Connect with Carolina Baquero on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hugocastellanos/
Connect with Hugo Castellanos on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolinabaquerov
Join our Discord Community: https://latinos-who-tech.captivate.fm/discord
Sign up for our mailing list and attend our next virtual networking event: https://latinos-who-tech.captivate.fm/email
0:00 - Intro and catching up after a hiatus
3:46 - Interview starts
4:19 - Carolina's background: Ecuador, DR, NYC
6:08 - Is Remote Work isolating? Does it have to be that way?
10:21 - Hosting meetups and ways to build community
11:40 - Getting Hired as a remote worker
13:25 - Why Carolina is so passionate about remote work: a personal story
19:25 - Is Silicon Valley overrated in 2023? Do you need to move there to work in tech anymore?
22:33 - Different company sizes for different experiences
23:54 -The Miami Tech Community
27:58 - Return to the office and conflict
30:56 - Productivity and salary stagnation
32:57 - How to find a remote job in 2023
36:08 - RemoteOK and async jobs
38:00 - Working at Twitter vs working at LinkedIn or a startup
40:39 - How to deal with imposter syndrome
44:09 - The brag sheet - a tool to help you remember your accomplishments
/Welcome to a new episode of Latinos.
Hugo:Holtec
Hugo:my name is
Hugo:After a long hiatus, we're back with a fourth season of the podcast.
Hugo:And I'm extremely happy to be back.
Hugo:Thank you for patience and thank you for your attention.
Hugo:If this is your first time listening to the episodes of Latinos who
Hugo:tech E this is a podcast about Latinos in the technology industry.
Hugo:I do informational interviews with folks that work at companies in Silicon valley.
Hugo:And across the world and I asked them about their stories.
Hugo:How they got to where they are now and what would they do differently
Hugo:with information they know now.
Hugo:So we speak with people at places like Google.
Hugo:Facebook linkedIn, Microsoft, all these companies, startups as well.
Hugo:And we talk about.
Hugo:Technology topics and career development.
Hugo:And my emphasis is in giving you tools so you can take
Hugo:your career to the next level.
Hugo:And in this new season of the podcast, we have 12 episodes ready to share
Hugo:with you about remote work aI.
Hugo:How to land remote job, all these topics that I think are
Hugo:top of mind for folks right now.
Hugo:And I'm very happy to be back.
Hugo:I am going to have an episode about the major life changes
Hugo:I've been going through.
Hugo:And that's part of the reason for the hiatus.
Hugo:So I moved from California to Florida joined millions
Hugo:of people working remotely.
Hugo:But a house got married.
Hugo:I have a whole episode about that and that will be coming up soon.
Hugo:In the meantime I spoke with my friend Catalina Marquetto in this episode.
Hugo:She's Ecuadorian, Dominican American and.
Hugo:We spoke about.
Hugo:In the meantime, I made this episode with my friend Catalina.
Hugo:Marquetto from LinkedIn.
Hugo:She's a product marketing manager working out of the Miami office and we spoke about
Hugo:remote work and her experience doing it.
Hugo:And before I, we go to the episode, I want to let you know
Hugo:that we have a discord community.
Hugo:For folks that want to meet other Latinos working in tech.
Hugo:And you can find that in the show notes for this episode.
Hugo:I also have a email list that you can sign up.
Hugo:And that will let you know when we host meetups virtual
Hugo:meetups or any online events.
Hugo:And if you want to give me feedback about these episodes, these content.
Hugo:The best way to do it is to write me an email.
Hugo:At hello@latinosholtec.com.
Hugo:You can also leave us five stars on Spotify.
Hugo:Or write us a review in apple podcasts.
Hugo:I'm always happy to read your feedback.
Hugo:I think of feedback as a gift because.
Hugo:The feedback you gave me.
Hugo:We'll help me do a better job.
Hugo:It's gonna.
Hugo:Help me improve my life and help me improve this content that I make for you.
Hugo:So here's the episode with Catalina.
Hugo:Maketto.
Hugo:Thank you.
Hugo:Welcome to another episode of Latino Su Tech.
Hugo:My name is s and today we have Carolina Vaquero from Miami and very
Hugo:excited to have this conversation.
Hugo:Yeah, we already did the episode in Spanish, so I'm curious, and how
Hugo:things are gonna happen in English, since we are code switching and we're
Hugo:gonna get some comments about that.
Hugo:People like, oh, why didn't you do it in Spanish?
Hugo:And go to the episode we did in Spanish and you can check it out.
Hugo:It's already there.
Caro:Yeah.
Caro:Thank you so much for having me.
Caro:Thank you so much for having me, OGO.
Caro:I'm so excited.
Caro:And yeah I'm curious to see what the difference is gonna be between the
Caro:English and the Spanish, and also because, I, we'll talk about this
Caro:later, but we're different people when we talk to different languages,
Caro:so that'll be super interesting.
Caro:But thank you for having me again.
Caro:I appreciate it.
Hugo:You, this is your space.
Hugo:Thank you for making the time.
Hugo:I appreciate it.
Hugo:I know they keep you busy at LinkedIn, so we, yeah.
Hugo:Yeah.
Hugo:So tell me a bit about yourself and, how do you break into tech?
Caro:Yeah, of course.
Caro:So a little bit about myself from the top as well is I'm Ecuadorian,
Caro:my entire family is Ecuadorian.
Caro:I was born in New York grew up between Ecuador and Dominican Republic.
Caro:I moved there, I don't have family there, but moved there
Caro:when I was about 10 years old.
Caro:Finished high school, then came to Miami to do college.
Caro:So I actually went to college in Miami at F I U, go Panthers.
Caro:Then I moved to New York for a hot minute, for three minutes.
Caro:That's where I started my career.
Caro:I started in book publishing.
Caro:A lot of people don't believe that.
Caro:They're like, what?
Caro:And then I went to Twitter as a contractor for six months and that really was my
Caro:training back into to learn about tech.
Caro:And after that, pandemic happened, hiring freezes happened.
Caro:Very scary time.
Caro:And then in October, 2020, I started at LinkedIn.
Caro:So it's actually.
Caro:Two year anniversary, I realized this week on LinkedIn.
Caro:This is very exciting.
Caro:And
Hugo:anniversary.
Caro:Thank you.
Caro:Thank you.
Caro:And coming back now at during the pandemic, I also was one of those
Caro:transplants, but I consider myself OG Miami, but I came back in 2020 to
Caro:Miami and have been here for also the entire time I've been at LinkedIn.
Caro:Yeah
Hugo:you were at Miami before.
Hugo:It was cool before the crypto bros took it
Caro:Exactly.
Caro:I'm og Yeah,
Hugo:That's awesome.
Hugo:So how is that situation for you, like working remote from Miami?
Hugo:While your teammates are spread out across the US and because LinkedIn
Hugo:is mostly in Silicon Valley, right?
Hugo:It's mostly in San Francisco and there's also that New York office.
Hugo:So I'm curious, how do you make that work?
Caro:Of course.
Caro:Yeah.
Caro:I am very proactive in how I live our company's culture.
Caro:First off, like at the beginning it was obviously very isolating and I find that
Caro:a lot of people, they find it isolating.
Caro:They feel like, I'm not in the office, I'm missing out things.
Caro:I'm not seeing leadership, so maybe I'm missing out on my
Caro:growth and my career progression.
Caro:That has not been my experience at all.
Caro:My team is dispersed across the us.
Caro:We're everywhere.
Caro:We're in Sunnyvale, in San Francisco, in Bay Area, in South California,
Caro:in Chicago, and New York in Miami.
