the first step of design thinking, which is creating three versions of what you could be. One of these versions is necessarily something that has nothing to do with what you are currently doing. It is totally different. (31:53)

Maryam: Assume nothing from what you currently do exists and think about what you would do. From there you do a lot of brainstorming to write down the things you would do. The next step is prototyping, which is interesting because many people think the way to find a job is to write a lot of resumes. They send a lot of job requests and hopefully get an interview, but that is maybe not the most successful way. In prototyping you do not need to start something exactly to know how the job is. (32:30)

Maryam: You can actually get a little bit of experience in that area. Exactly as you prototype a product, you prototype your career. It can just be an interview with a person doing this job somewhere else, or it can be shadowing. There are a lot of different options for how you can prototype that thing. The most important thing is to know what your next step is. (33:11)

Maryam: There is not only one version of the best thing you are going to get. There are a lot of options and you just want to take the next step that brings you closer to one of these futures. From there you build the next chapter of your career. (33:42)

Alexey: That is interesting. Does this book walk you through this entire process? (34:06)

Maryam: Yes, this book is doing that. I am also bringing this as a workshop for people because it is more meaningful when you do it in a group. If you have a group where you share your three options, the way you talk about something allows people to see the spark in your energy. They can also ask you questions. The idea is that it is better if you do this in a group. (34:12)

Maryam: I am helping people find their way and creating connections where they can share. (34:35)

Alexey: You do these workshops. If somebody wants to do this workshop with you they can reach out to you. Do you do this in person? (34:41)

Maryam: At the moment we were doing it a little more focused on women, but of course if we have a lot of interested people we can do that. We did it in person in Berlin, but I was also thinking you can do it online. I have a page on my website where people can drop their name if they are interested. If I see a lot of people interested we can do an online version. The ones we did were with a small group of women building a community in data analytics and AI in Berlin. (34:48)

Maryam: That was our first instance, but we can expand it to other people. (35:26)

Alexey: That is very interesting that you mentioned design thinking because I am also gravitating towards this approach. The problem I have right now is that I teach a lot and want my students to be successful. One of the success criteria I can measure immediately after the course is how many actually did a project. The project is not a mandatory part, but I want to see how many people finish with one. For me this is the success criteria I want to optimize for because I want people to build things after the course. (35:38)

Alexey: I started thinking how exactly I can solve this problem and design thinking was the approach I found practical. It helps you find a problem in your life that you can solve. If you solve this problem as a course project, you are motivated to solve it during the course and continue developing it. The approach I am trying to use is having people ask themselves what kind of problems they or someone around them has. They look for problems they can solve now with generative AI. (36:23)

Alexey: This is how I learn more about design thinking because it seems to work in this particular situation. (37:12)

Maryam: The idea is always to focus more on understanding the problem and having empathy with the user rather than going straight to the solution. Going through this process of brainstorming and prototyping helps you understand better. (37:25)

Alexey: Since I am an engineer I focus on designing the solution and how to apply it. Perhaps I need to apply design thinking to this problem. The interesting part is originally design thinking comes from designing real life objects. This watch I use for running tracks how fast I run and how many calories I burn. Somebody thought there is a problem because runners want to know their heart rate or how fast they run. (37:49)

Alexey: They probably had many different options and eventually settled down on the watch. In software engineering or product management we adopted these ideas. Now you are saying that it works not only for real life objects and product engineering but also for your own life. (38:20)

Maryam: Exactly. (38:51)

Managing Tech Career Anxiety

Alexey: That is pretty cool. You gave an outline, so can we try to do something with this? Do I have to have a problem, stress, or uncertainty in my life to do this? If I am satisfied with what I do right now should I still try to attempt this exercise? (38:59)

Maryam: I think it is a little bit of character because some people like to think and design their future. Even if you are fully happy with everything, you might think about how your next five years would look. There are also some people who are fine taking things as they come. I do not think you necessarily need to have a problem to do it. You can just measure the things in your life. (39:30)

Maryam: There are four categories which are your work, play, health, and career. You might find that you are not playing enough. Play is anything that is not the other things, just doing something because you have fun. If you see that is the area you need to improve, you would work on that instead of your career. (40:07)

