This discussion explores Sanaz Lafuente's journey as an engineering leader within Vancouver’s tech community. She reflects on her early ambition to pursue physics and how her path ultimately evolved toward engineering and leadership. Throughout the conversation, she underscores the importance of building strong relationships and maintaining an effective network, both of which have played a key role in her career development.

The episode also examines how management styles in the tech industry are evolving alongside rapid technological change, with a growing emphasis on communication and adaptability. Overall, it offers a thoughtful perspective on professional growth, leadership, and the importance of interpersonal connections in shaping a successful career in tech.

Takeaways:

• In the dynamic landscape of technology, the shift from hardware to software engineering reflects the relevance of software across diverse industries, demonstrating its expansive applicability beyond traditional boundaries.
• Building relationships and networking are indispensable skills that significantly influence career progression, as evidenced by personal experiences shared during the episode.
• Effective leadership in engineering requires a shift from technical oversight to fostering an environment that encourages team autonomy and proactive ownership among team members.
• Navigating the complexities of larger organizations necessitates a keen understanding of influence and decision-making dynamics, highlighting the importance of collaboration across various levels of expertise.
• Emphasizing communication skills over purely technical abilities when hiring engineers can enhance team cohesion and project outcomes, reflecting a changing landscape in technical recruitment.
• Parenting not only cultivates empathy but also fosters a heightened sense of responsibility, shaping leadership approaches in the workplace and influencing team dynamics.

So today I'm joined by my friend Synaz, who I've known for probably about eight years now, and I'm really excited to get into her journey as an engineering leader and a solid member of our local Vancouver tech community. So, Sanaz, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.

So, for those who haven't had the pleasure to meet you, Sanaz, can you just share a bit about your background and how you got to where you are today?

Sure, yeah. So this goes back to my engineering days at sfu. So kind of taking a step back. I wanted to be a physicist initially.

And as I got into science program at sfu, I realized, like, I was not cut out for it, basically going into becoming a physicist, which is require you to get a PhD. So spending lots of time researching, studying, writing lots of documentation, which was something that I was not a big fan of.

So a really good counselor at school recommended that I try engineering. And here we are today speaking to you about engineering leadership. So that's how the journey started.

Well, you clearly made the right choice based on your career path. And I guess when you're at SFU and you made that switch to think, okay, I'm just going to get into the workforce afterwards.

What drew you to software engineering? And originally, I think you were in hardware, right?

Yeah, so I started with the program called electronics, which was like mostly hardware with a couple of courses of software. So actually the emphasis is more on building what Nvidia is building today. So maybe, yeah, maybe I made the wrong choice.

Maybe I should have moved into Nvidia. Who knew years later where Nvidia would be?

But I would say one of the things I noticed, even when we were designing hardware, we were using software to design the hardware. So I quickly saw that, hey, maybe the software thing has a lot more relevance. Also, it's applicable to a lot more industries.

So it's not just, you know, they're really hardcore. Hey, you're building a computer or you're building chips to be used by phones. It's relevant to every industry you can imagine. Right.

And I think at the time maybe SaaS was not as prevalent as it is today. And of course now we're going through a Saspocalypse, as they call it. So, you know, it's come full circle.

But I think for myself, I made the right choice.

I was excited in getting to work on something that would see the light of day, that, you know, consumers would use, people would use, as opposed to working in a lab for 20 years. And not getting to see, hey, what I made, is it actually useful for someone?

That's really cool. Yeah. And of course, we'd love to see the work we do actually impact the communities around us.

Exactly.

And predicting whether software or hardware is going to be the winner is always tough. I think software was generally the winner the last decade and a half.

Yes.

And I guess Harvard's back.

Yeah, Hardware's back. Yeah, he's making a comeback.

But relationships kind of will continue regardless of which company you work with. So how has relationship building kind of played a role in your career path?

It's funny when you ask this question, because my first job, I asked my manager, like, how can I be successful? And the first advice she gave me was, make sure that you can work with everyone on the team.

And that has been relevant up to today, like building relationships with others on the team, whether it's, you know, people that you jive with or people that you don't jive with. Right. So I think that that's definitely been one of the best advice I received.

I think the other piece of the puzzle was always like, network, you know, get to know people. And at first I thought, oh, you know, networking is only for when you want to find a new job. Right.

But I find over the course of the last 10 years, every time I've made the move, it's been through a network connection or it's been through someone who has essentially introduced me or helped me. So I think networking is still very relevant today.

Now, at what point did you realize you wanted to move into the leadership and less so on the strictly technical stuff?

Technical stuff, yeah. That's a very good call out. I think one of the things I realized was I really, like I said I liked making something that had impact on people.

And then I realized also, if I can move into the management leadership role, I can have impact on the people that I'm directly managing.

So whether it was helping someone who I saw was struggling to get to the next level, or it was working with someone that I really felt like, hey, they can help me grow. Right. So I found, like, the people aspect really interesting in a sense that you could have more impact. Also, I know this is cliche.