Caro:There's someone in Fort Lo, also right here in South Florida as well.
Caro:So none of us get that.
Caro:Oh, I talk to my boss every day so I have a leg up.
Caro:Like none of us get that situation.
Caro:So that's on the Workfront.
Caro:I try, I travel a lot.
Caro:I love traveling.
Caro:So when I do travel, for example, this summer I had a wedding at Sonno
Caro:in Sonoma, and I decided to work from our San Francisco office for the
Caro:entire week to get that FaceTime with our colleagues, get to know people,
Caro:and I do that with New York as well.
Caro:And then the kind of other part of it is that, of course you're here, you're in
Caro:Miami, you're in your bubble, you're in York Islands, and it's a beautiful life.
Caro:We, I get to go to the beach, it's sunny all the time.
Caro:It's good weather.
Caro:And I get to work in tech without having to be in Silicon Valley.
Caro:But we found out that we have 60 people, 60 LinkedIn people in South Florida.
Caro:So I've become yeah, it's a lot of people I've become officially
Hugo:like your own Miami e r g if you wanted to like
Caro:Yeah.
Caro:And what we have now, LinkedIn has put together a program which is the Remote
Caro:Community Champions for all the remote communities that we have across LinkedIn,
Caro:across the us I think there's also four countries that don't have an office.
Caro:And I've become the remote community champion for our South
Caro:Florida people, for those in Miami and for Lao and West Palm Beach.
Caro:So I organize volunteer events, happy hours, co-working.
Caro:So I've, it's, I understand where it comes from.
Caro:People say, I feel isolated.
Caro:I'm a little, but it just takes more effort when you're remote
Caro:making those connections.
Caro:And I know I've made that effort and that's why we have such a
Caro:beautiful community with our LinkedIn employees here in South Florida.
Caro:So there's a lot, you have to be very active and proactive in
Caro:how you approach this when you.
Hugo:That's fantastic.
Hugo:And yeah, and to echo that, sometimes it can be lonely.
Hugo:I'm in Orlando, when it was that exodus of people that moved from California to the
Hugo:East coast, a lot of them do Miami, that area, south Florida, like in my case, my
Hugo:family's in Orlando, central Florida area.
Hugo:So to me it was a easier fit.
Hugo:So I did find that a bit lonely in the beginning.
Hugo:And that's part of the reason why we opened that Latinos who
Hugo:Tech Disor and Slack communities.
Hugo:And it's just so nice to have other people that are like you, that are
Hugo:Latinos working remote that also, that don't happen to work at the
Hugo:same place you work at, because it's because you know when it's 6:00 PM
Hugo:like I don't wanna open the work slack.
Hugo:I want to disconnect.
Caro:exactly.
Hugo:you do want to have that network of people that understand what you're going
Hugo:through and you can do zoom happy hours or just do lunch meetups or things like that.
Hugo:But I think it's been a great time for people that to do, local communities,
Hugo:explore actual meetups and see there's actually, I, when we were deciding
Hugo:where to move in the East coast, we picked Nashville for a little bit.
Hugo:So we moved to Nashville for a month because again, it was this part of
Hugo:the, it was 20, late 2020, right?
Hugo:So nobody knew what was gonna, what was gonna happen when
Hugo:were vaccines gonna go out.
Hugo:And we found this meetup in Nashville.
Hugo:It was called I moved here from California and it was all California,
Hugo:like California expats, meeting up.
Caro:Oh, I love that.
Hugo:And it's about that, right?
Hugo:Getting your bearings because again, you can look up online like how to
Hugo:transfer my license plate or whatever.
Hugo:You can look up that online.
Hugo:But then like, how do I make friends if I didn't go to college here?
Caro:Yeah.
Caro:Yeah.
Hugo:Yeah.
Hugo:So that's part of the experience.
Caro:even I can share moving back to Miami, two and a half years ago
Caro:I went to college here, but most people left, my Dominican friends,
Caro:they went back to Dominican Republic.
Caro:Some other people went somewhere else in the US to live.
Caro:And funny enough, I have this really funny story of one friend,
Caro:really good friend, she's British and she lives in my building.
Caro:She's right here.
Caro:Upstairs.
Caro:We met at a book club from our building, and it's.
Caro:Everyone else is much older than us.
Caro:They're like 60 plus.
Caro:And then we saw each other and we're like, yeah, wow.
Caro:You're the young person.
Caro:And she's a healthcare economist.
Caro:Like we have completely different disciplines.
Caro:But that's how, you expose yourself.
Caro:If I wouldn't have decided, Hey, I like reading, let me go to the book club, then
Caro:I wouldn't have made those connections.
Caro:And similarly I posted about our, on LinkedIn, of course, our meetup
Caro:with Microsoft and LinkedIn, all the people who are here in Miami
Caro:and someone from Amazon responded and said Hey, let's get together.
Caro:We're doing a meetup with Google, with meta, with Salesforce, with this and that.
Caro:And then we did this whole meetup with a bunch of different people from tech.
Caro:And I just absolutely love it.
Caro:A lot of them are.
Caro:And we get to, it's Hey, let's talk in Spanish.
Caro:Let's break bread.
Caro:And it is really those opportunities that you meet people through
Caro:shared interests through, Hey, we all work in this industry, right?
Hugo:Definitely.
Hugo:Definitely.
Hugo:So when you landed your job, you were hired remote from the get-go.
Hugo:It wasn't like an a position that you need to go back to the office at any point.
Hugo:Like you're safe.
Hugo:You can stay, you can buy a, you can buy an apartment if you want
Caro:Funny enough, I wasn't that safe.
Caro:So when I was hired in October, 2020 I was a contractor and yes, I am
Caro:boarded completely remotely in Miami.
Caro:But everyone was still figuring out the whole, and we'll talk about this, the big.
Caro:Return to office versus work from home, which is still going on
Caro:right now at a lot of companies.
Caro:But LinkedIn was still in Microsoft by consequence, of course.
Caro:They were still determining what is our status quo, how are we managing this?
Caro:And actually 10 months later, I believe it was the summer of 2021,
Caro:was when we launched our hybrid approach of we trust each other to
Caro:work wherever it works best for us.
Caro:So before that, in like early 2021, I was thinking, are they gonna ask me to
Caro:move to San Francisco or to New York?
Caro:Like I really was like, Like over here am I gonna have to leave Miami?
Caro:And I don't think from my team there was ever that expectation, but everyone
Caro:was I don't know what's gonna happen and if we're gonna go back to the office.
Caro:So when I heard that decision and that our hybrid model came out, I
Caro:was like, okay, I can say Miami.
Caro:And the reason it's not I already moved to New York for job opportunity.
Caro:I already made that sacrifice and I'm young enough that I should do that again.
Caro:But I feel like why?
Caro:My family is in Dominican Republic.
Caro:The flight is an hour and 50 minutes and it's just so convenient for me to visit.
Caro:I go there like 12 times a year, like every month.
Caro:And they visit me here.
Caro:And it's just, it's all I want to work at LinkedIn.
Caro:I love the company, but I also love my family and I feel happy here.
Caro:So how can we meet in the middle, right?
Hugo:So is that why you're so passionate about remote work or is
Hugo:there like another layer to this?
Caro:There's a lot of layers there.
Caro:And I think there's a personal story that, funny enough, most people
Caro:don't really know of why I am just adamant that we figured this out in
Caro:a way that is convenient to everyone.
Caro:So the reason is, and this taking you back 2022, taking it back
Caro:to 2018, I was working in book publishing and it was super exciting.