Alexey: I am pretty satisfied with what I do work wise, but I still have things that worry me. I really like what I do, but there is a lot of uncertainty in doing business. Right now I am self employed so I always have to have customers. Sometimes a big customer stops paying and stops being a customer because they reconsider their budget. It has already happened to me a few times and it was not easy to continue. (40:50)

Alexey: I managed to continue, but I still have this fear that it may happen again. The fear I have is if it happens, do I need to go find a job? If I need to find a proper engineering job I might be rusty. I would need to prepare for coding interviews and solve coding problems. I am very rusty and I do not really want to do this. (41:36)

Alexey: I realize that if it happens I will have trouble finding a job. I do not know how true this is, but sometimes this is what I think. I really enjoy what I do, but because of AI and other things there is a lot of uncertainty that does not go away. This is probably not a unique problem at all. (42:23)

Maryam: I hear this exactly as you said it in a lot of different contexts. The first thing I would say is never decide based on fear. If you focus on what you fear will happen, your brain goes in the wrong direction and stops you from being creative. Put the fear apart and just imagine what you really want to do with what you are currently enjoying. Identify the things you are fully enjoying and want to expand. (42:50)

Maryam: I truly believe if you work on something you have a passion for and see that future, you will get there. You do not need to keep your mind so busy with fear. You can say this is the direction I am already going, so my goals could be three different versions of what this will be. You shape those things to get to a better version of what you are doing rather than starting with fear. Fear will drain your energy. (43:35)

Alexey: You mentioned creating three prototypes or three different versions, and one has to be totally different from what you do. (44:17)

Maryam: Yes, if you wanted to do this, it is totally different. (44:30)

Aligning Passion with Tech Skills

Alexey: Another worry is that this all makes sense, but I need money. My client leaves and I do not have any money to pay for my flat in Berlin or my mortgage. How do I get this money? If I just start thinking about what I enjoy and can expand on, I will actually have to have a job. (45:07)

Maryam: It is not just about enjoying, it is about having more success getting that money if you put your energy toward a job you will succeed in. Sometimes the brain says you need to do something specific. For example, maybe you are a business analyst interested in strategy, but you think you need to become an engineer because it is the hot area. I do not think that will create success because you are pushing yourself to something that will not bring out your best. If you enjoy what you are doing right now despite the risks, you will find more creative ways to do something you really like to avoid those risks. (45:16)

Maryam: You will figure out how to make it more resilient against one customer not paying rather than doing something totally different that will drain your energy. The more you put your energy and brain toward something that gives you energy, the better success you will have. It is not about ignoring the money part, it is about thinking how to get money from what you are good at. You are good at what you really enjoy doing. (46:00)

Alexey: Let us say I enjoy teaching, which has been the focus for this community for a couple of years. We do courses, so I really like teaching. I can consider multiple scenarios. How do I derisk the current situation and continue doing what I want? The second scenario is what do I do if I actually have to do something else, which could still be teaching. (46:33)

Alexey: There is a position called DevRel where I can work for a company, continue teaching, and do what I enjoy. The third option would be something completely different. (47:11)

Maryam: We cannot just do the whole exercise in ten minutes. You need to spend time and have free brain time where you really think. You do a lot of brain mapping where you write down the activities you like independent of work. There is a bit more to do, and some things might come to your mind right now. I do not know if it is something for you at this point in your life. (47:24)

Maryam: Maybe you are happy and just want to know how to get more customers, which is a different question. My suggestion is to go to those arbitrage courses because they pay very well and seem very successful. Independent of that, I can send you some forms from this book which you can also find on the website. If you want, you can do the exercises by yourself or I can invite you to one of the workshops. (48:02)

Alexey: That would be ideal. You mentioned the focus is more on women, but eventually you might expand. (48:37)

Maryam: Of course, if I see there are more people who are interested, we can do something. That is just the starting point for me. (48:43)

Alexey: While I took this opportunity to share my personal story and get something for myself, I also want to make this podcast useful for others. Most people listening to this podcast are probably in a different situation, like juniors looking for a job right now. There is a question from someone who got laid off twenty days ago with four and a half years of experience. They are asking how to approach the job search process. This is a very different and more pressing situation. (48:56)

Job Search Strategies After Layoffs

Alexey: How would we approach this situation? (50:18)

Maryam: First of all, it is really hard to get laid off. I have a lot of empathy because I have also been laid off several times and I know it is painful. The first thing is the resilience we talked about. Do not look at this as a failure or a personal failure. It is not about you, it is about the situation. (50:24)