They say, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with your team.

So I found working in a team, you can go a lot further, whether it's again, like, on the impact side or even if it's on your own satisfaction level.

Well, and I would say that in general, a lot of technical people aren't so good with people and management.

So the fact that you found that you a, were good at it and enjoyed it, that probably boded well for the teams you were on and the companies that you were, were part of.

Yes, yes.

And I think, like, when people think about management, there's this stereotype of like, oh, you have a stick and you tell people what to do versus I found, especially in tech, management comes from, like, leading initiatives as opposed to, you know, getting people to do what you want them to do.

So it's more of a mentality of like, you lead people and then you get them on board to your vision as opposed to telling people, hey, I need you to do XYZ by this deadline. I think that has changed a lot.

Also in the course of the time I've been in management as well, there was a time where as an engineering manager, you were basically dividing up the work and giving out pieces. That has changed so much. Now it's more like, hey, how do you lead? How do you get your people to take action? How do you get them to be active owners?

So there's a lot of pieces that have changed in the last, I would say at least the past five years has been a big transformation.

And then to build off that, how do you stay technically competent and relevant when you're in a management role and maybe you're not writing as much code as you used to.

Yes, very good question.

I think one of the pieces that obviously now with all the talks about AI, that relevance has become more of a, hey, what tools can I use to get the answers to the questions I need?

Back in the day, there was a time again that I had to consult with four or five engineers, like, hey, how do you think we're going to build this piece of software?

But now with the advancement of some of these AI tools, I can just go into the source code and then ask, you know, Claude or Gemini to, hey, give me like five bullet points of the missing pieces here and then get that I want to say overview that I need to know. And then when it comes to the details, there's still that human aspect, right?

Like talking to someone through my recommendations and how to stay relevant.

I think one of the pieces is I do read a lot of content on LinkedIn, even though I find some of the content maybe is a little bit exaggerated, but I do read a lot of content on LinkedIn. I also look for trends as to what's happening.

So if I was to learn a specific tool, I look at to see, hey, how popular is this tool before I invest the time. So an example was when I first started using Gemini for writing documents implementation, there was a lot of, you know, other players in the market.

But what I found was with like the whole Google system, you could have, you know, all your documents in one place. So again, like, it becomes like everybody can build a tool, but how sticky can that tool become? Depends on the ecosystem around it. Right.

So to your point, I usually try to stay relevant in terms of like learning the ecosystem ecosystems and understanding like what I need to know from the pieces of the ecosystem that can help me stay up to date.

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. And you, you run the engineering team at mailchimp for four years.

Four years, yes.

And that, that's a product that is used widely in the marketing community.

Yes.

And then, yeah, that company got bought by Intuit. During your time there, how would you say that the sort of network effect impacted that company? And what did you get out of that experience?

Yes, very good question.

So I would say prior to joining mailchimp, I had worked at startups and when you go from a startup environment to a more, I want to say, established company with like a, like you said, big following, a lot of SMBs using that product, I got to see the transition from, you know, building for tomorrow to building for a year from now. I would say still the company was very much agile, very much, you know, adaptive to the environment.

Especially in marketing, as you know, there's like, tools are evolving so fast, techniques are evolving so fast, so what is relevant today is not going to be relevant three months from now. So I learned a lot about process and how to essentially design products that are relevant to your end user, user.

There was a lot of market research that we were conducting, there was a lot of usability research that we were doing as a company. And that comes true in the product itself. So when you interact with a product like mailchimp, you see ease of use.

Oh, wow, it's intuitive and you think, oh, it's so easy. But it's easy once you've seen it in action.

But to build something that is that easy and intuitive to the end user actually requires a lot of research. So I learned that part from the team there. I think the other thing I learned was as we went through an acquisition, there was lots of changes.

The way the scale of the acquisition, obviously, much bigger company coming and buying a rather medium sized company, I would say that had always had its own bootstrapped funding, no shareholders. Right. So that was like a big mindset shift. Also, I think, again, we went from a smaller impact company to like a global organization. Right.

You've probably seen like the Intuit commercials at the Super Bowl. Right. So it's like the scale doesn't match. Right.

So when you're building at that scale, obviously you have to, again, learn to build relationships with different teams outside of your organization. You also have to learn who makes the decisions.

So even though, you know, folks have titles, there tends to be in the software world people who have influence that even without their titles, they are actually the decision makers on how things get built, what gets built, when and how. So I think that is something I learned as part of this acquisition journey.

Yeah, it's a very good point. Right. The scrappy startup, you know who's calling the shots. Right. There's maybe one technical lead, there's one CEO.

Yes.

Versus in a larger company, you've got many different decision makers.

Yes.

Or influencers.

Yes.

Navigating that can sometimes be a bit of a drain.

A drain? Yes. Yeah. So there was like, you know, there's.

Definitely like, highs and lows.