Caro:I thought I was gonna be a book editor that I.
Caro:Saw that was not just not my passion and it wasn't where I wanted to go.
Caro:So while I'm working there as life would happen, big changes, things
Caro:happen outta nowhere and literally like the floor is taken from below you.
Caro:And I heard from my family, my mom had cancer and we were, she
Caro:was in Miami, I was in New York.
Caro:I'm in New York.
Caro:Let me figure out my career and ambitious.
Caro:And I'm probably what, 20, 22 years old at that time.
Caro:So I'm kinda like, yeah, career, let's do it.
Caro:And what happened was I talked to HR and during that time,
Caro:this is pre pandemic, right?
Caro:Remote work was the thing of this privileged elite who had the
Caro:benefit and all of us were here.
Caro:Like, how do I do that?
Caro:So they actually said, I.
Caro:Work remotely.
Caro:I asked Hey, I have this personal situation.
Caro:I really need to do this.
Caro:And they said, no, because you're not in the office.
Caro:We don't see you working.
Caro:No.
Caro:And what happened with my managers was that they said, okay
Caro:go work in Miami, like once a when you, whenever you need to.
Caro:I'm like, wait, they said no.
Caro:And they're like, go, just go.
Caro:I was like, oh, okay.
Caro:So everything was really on the down low.
Caro:It wasn't like allowed.
Caro:So it was a really tough time.
Caro:I was three weeks in New York, one week in Miami going back and forth, and
Caro:this happened, this was like six months and then we can fast forward a little.
Caro:2019.
Caro:I'm at Twitter, which is already in tech, right?
Caro:I'm a, but I'm a contractor as well.
Caro:So everything is still developing with my mom, like rounds and rounds of
Caro:chemotherapy, me traveling back and forth.
Caro:But still, there was an expectation.
Caro:You're in New York, you go to the office.
Caro:There was still that expectation.
Caro:You go to the office, you're supposed to be here, we're supposed to see you.
Caro:I was a contractor and I know you know this you just feel
Caro:like you have to do more.
Caro:You have to demonstrate your work.
Caro:You have to just show up even more than everyone else.
Caro:So I felt like I, I'm being pulled in two directions, right?
Caro:I need to be in Miami, want to be in Miami, but also I need to be here to
Caro:demonstrate that I can do this job to get the full-time, like the goal, right?
Caro:And then fast forward again into October, 2020.
Caro:I get the job after hiring freezes.
Caro:I was unemployed for six months.
Caro:I get the job on LinkedIn.
Caro:I'm ecstatic.
Caro:I love LinkedIn.
Caro:I've always loved the product.
Caro:I got my two jobs through LinkedIn, the one at Twitter, and the one at LinkedIn.
Caro:Funny enough.
Caro:And a month after I started at LinkedIn, my mom passes away.
Caro:And the incredible thing was that the p the approach.
Caro:So what I wanna put here is like the approaches, right?
Caro:Let's put it into comparison.
Caro:2018 in publishing absolute no to remote work.
Caro:And then fast forwarding October, nope, this is then November, 2022.
Caro:My team and the management, the people management on LinkedIn, they said, look
Caro:I don't even know what you're thinking about us right now, but thank you.
Caro:So take the time you need, let's talk about it.
Caro:We'll give you some time and then we can review.
Caro:Do you wanna come back?
Caro:Do you not wanna come back?
Caro:But everything was focused on me.
Caro:It was very people-centric.
Caro:And then they said if you don't wanna come back, like just
Caro:let us know, but we will work.
Caro:Around you.
Caro:And I think for me it's just this approach was like, wow.
Caro:I was like I love the company already because of what we do, because of our
Caro:vision, but now I'm like, I will be forever grateful to LinkedIn with how
Caro:they took care of me during that time.
Caro:And I think going back to the initial question, right?
Caro:Why am I passionate about remote work?
Caro:Because I feel like I made a lot of sacrifices to I had these two things in
Caro:my life, being with my mother, but also I had this career, it was very ambitious.
Caro:I wanted to be in tech and I need sacrifices.
Caro:And I wake up every day and I'm gonna face myself for the rest of my life
Caro:thinking, was this the right approach?
Caro:Was it not the right approach?
Caro:But, and I'm in peace with myself, which is a good thing, but I don't know that.
Caro:After two and a half years of this experiment of us working from home,
Caro:it is fair to ask people not only in this dire situation like mine, uproot
Caro:your life and move to Silicon Valley.
Caro:Take your family, your children, your partner with you leave your family
Caro:behind or all of these things just to have a chance to break into tech.
Caro:I really don't I'm at that point where I'm like, I don't, I had to
Caro:make those sacrifices, but I wouldn't wish that on anyone else after
Caro:we've proven that we can do this efficiently from Miami, for example.
Hugo:Definitely.
Hugo:And very sorry about your mom.
Hugo:I didn't know that then.
Caro:I
Hugo:I'm happy that you could spend some extra time with her and, and cope because,
Hugo:for us it's family first, it's it's part of our values, it's part of our culture.
Hugo:And and yeah, that's how you know that you are at the right place, at the right team.
Hugo:Somebody that, people that will be sympathetic and will actually
Hugo:learn that, hey, if you are not right, you cannot perform.
Hugo:If like this is more important than anything else, so yeah, no, thank you.
Hugo:Thank you for sharing that story.
Hugo:And I'm curious then so do you think that Silicon Valley's overrated, do
Hugo:you think that it's like not necessary, like now if you wanna say, get a career
Hugo:in tech let's explore that a bit.
Caro:Yeah, no, let's do it.
Caro:I, and I can tell you I'm the sole reason why I moved to New York
Caro:was because I graduated college and the job market in Miami was.
Caro:Like a graduate outta college.
Caro:There was a lot of us, especially graduating from the in business,
Caro:I graduated in English literature, but people going into wanting
Caro:to go into the same jobs and not enough jobs for everyone else.
Caro:So I, I made that move to New York and in those circumstances, four years ago,
Caro:a hundred percent you have to do that.
Caro:And we've all done that and a lot of people conversely moved to Silicon Valley.
Caro:But
Hugo:did that in 2011.
Hugo:I did it in 2011, and I did it in 2014.
Hugo:I went to Sacramento.
Hugo:I worked with Intel for a year for a co-op.
Hugo:Then I came back to Florida.
Hugo:I finished up my masters and got a job back in Oregon.
Hugo:So I had to move again to the west coast.
Hugo:And then I got another job in San Francisco.
Hugo:Okay, we west coast to West Coast, and then I stay there, because I'm like, okay,
Hugo:like I'm not moving back again East West.
Caro:no more
Hugo:But yeah.
Hugo:But again but again, like I'm showing my privilege, right?
Hugo:Because I, at the time I was single, didn't have kids, and I could, just put
Hugo:everything in my car and drive out west, drive out west boy, drive west, find,
Hugo:it's like the gold rush, kind of thing.
Hugo:Yeah.
Hugo:Yeah.
Hugo:Like I have a story about that actually.
Hugo:I got pulled over for by a cop in between Texas and New Mexico, cuz
Hugo:my license plate light was out.
Hugo:And, it's like the, it is it's like Texas Ranger, right?
Hugo:The guy has like a cowboy hat and, and I'm like, I feel like I'm in a movie and he's
Hugo:asking me Florida plates, where you going?
Hugo:I got a job out in California.
Hugo:I'm like, oh, is that all your stuff in the back?
Hugo:Yeah.
Hugo:Okay.
Hugo:Good luck son.