Maryam: Sometimes it might be that you did something wrong, but it does not mean you do not have the skill. The first thing is to really know who you are, what you stand for, and what you can offer. The job search situation is difficult right now. There are a lot of people looking for jobs and many companies are getting very conservative. They are expecting the people who are there to do everything, which makes it difficult for job seekers. (50:41)

Maryam: Try to identify the area you are really strong in along with the other pieces of knowledge around it. AI is especially important, and if they are in your course, they are in the right place learning new skills. The most important thing is to upskill yourself with new technology. The next part is to create a network. Since there are so many applicants, having a strong network helps you create relevant connections. (51:26)

Maryam: This can even involve a volunteering project to show your skills. It is about educating yourself, volunteering, and being patient with yourself. Find things that will make you feel valuable as a person. It might not be a paying job right away, and I know it is hard if you have to pay for a flat. Find something you can do using your skills to deliver value for others, which gives you a feeling of achievement. (52:11)

Maryam: In tech jobs people will ask what you did, and showing a completed project that is being used is very valuable. It is much more valuable than just learning a lot of things without a real example to show. (52:59)

Alexey: In this situation, you first recognize it is not about you. Second, you upskill yourself. When you learn a new skill, try to build a project that would be useful for somebody. Do not just make another to do app, but approach it intending to solve a problem for yourself or someone you know personally. (53:32)

Maryam: This is what I was saying with volunteering. There are a lot of nonprofits that need a person to improve their website or app. These projects give you a sense of fulfillment while being useful for a community. Of course, you can also follow this design process if you have time. People do not necessarily need to do it with me, they can do it with the book or read about it. (54:03)

Maryam: If I get enough people signing up on my website, we can definitely do a workshop. (54:41)

Alexey: If I got laid off, do you think this is the right moment for me to take a step back and design my life? (54:48)

Maryam: Absolutely. It is mostly for people who have been laid off or are frustrated in their current job. When you asked if it was good for you, I was not sure. For people thinking about their next step, being laid off or frustrated in a current job are very good moments to use this for your next level. (54:54)

Alexey: There is another question, and it might take a bit more than two minutes, but I am still interested to see if you have an opinion. A junior is asking about starting a junior role, but it feels very overwhelming. Right now with AI there are a lot of expectations and it is just overwhelming. In this AI era, how do you get a job and excel at it? (55:28)

Essential Soft Skills for Juniors

Maryam: I know it is very difficult for juniors right now. There are not many companies hiring juniors. The most important skills you need include the resilience we talked about. Seek feedback, fail forward, ask for help, and bounce back. If you do not get an interview or get rejected, do not feel it is a failure, but get your energy back. (56:03)

Maryam: The next thing that is getting really important is your personal communication and storytelling skills. When you go to a job interview, it is super important how you present yourself and what story you tell. Really work on improving your communication skills and try to understand business domains. Try to make a story of how your skills will help that business domain. The other thing is curiosity. (56:50)

Maryam: AI is moving fast and changing so much that nobody knows everything. It is really about being curious, embracing change, and keeping learning. (57:18)

Alexey: Thank you. Unfortunately we do not have time to talk about more, but I took so many notes. For every single point I want to ask a follow up question, but we do not have time. What you can do is open ChatGPT in dictation mode and dump as much information about yourself as possible. Then ask how you can apply design thinking, use things from this book, or get better at storytelling in your situation. (57:37)

Alexey: The recommendation it gives is not necessarily going to be stellar, but it will give you a direction. I find this very useful for myself, especially using dictation mode to dump as much information as I can for five or ten minutes. It provides a lot of context to give something useful back. This is what I recommend anyone try if you have follow up questions. We discussed so many things packed with information and I wish we could continue, but we only have sixty minutes. (58:21)

Alexey: Thanks for listening to me and being patient. (58:53)

Maryam: Thank you so much for having me. It was very interesting to learn more about your situation. That was very nice. I hope everyone enjoyed it too. The book is called Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. (58:59)

Maryam: You can link my website and there is a page for workshops where you can sign up. If you are interested in joining a workshop, I will see how many people there are. There is one for online and one for Berlin. If we see a lot of people interested, I am happy to run one for the people from here. (59:21)

Alexey: Thank you Maryam. Have a great day and it was nice to talk to you. See you around. (59:47)