Hugo:And he let me go.
Hugo:They didn't gimme a ticket or nothing
Caro:Oh, that is so nice.
Caro:It's like you're going to the land of possibilities.
Caro:Good luck.
Hugo:yeah.
Hugo:That's how it felt like that's how you, that's how it felt like.
Hugo:And it is to some extent, I, I don't, again, I don't think it's I think it's the
Hugo:right place for the right kind of people.
Hugo:If you're fresh out of college, And your dream job is to again, be
Hugo:that software engineer at Google or any of those manga companies.
Hugo:Great.
Hugo:Do it, get it out of your system.
Caro:Why not?
Caro:Yeah.
Hugo:But for that mid-career professional, again, you have to,
Hugo:yeah, you have to balance it out.
Hugo:Does it make sense?
Hugo:Are you gonna get the ROI that you want?
Caro:Right.
Hugo:yeah.
Hugo:Like I know people that, and people like this too, that move from the doubling
Hugo:office in Ireland to San Francisco just because of career advancement.
Hugo:Just
Caro:met someone who just moved from Australia to New York.
Caro:Your job at LinkedIn?
Caro:For them it's exciting.
Caro:New York, but yeah.
Hugo:But there are people like that.
Hugo:There are people like that.
Hugo:But in our case that we already live, like in your case, New York, in my case
Hugo:the Bay Area, for us, it's like Czech.
Hugo:What's
Hugo:next?
Caro:Yeah.
Caro:And I can tell you the many times I get this question because I travel
Caro:a lot, I've moved a lot in my life.
Caro:I've so many people ask me like, would you, because they know I'm so
Caro:adamant about remote work, right?
Caro:I'm like, they ask me, would you move for an opportunity if there
Caro:was like the dream opportunity?
Caro:And I just, honestly, at the end of the day it's it's gonna be a no
Caro:for me because I'm already Exactly.
Caro:I'm already in the momentum.
Caro:I'm already in tech.
Caro:I'm in a company that I like I feel like here I'm gonna be able to grow and I'll.
Caro:Create the opportunities that I want, but I already did that.
Caro:You know what it's done I don't know what amazing opportunity, maybe a
Caro:certain company, maybe a startup.
Caro:I don't know.
Caro:And I never say never, but I know for a lot of people, no, not
Caro:only myself, it's a sacrifice.
Caro:You're sacrificing a lot, and I ask myself, do I wanna
Caro:make that sacrifice again?
Caro:The answer is no, most of the times.
Caro:Yeah,
Hugo:Yeah, no.
Hugo:Plus you already have your community, if you have your community, if
Hugo:you're building those roots there.
Hugo:Yeah.
Hugo:It's a, what was this for?
Hugo:Do I need to rebuild this again from the ground
Caro:Exactly.
Hugo:And I like to think that the next move that I make, I want
Hugo:to do it because, not because I'm running away from something, it
Hugo:is because I wanna go to the place
Caro:exactly.
Caro:Not because I have to for my career.
Caro:Because when you do that, it is like you're being pulled
Caro:in those two directions.
Caro:It's I don't wanna leave, but I feel like I have to.
Caro:And right now for me that I have to, I don't think I have to.
Caro:And I feel in my position right now with our community, I feel like first we
Caro:have a community that's building here.
Caro:And I feel like I have a big le leadership role in that.
Caro:And I like it.
Caro:I enjoy it very much.
Caro:And second, Miami is booming, like Miami is going to become a tech hub period.
Caro:Either people like it or they don't like it, or they're unhappy
Caro:about really high prices of rent.
Caro:Things are happening here in Miami that are very exciting and I just don't feel, I
Caro:think it would be a missed opportunity if I was like, right now, oh, let me go and
Caro:so many people, move to Silicon Valley, like that's a regular thing that you do.
Caro:But the way I am, I'm very adventurous.
Caro:I'm very like, wow, what the possibilities, right?
Caro:What could we build here in Miami as LinkedIn as our community, as
Caro:everyone else who's in tech here who moved from California and New York?
Caro:That it excites me much more than the idea of having to move
Caro:elsewhere to having the opportunity.
Caro:I feel like I have, I can build my own path here and
Caro:that's exciting to me at least.
Hugo:Definitely.
Hugo:Yeah.
Hugo:Plus there's something.
Hugo:Miami especially that it has, that is in that intersection, of it's almost like
Hugo:the capital of Latin America in a way.
Caro:Is the
Hugo:is like everybody from Latin America.
Hugo:Converges is north, most city of Latin America.
Caro:Latin America.
Caro:Yes.
Hugo:Yeah.
Caro:This is Latin
Hugo:is funny like that.
Hugo:Yeah.
Hugo:Florida is funny like that.
Hugo:And and personal I have a lot of good friends, you included that live in Miami.
Hugo:But in my case, like it's not my can of city because like in Orlando,
Hugo:like I, I live in a neighborhood that's dense, it's walkable.
Hugo:I have a nature reserve right here.
Hugo:And and in my case, like that's what I appreciate.
Hugo:But again, if I was 24 and like I, it's my first tech job in
Hugo:Miami, I'm like, that's exciting.
Hugo:That's exciting.
Hugo:But but it depends on what season of life you're at.
Caro:Yeah.
Caro:And I think
Hugo:but you're definitely, yeah, but you're definitely
Hugo:gonna see more of me there.
Hugo:Cause now that we're gonna have the high speed rail,
Caro:the prize line,
Hugo:you saw that they approved the high speed rail and it's gonna open in 2023.
Caro:Oh, I'm so excited about that because
Hugo:Yeah.
Hugo:So Bright Line is gonna go all the way to all the way to Disney.
Caro:Oh my God.
Caro:Oh, that is very smart.
Caro:But also I enjoy driving, I love driving, but four hours to Orlando and
Caro:you think about it like you have to think, you have to make a weekend of it.
Caro:So having the train, that's just that's a great idea.
Caro:And.
Hugo:you're in a train with wifi and you can just do your
Hugo:email or whatever and Yeah.
Hugo:Like a Fri Friday.
Hugo:Just go up and you know you're your weekend.
Caro:Oh, my friend, my British friend that I mentioned before,
Caro:she's gonna be so excited.
Caro:She's all about the bride line.
Caro:I haven't been yet.
Caro:She's oh my God, it's so nice.
Caro:It's exciting, and I drank some wine and da.
Caro:So I were happy to have you here more often.
Caro:And what I was gonna mention, Miami, this it's a completely different city.
Caro:Like I moved out, I moved away in 2017, and it was, It very much is,
Caro:but it was like Latino America, like it was very Latinos and Latinos.
Caro:They get into this habit of let's go to the same places and do the same thing.
Caro:I was like, Ugh.
Caro:And now this is California, New York, Western Europeans you literally
Caro:need people from all walks of life.
Caro:It's so exciting.
Caro:So it's just a very exciting time to be here.
Caro:And I feel like there's something happening.
Caro:There's that energy of something new being built over here.
Hugo:Yeah so that, that's something that the new talent that comes out of
Hugo:universities, they see that, okay, I have this job offer in Seattle where I
Hugo:don't know anybody or I have this other one from LinkedIn and I can be anywhere.
Hugo:It's okay I'm staying home.
Caro:Exactly and it's happening.
Caro:I know that companies are really feeling it.
Caro:It's really becoming a huge battle between big tech and their employees
Caro:and as much I'm gonna put that example out there that everyone's really
Caro:tired of hearing, but the apples of the Amazons, which I admire so much,
Caro:they're top tier companies, right?
Caro:But they're like, Hey, you have to come back to the office, period.
Caro:I don't care.
Caro:Their offices must be incredible of course.
Caro:But people have said, you know what no, thank you.
Caro:Like you are great.
Caro:But I agree too.
Caro:I'm also great and I know that any other company who will give me the
Caro:things that I want, that I prioritize, Will give me that flexibility.
Caro:Exactly.
Caro:I want that flexibility.
Caro:And I'll go to another company who will give me that, and then there
Caro:will be people who still will say, no, I wanna work for the Amazons
Caro:and the Apples of the world.
Caro:So I will move, I will tent right outside the office just to work at your company.
Caro:So it is this
Hugo:plus, working at Apple is borderline a cult.
Hugo:I've had plenty of friends that work at Apple and and to be honest, like
Hugo:I understand it because if you're building something like this, if you're
Hugo:building something physical, Yeah.
Hugo:Face-to-face collaboration.
Hugo:We need to laugh, we need to do hardware.
Hugo:I'm a hardware engineer by training, so I get it.
Hugo:You need to be in person.
Hugo:But again, if you're a SaaS company, if we are selling online courses
Hugo:dude, you can do that from b, you can do that from anywhere.
Caro:From anywhere.
Caro:And we've learned that, that is my biggest thing with it.
Caro:It's the comparison, like companies are, they're thinking about the bottom line.
Caro:They're thinking about we need to keep investors happening.
Caro:The company needs to grow.
Caro:Performance, productivity, paranoia, which is happening right now.
Caro:And I understand those things, but also you're hiring human beings.
Caro:You're hiring human beings who al also they've gotten a
Caro:taste of work-life balance.
Caro:Like true.
Caro:Because before, I think before the pandemic, we lived like this, right?
Caro:This is work.
Caro:And we prioritized it and this was life.
Caro:And we're like I'll leave it on the side.
Caro:And the pandemic really did this, right?
Caro:Because life was really more important than work.
Caro:And we're not saying, let's stay here let's say, I think
Caro:that's what people are asking.
Caro:Let's prioritize both.
Caro:I love my job and I wanna work, but I also love my life.
Caro:And I think companies are no let's, let's go back to this one.
Caro:It's no.
Caro:And I can really empathize with companies having that mindset.
Caro:But if we've demonstrated for two years and a half that we can do the same
Caro:thing and we can be as productive as possible, and when we put our OKRs or
Caro:objectives or key results and quarterback quarter, we're performing, we're meeting
Caro:expectations or exceeding expectations.
Caro:And what is the re tell me what the reason and give me the data that we're
Caro:not being productive and we're not like our revenue is falling or something
Caro:is happening that truly justifies us having to go back to the office.
Hugo:Yeah.
Hugo:Yeah.
Hugo:I mean there's a chart somewhere and I'll look it up, that it actually
Hugo:shows how salaries have stagnated since stagnated, since the 1980s productivity
Hugo:has increased, like just shooting up.
Hugo:And I read somewhere that what was actually accomplished in the 1950s in an
Hugo:office in the whole week, it was something that could be done in six hours today.
Caro:Wow.
Hugo:So if so, like we're producing, when you look at all the work,
Hugo:all the busy work and stuff like memos, emails, stuff like that.
Hugo:So we could do all the work that an office from the 1950s could do
Hugo:in less than a working day today.
Hugo:Why hasn't my salary increased five times?
Caro:Yeah it's really funny that you mentioned that because
Caro:I just heard a podcast that set.
Caro:I.
Caro:It was a study by this economist at m i t and he still there's a lot to figure out,
Caro:but he said that salaries have stagnated because of managers who have MBAs.
Caro:They've seen like managers who have MBAs tend to pay their employees less or just
Caro:not have like salary growth in that way.
Caro:And that could be a cost why a lot of jobs have stagnated in the last few years.
Caro:And I was like, that's an interesting concept
Hugo:But again, if you have a remote job and you can make your
Hugo:California money while living in Georgia or or Colombia or for us
Caro:Yeah,
Hugo:Dominican or anywhere, that's the thing.
Hugo:But, so how do we get a remote job?
Hugo:With what you know now, how.
Hugo:Would you go about landing a remote job if you were fresh out of college or if you
Hugo:were a working professional right now and you were curious on, testing the waters?
Hugo:Because again, I don't want to commute or I have a family situation, like I have
Hugo:a family that I want to be closer to.
Hugo:How would you go about it?
Caro:yeah, of course.
Caro:I honestly, the approach that I've been giving, a lot of people reach
Caro:out to me asking, especially because after the podcast we did together in
Caro:Spanish they reach out to me like, Hey, how do I get a job in tech?
Caro:How do I get a job remotely?
Caro:A lot of them are here in Miami, and I said, look, job search can be really hard.
Caro:You're like, you're everywhere.
Caro:And I think at the beginning we all approach it like, I'm
Caro:gonna apply to everything and everyone, and I'm gonna apply.
Caro:And I feel like that can be very stressful.
Caro:So determining first I am interested.
Caro:Maybe roles where I already have experience and I can get this role.
Caro:So determining three roles, these are the three roles that I'm gonna apply for.
Caro:Maybe something that, two that you're already good at and one that
Caro:is a little bit more aspirational.
Caro:Something that I would like to do, but focus on three functions
Caro:that you're applying for.
Caro:And then I would say prioritize the companies.
Caro:Which companies do I wanna work for?
Caro:Like three, because then your mind space can't take so much, and
Caro:that's when you start prioritizing.
Caro:Okay, and this would be my approach if I was looking for a job right
Caro:now, which companies align with my values and my priorities?
Caro:I feel like for me, literally, this is my example, LinkedIn, of course.
Caro:They literally, they're like work wherever you want.
Caro:I don't care.
Caro:Travel and Spotify, which also has had a very solid hybrid model.
Caro:So I'm not telling everyone in this podcast to go online to those three
Caro:companies right now, but it's determining which are the companies that align the
Caro:most to my values and my priorities.
Caro:And probably you're gonna have to do some research, or even if you get to
Caro:the interview stage, I think the power dynamic has changed where we're like,
Caro:just give me the job at the interview.
Caro:I'll say whatever.
Caro:But now maybe if you get to the point of a job interview,
Caro:what is asking the question?
Caro:What is your.
Caro:Hybrid model, do you have a hybrid model?
Caro:Are you expecting people to go to the office?
Caro:Is there room from a remote?
Caro:A lot of jobs now on LinkedIn will tell you where they're based.
Caro:They have a lot of options or they're completely remote or they tell
Caro:you which days you can work from.
Caro:But I think that is a valid question.
Caro:You should interview the company as well.
Caro:So that's how I would go about, especially when we're talking about
Caro:getting a remote job, it's gonna depend on the company and what their
Caro:approach is to this whole discourse.
Caro:Very complicated discourse.
Caro:So I would say do some research on the companies that align to
Caro:that way of thinking around this.
Hugo:Definitely.
Hugo:And I think that something that I love about places like LinkedIn
Hugo:and Indeed and all these portals is the fact that they have embraced
Hugo:that and now you can actually check that box and Okay, I'm gonna look
Hugo:for only for remote opportunities.
Hugo:And I would say, to the two or three people that listen to this,
Hugo:that don't underestimate working at startups, if that's something
Hugo:that you're curious about.
Hugo:Because what I find is that most startups, because they have to be cautious about
Hugo:their runway and how they spend money.
Hugo:They're embracing this opportunity to actually hire talent
Hugo:globally and staying remote.
Hugo:So looking at a place like Angel List, woodwork.
Hugo:They have this or product hunt.
Hugo:There's also this one that I really like.
Hugo:It's called remote.
Hugo:Okay.
Hugo:And remote, okay.
Hugo:Is really interesting because they, yeah, like everybody knows the big ones, right?
Hugo:LinkedIn but remote, okay.
Hugo:What I like about it is that you can search not only for remote,
Hugo:but also for asynchronous jobs.
Hugo:So asynchronous jobs are jobs that they don't have meetings at all.
Caro:Wow.
Hugo:They actually have a hashtag, like hashtag no calendar.
Hugo:They do everything asynchronously.
Hugo:So they solve issues through Slack if they have to do presentations or
Hugo:share information with each other.
Hugo:They use Loom.
Hugo:So they record a screencast of them talking and, Hey, I wanna
Hugo:get your feedback on this.
Hugo:Please comment this.
Hugo:Here's a five minute video walking you through the initiative.
Hugo:So again, that, that doesn't work for all the jobs, but their jobs out there
Caro:Yeah, exactly.
Caro:And to your point, I should have probably said that working on LinkedIn, but
Caro:you couldn't filter for remote jobs.
Caro:But to your point about startups, funny enough, I've never worried
Caro:that a startup though my experience at book publishing felt like startup
Caro:because you wear all the hats.
Caro:But anyway, it was interesting because my mentor he lives, he's in
Caro:the Bay Area, he works at LinkedIn and he's from the Netherlands.
Caro:And when I went to Amsterdam this summer, he was like, talk to my
Caro:friend, my childhood friend go meet.
Caro:And we had lunch, very nice lunch, and we were just talking about our careers.
Caro:Like he's been in corporate, he's been in startups, he's in corporate, but in
Caro:a startup model, like they're starting a new product in the company that he's in.
Caro:And he said something that really shook my world, because I've only been in corporate
Caro:within publishing and within tech.
Caro:And he said, you really need to try different, Types of organizations,
Caro:different sizes and that they operate in different ways.
Caro:So you said yes, continue in corporate if that's what you feel comfortable,
Caro:but it's just a different type of model.
Caro:Like for example, in corporate, there's a lot of bureaucracy, there's a lot
Caro:of processes to get things done.
Caro:And in startups it's like you, you're just rolling with the punches, right?
Caro:You're just like break breaking and innovative as we say.
Caro:And he said it's just you're mastering different skill sets and it'll make you
Caro:a more dynamic professional because you understand how to function and these
Caro:tip different types of organizations and different types of organiz situations.
Caro:And for me, I was like, cause I've only worked, I've worked at Twitter, I've
Caro:worked at LinkedIn, but they're, in some way, the organizational structure is
Caro:similar in how they operate is similar.
Caro:So that just erupted my world when he said that.
Hugo:Yeah, no, working corporate is very different.
Hugo:You actually have to navigate that social capital and again
Hugo:like you're responsible for such a small piece of the actual business,
Caro:Yes,
Hugo:but when it comes to a startup is, you have a problem, you own it.
Hugo:It's a much more dynamic environment and it takes a certain personality
Hugo:to be successful at it because you're always gonna have a hundred
Hugo:things to do in your backlog, always.
Hugo:So it's about picking, the right 3, 4, 5 things that you can do today.
Hugo:And again, and there are fires and I know in corporate there are fires
Hugo:too, like a fire drill that you need
Caro:They're controlled.
Caro:Yeah.
Hugo:But again, like we're not gonna go out of business if the
Hugo:newsletter doesn't come, comes out on Wednesday instead of Thursday.
Hugo:We're not gonna go out of business.
Hugo:LinkedIn is not gonna go out
Caro:exactly.
Caro:It's gonna be,
Hugo:the start of my run, three key customers and that's it, or runway,
Hugo:goes from three months to one month.
Caro:exactly.
Caro:And I'll definitely say even with the impending economic doom that
Caro:is supposed to happen in 2023,
Hugo:You need to stop reading the news.
Hugo:You need to stop reading the news.
Hugo:You need to go to the beach more.
Hugo:It's across the street.
Hugo:Go to the beach more.
Hugo:Come on.
Hugo:The world is fine.
Caro:not read so much morning brew and just go to the beach.
Caro:But I will say, because a lot of people are who are, if you're looking
Caro:for a job and you're trying to break into tech, I know that there's a
Caro:lot of talk about hiring freezes and things and slowing growth.
Caro:It, I was reading that it's gonna be a really key moment for startups
Caro:and they're gonna be like, Hey, you like super talented software
Caro:engineer, product marketer.
Caro:Come work for us.
Caro:So it's gonna be the time of the startups.
Caro:They're talking about there's gonna be a bunch of startups coming out.
Caro:It's gonna be like a shiny moment for people to start working on
Caro:entrepreneurship, new ideas, and graduating professionals from college
Caro:to go and work at those startups.
Caro:So keep that in mind.
Hugo:So I'm curious on how do you deal with imposter syndrome or how, what's your
Hugo:go-to strategy that you try works for you?
Caro:Yeah, I, you're gonna laugh at this one.
Caro:I talk to myself a lot because we've heard about toxic self-talk, right?
Caro:I can't do this, and I think I'm gonna venture out to say that a lot of imposter
Caro:syndrome comes from I'm not capable.
Caro:I can't do this.
Caro:I'm, this is, I'm not right for the job.
Caro:So it's even sometimes at work, I'm, I have a lot of things to do
Caro:and I'm like, oh, I can't do this.
Caro:But it's no, yes you can.
Caro:Yes you can.
Caro:And even I have my mentor, my sponsors, my manager, many times
Caro:they say they congratulate me on something that I've done.
Caro:And I'm like, no, it's, it's nothing.
Caro:I didn't, and they're like, don't.
Hugo:Yeah.
Caro:humility is okay.
Caro:And it, it's great.
Caro:It's great to be humble, but you also have to recognize all the
Caro:things that you have to do and have that confidence in yourself.
Caro:And I, even my mentor, he said something to me that also rock my world.
Caro:He's a Dutch man who's just like very to the point.
Caro:And I said, he was like, oh you're like a leader.
Caro:I was like, no, of the South Florida community.
Caro:And I was like, ah, it's okay.
Caro:Like I don't do much.
Caro:And he said look, it's very important that you start owning it.
Caro:Own it.
Caro:I'm a leader.
Caro:And then other leaders will see that, and they will see you as
Caro:that people will start perceiving you because you are showing that.
Caro:So that, that just for me, like truly believ.
Caro:There you go.
Caro:Kind of cliche, believing or yourself, but talking to yourself that way and believing
Caro:and saying yes, this is the truth.
Caro:I am good at my job.
Caro:I am supposed to be here.
Caro:A lot of that.
Caro:And I can tell a quick story as well of my experience going into Twitter.
Caro:I, because it was a contract role and it was with the staffing company.
Caro:I never had communication with Twitter.
Caro:Everything was through the staffing company, the emails and everything else.
Caro:And so when I'm going to the interview, I'm walking through where is it?
Caro:I'm walking through like health's kitchen in New York.
Caro:I'm walking to my interview.
Caro:I'm literally thinking I wasn't sure if the interview was with Twitter.
Caro:I was like, but maybe this is a scam.
Caro:Like it's not true or something.
Caro:And until I didn't get there and saw the bird, On the side of the building,
Caro:I was like, oh my God, it's real.
Caro:And then I was like oh my God, I don't feel like I prepared
Caro:myself mentally for this.
Caro:And thinking back to this story now, I think that was my imposter
Caro:syndrome telling me like, no, why would they hire you at Twitter?
Caro:Like, why?
Caro:You're just this girl who's working book publishing, like you're this Latina.
Caro:Like why?
Caro:What?
Caro:Why would they want you to work?
Caro:And I think that was my imposter syndrome of saying I don't know that
Caro:if I deserve this, I don't know if I've done enough to deserve this.
Caro:And yeah, I think that self-talk, that positive self-talk is a huge
Caro:part of combating imposter syndrome.
Hugo:LeBron does it, the ma the Marines do it like strategic self-talk.
Hugo:If it's good, if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me.
Hugo:So now that definitely it, it works it works.
Hugo:It works.
Hugo:I like to keep a brag sheet, like a kudos sheet, like a, it's just a
Hugo:Google doc and I list, okay, what's the greatest thing that I did this month?
Hugo:And,
Caro:doing that.
Hugo:And I've been doing it for a few years now, and.
Hugo:It's great because if I'm interviewing for something, I can just look and
Hugo:pick, whenever they tell you, tell me a story or tell me a time when
Hugo:you had to X, Y, Z I can just open up my Google doc and there it is.
Hugo:That's great.
Hugo:And even when, sometimes you feel down, sometimes life happens and you feel like
Hugo:oh my gosh, am I good enough to do this?
Hugo:And, they invited me to speak at this conference and there's, it's
Hugo:500 people in the audience and like I'm a bit nervous because I wanted
Hugo:to go well, and then I look at my bracket sheet and I'm like, wait.
Hugo:But I did.
Hugo:Sales enablement tour in Latin America, and I spoke to audiences of
Hugo:700 people for two weeks every day.
Hugo:And I'm like, why am I nervous about 500th?
Hugo:Why am I nervous about that?
Hugo:And then yeah, but again, you forget.
Hugo:You forget, right?
Hugo:Because life happens, so it's important to have a common place.
Hugo:And I always say Google Docs just because don't keep it in your email because you're
Hugo:gonna switch companies at some point.
Hugo:And again, just keep it simple.
Hugo:Just keep it simple.
Hugo:And I like to update it monthly just because, trying
Hugo:to update it daily or weekly.
Hugo:It's it's too, it's such a small timeframe that it is hard to gauge,
Caro:yeah.
Caro:No,
Hugo:and
Caro:I'm so glad you mentioned that one, because I just started doing it because
Caro:in 2017, someone I worked with in book publishing told me she, she would do it.
Caro:She was like, I write down all my accomplishment and doc, and now five
Caro:years later, I finally got in, got myself together and started doing it.
Caro:But it is a game changer.
Caro:And then you're like, wow, I did all of that.
Caro:Oh, look at
Hugo:Yeah, no, he, it is it's wow.
Hugo:Like I want to hire that person, dev.
Hugo:Oh wait, it's me.
Caro:I've went oh, I wouldn't work.
Hugo:Yeah.
Hugo:No it works.
Hugo:And trust me, if you, again, and if you have 10 years of experience and you've
Hugo:never done this, you know what works?
Hugo:How I would go about it is I would pull my resume, I would pull my resume, and
Hugo:I would look at its job and I would actually just, open two docs side by
Hugo:side and just go, okay, so what do I remember from the working at this place?
Hugo:What did I do?
Hugo:What did I accomplish?
Hugo:What's the cool story from working at this?
Hugo:Not what's in your resume that Oh yeah, increase sales, 10%, blah, blah, blah.
Hugo:No.
Hugo:It was like, what was like the one like key cast thing that you did?
Hugo:What's the one liner, what's the tweet that you would
Caro:How
Hugo:about working at this place?
Caro:Oh, Twitter.
Hugo:Yeah.
Hugo:Yeah.
Hugo:I'm curious on like how you keep yourself organized.
Hugo:Are you like a calendar person, you have a giant to-do lists,
Hugo:you're like a take notes person.
Hugo:How do you like balance all this out?
Hugo:Because you're a busy person, so I'm curious on what's your approach?
Hugo:What works for you?
Caro:Yeah, of course.
Caro:I'm just gonna disclaimer, I am someone who lives in my brain.
Caro:My mind speed is so scattered.
Caro:There's some always something.
Caro:And even yesterday I was sorry, that going in another lane yesterday was
Caro:doing a sound bath and you're supposed to just lay there for an hour.
Caro:I, I would move around so much because my brain is it doesn't stop.
Caro:So for me it is like I need to get all of that out.
Caro:So I do have I, I write everything out and becomes, he's big to-do lists, but
Caro:I think the more you can get that out of your brain, I even I'll show you.
Caro:I have this little board that I bought, this whiteboard that I bought.
Caro:My
Hugo:Oh, great.
Caro:the look at it.
Caro:But that way I put everything out there so I'm not thinking about it.
Caro:I have this mind space to actually do it.
Caro:Just put it on the to-do list.
Caro:Every time you erase it, it feels so good.
Caro:Scr like literally putting it, like just removing it from your wherever is not
Caro:as satisfying as like erasing it here.
Caro:And the other thing that I do, I will say, I'm gonna recommend something
Caro:that I don't do, which is very funny that I should do is blocking your time.
Caro:Blocking your time.
Caro:Especially when you're like some, someone like me, blocking your time
Caro:is key, but the way I do it, because I don't know if it's gonna work for
Caro:me, I don't know if I'm like that type A, that I'm going do that for every
Caro:week for everything that I have to do.
Caro:I do use a Pomo timer, so the Pulmon method, which is you work 25 minutes and
Caro:you take a five minute break, 25 minutes, five minute break, and then you end up
Caro:taking and that really helps me stay organized because that way, there you go.
Hugo:you go.
Hugo:Yeah.
Caro:I love it.
Hugo:What I like about this one is I can actually set the time and I can see
Hugo:the time go by, so I just have it here in front of my face so I can look at
Hugo:it and I can say that, okay I've been working on this thing for so yeah, it
Hugo:helps me but I use it very strategically.
Hugo:Like I don't use it for, like I don't use it for this, I use it
Hugo:for stuff that I don't like to.
Hugo:Oh, yeah, I gotta do this.
Hugo:Let me, I'm just gonna do 15 minutes of this.
Caro:Yeah.
Hugo:when the time is up, I realized oh, I'm in a role.
Hugo:Let's keep going.
Hugo:Let's finish this.
Caro:Oh, that's good.
Caro:And the way I will say, the way I use it especially the 25 minutes,
Caro:it helps me think, because when you have the huge to-do list,
Caro:it's I don't know where to start.
Caro:I don't know where to finish.
Caro:But what it helps me do is how much can I accomplish in 25 minutes?
Caro:So I say okay, I have to send these two emails so I can
Caro:probably do this in 25 minutes.
Caro:And then I have this deck that I have to work on.
Caro:So maybe in these 25 minutes I can literally create the deck, download
Caro:the template, put the title, and start doing some design structure.
Caro:And then the next 25 I'll start putting the co.
Caro:So it's helped me compartmentalize and break down tasks cuz I think
Caro:that's what really overwhelms people.
Caro:When I say I literally, sometimes my my to-do list says create deck.
Caro:What does that even mean?
Hugo:Where do I start?
Caro:exactly.
Caro:So I think it's having these chunks of time have helped me,
Caro:like what can I accomplish?
Caro:And these 25.
Caro:And let me do this part and let me do this part, and which of my items
Caro:in my to-do list will I be able to accomplish in this amount of time?
Caro:So that's helped me a lot, especially someone like me who's like in everywhere.
Caro:It's helped me just like ground myself.
Hugo:Gotcha.
Hugo:No, that's very helpful.
Hugo:Thank you for sharing that.
Hugo:Something that I got this from one of my mentors is that whatever I write in
Hugo:my to-do list, action list, whatever you want to call it, is that whenever I write
Hugo:it like asking somebody else to do it.
Hugo:So I wouldn't ask you to create a deck.
Hugo:I would ask you to create a 12 page deck hitting this takeaways pop.
Hugo:So I have this apps called things, and I like, because each task has
Hugo:like a notes field, so you can put like more details into it and stuff.
Hugo:But yeah, but you can do this with any app.
Hugo:The app doesn't really matter.
Hugo:It's more about the method of, because in this case, what I learned is that
Hugo:you, when you're writing these things, You are writing them for somebody
Hugo:else, you're writing that for, you're writing them for future you.
Hugo:And then present me is a different person that future
Hugo:me, so it's so let's hope that,
Caro:it.
Hugo:right?
Caro:Is gonna deal with it.
Hugo:so let's hope that past me made some good choices.
Caro:Probably not.
Caro:Probably not.
Caro:But I
Hugo:probably not.
Hugo:But let's hope we're the best.
Hugo:But again, you only have to control in the present.
Hugo:So present me has all the responsibility.
Caro:I like that.
Caro:I'm gonna implement that one for sure.
Hugo:Try.
Hugo:Maybe it'll work, maybe you won't, but you gave it a shot.
Caro:I love it.
Hugo:That's awesome.
Hugo:No.
Hugo:So Carolina, thank you so much for your time.
Hugo:I really appreciate this.
Hugo:And LinkedIn has this con concept of the next.
Hugo:Can you tell us a bit more about it and maybe share with us what's your next play
Hugo:and disclaimer like, we work together.
Hugo:So that's how I know this.
Caro:No, of course.
Caro:The hashtag next play.
Caro:No, that's an excellent question.
Caro:I'm I always say that your career is like an experiment.
Caro:You never, I, I know that there's people who are like, these are my goals.
Caro:I'm very, I'm a very open person to possibilities, like
Caro:to react to things like things happen and be flexible that way.
Caro:And there are some avenues I can continue to expand my expertise within product
Caro:marketing within go to market strategy.
Caro:And that is something that I definitely wanna do to like, be the best I can
Caro:be at my job as a product marketer.
Caro:But from my manager and from my mentor, I had talked to them and said
Caro:I don't know about people management.
Caro:It seems like a lot of work and a lot of documentation.
Caro:And they said you have something key.
Caro:That may help you in people management.
Caro:Like you're someone who's has a lot of empathy, a lot of compassion, and already,
Caro:like I they've mentioned you reassuring a lot of leadership skills with the South
Caro:Florida community and it's made me think Hey, maybe this is something that I should
Caro:consider that I could be successful in.
Caro:And it's a completely different it's a completely different bus beast.
Caro:It's a completely different skillset.
Caro:I've managed one intern in my life and it did not go well.
Caro:So for a lot of reasons that we'll probably talk about next time.
Caro:But I.
Caro:I would be excited to look into that because I think that being in that
Caro:leadership position helping people make connections helping them, even
Caro:what we're doing now, being like a coach in people's careers is something
Caro:that I think I'm very passionate about and I think it's something
Caro:that I could thrive in, hopefully.
Hugo:I see that too.
Hugo:I see that too.
Hugo:I would love to have you as my manager cuz I see that, I see the
Hugo:compassion, I see the empathy.
Hugo:It's recorded now, so it's on the record.
Hugo:Oh.
Caro:No,
Hugo:But I say no, but I see those things too.
Hugo:I see them too.
Hugo:So I agree completely with that assessment.
Hugo:But again, it's an experiment, right?
Hugo:It's an experiment.
Hugo:Like the idea is that you go, you try it, do it for a year, you don't like, Okay.
Hugo:You can always do something else.
Hugo:It's we, our generation does not work at a place for 30 years.
Hugo:That's not our generation.
Hugo:That's not the, that mindset, that framework, that doesn't work for us.
Hugo:And that's fine.
Hugo:That's fine.
Hugo:He shouldn't have.
Caro:No, exactly.
Caro:Especially because, especially in tech, it's such a tight knit community that
Caro:you meet people, you're always meeting people in different companies and they
Caro:say, oh, I'm working on the super cool project and I love my company culture.
Caro:And you say, oh, that would be interesting.
Caro:Maybe like people just move around.
Caro:And I know that for our generations that came before us, like Gen X and the baby
Caro:boomers, they don't agree with that.
Caro:But so far it looks like it's working for us.
Caro:So I definitely feel like it's, you have to be flexible.
Hugo:And I've seen it because I remember a lot of people that left LinkedIn to
Hugo:go try something different at Shopify or Salesforce or what have you.
Hugo:And after a year and a half, two years, they boomerang, they come back.
Hugo:Especially now with layoffs going around people.
Hugo:So keeping up with your network, keeping up with your network, your
Hugo:contacts, adding value to them, inviting them to events, that's important.
Hugo:That, that's something also that you have to take ownership of.
Hugo:Like in my opinion, that's something and authentically, like
Hugo:really, it's not transactional.
Hugo:Like you have to actually follow up and stay in touch and
Caro:exactly.
Caro:And
Hugo:I'm a huge fan of LinkedIn and then working capability that, that it brings me
Caro:we all are.
Hugo:That's awesome, Karo, anything else you wanted to share?
Hugo:Anything else in your mind?
Caro:No I definitely will say the networking is huge.
Caro:There's a lot of in-person is coming back.
Caro:So just what you just said about authenticity, sometimes not everyone
Caro:is gonna be your cup of tea.
Caro:You're not gonna be best friends with everyone.
Caro:I feel like I've heard some people's approaches, like I have to force this
Caro:relationship with leadership because they're the ones who are gonna have
Caro:a say in my promotion and my growth.
Caro:Just be yourself.
Caro:Just be authentic and there's opportunities everywhere.
Caro:Maybe you're gonna collaborate with your peer.
Caro:Sometimes if people think, underestimate the relationship with
Caro:your peers and people at your same level, like you don't know tomorrow.
Caro:Maybe that person goes into a department that you wanna go into
Caro:and they could be your manager.
Caro:Or they open a new company and they say, Hey, got, I'm like, come work with me.
Caro:So I think people underestimate, it's not just influencing up.
Caro:But also the people around you, you never know.
Caro:You never know how life goes
Hugo:of course.
Hugo:Yeah.
Hugo:I agree a hundred percent.
Hugo:Okay, so we have a topic for next time we meet.
Caro:next time.
Caro:I love it.
Hugo:That's awesome.
Hugo:There, there will be a next time.
Hugo:Karo, thank you so much.
Hugo:Where can people find you?
Caro:You can find me.
Caro:You're gonna guess.
Caro:I'm sure you'll guess on LinkedIn.
Caro:You find me on LinkedIn, I feel like.
Hugo:In the show notes.
Hugo:Go ahead, connect with Karo.
Caro:That's gonna be the best place to find me.
Caro:I talk a lot about our Miami community, everything that's happening in tech here.
Caro:So that's just, I would say overall look me up on Instagram if you want as well.
Caro:But I would say LinkedIn is the best way to reach me and to hear about the
Caro:things that are going on in my life and here in Miami or Miami Tech community.
Hugo:That's awesome.
Hugo:Thank you so much Karina.
Hugo:Really appreciate the time.
Caro:you so much Yuko.