Right.

When you go through an acquisition and I don't think anyone that has gone through an acquisition that you can speak to is going to say, oh, it was perfect. Like, everything was perfect. Right. Because again, there's like a culture change. Every company has their own culture.

And when another company comes and buys your culture, you essentially need to adapt now to this hybrid culture.

Right.

So there's a lot of adjustment that needed to happen on all fronts.

Right.

Like on the engineering side, also on the management side, also just on. On the way we were, you know, running the business as a whole.

Right.

Like our. Even our advertising. Right. Changed drastically.

So what's your preference? Like, I know, I know you're at Okta now, which is also another large company. How do you.

How do you take sort of the sort of scrappy mentality and operate within a larger company?

Yeah, very good question.

So I think, like, again, to your point, there's differences in, like, how you run things, but I think as we're going through this AI transition, there's a lot of emphasis on building faster and getting things to market faster. So even though I'm a large enterprise company that builds software for enterprises, I.

Would say there's still a lot at play in terms of getting to market fast. So we do operate similar to a startup in a sense of like, hey, let's be nimble, let's make bets, let's try. And if it fails, we'll try again. Right.

But I would say again, the other piece of the puzzle is like that relationship building side and making other teams buy into your vision. Right. Because when you're building at a bigger scale, it's no longer like we're going to make a decision.

Like you said, we have a tech lead, the tech lead makes the decision and it's good to go. Right, Right.

You have to sit in with like architecture meetings with like five or six other architects who are also, you know, have 20 plus years experience in their space. They're critiquing what you're going to be building. So I think one of the learnings that comes from it is how do you present your idea to get buy in.

And the other piece of it is like you really need to know what you're building. It's no longer, hey, can I, you know, impress my CEO or CTO? Right.

It's more of a can I impress five people who have been doing this for the past 20 years and they're the experts in their area. Right. So you have to actually have a lot of things figured out before you do that presentation.

So I think it helps in terms of planning for a better product in the long term.

It also helps with understanding all the nuances of building a product that's going to be long lived versus a startup mentality where you're just trying to make it to the next month. Right, Right. So it's a big mind shift.

Expectations are a lot higher.

Yes, expectations are a lot higher. And you again have to work with different stakeholders. Right.

We have like marketing team teams that we need to get buy in because it's no longer just like what you build. It's like, how are we going to market this and how are we going to get the go to market piece figured out?

So there's a lot of pieces that come into the conversation before you can say, yes, we're building this.

It's not just about building something that's technically impressive or visually impressive. It needs to be sellable, it needs to be implementable in a your buyers Personas.

Exactly. Yes. All of that. Yes. And then the other big piece, I think that is now the shift on focus is like, is this going to make us money? Right.

I think there was a time where our industry was more on, hey, we'll make five bets, one of these bets is going to materialize. So it's okay to waste resources. Right.

But now with the shifting focus on building faster and getting to market faster, there's a Lot more emphasis on let's make sure we have a good go to market plan before we spend engineering resources.

Yeah, totally. Companies are running much tighter budgets and cost of capital is higher.

Yes.

So if you look at like all the teams you have been a part of, what's some of the chemistry pieces that you look for now when you're building an engineering team? And how do you determine who to bring on your team and who maybe isn't a fit?

That's a great question. I think, especially with, like, again, the new emphasis on AI. There's a lot of engineers I found in the past that were set in their ways.

So I think at some point there's a shift that happens in your mind where you're like, oh, I'm no longer the student, I am now the professor. Right.

But I think what I found is one of the key pieces is hiring people that are curious and hiring people that are open to, you know, getting their ideas challenged. That has been like a big piece regardless of how many years of experience you have. Right.

There are engineers who are, you know, again, like I said, 20 years they've been at this craft, but still they come to the presentation or to the meeting with this curious mind of like, oh, let me hear you out. Right. As opposed to, like, oh, I've already set up my mind. I know what you're going to say, I'm not going to like it. Right.

So there's that piece I think I want to be like. Also, like, on the other side of it is there's a lot of emphasis on. I think in the past there was a lot of emphasis on technical skills.

Still, as we're interviewing to hire engineers, we are doing technical assessments. So that hasn't gone away. But I think the type of technical assessment has changed.

So, you know, we used to do a coding exercise that we would send you, like a project you take home, you work on it on the weekend and then you come back. Now it's more of a, hey, here's a design question we're going to ask you.

You don't need to show us how fast you can write code or if you know the syntax all of that AI can do.

Right.

But what AI cannot do is design a system that is robust and then can work with other systems. That's where we can get a sense of, like, how good you are at solving problems.

And I think the last piece that again has come into fruition over the past, I want to say five years is communication skills. I think we used to be in the camp of if someone has all the technical chops, the communication piece, we can mentor, we can coach. Right.

But now it has shifted. It's like, if they're okay on the technical side, but they have great communication skills, let's hire them.

Because like I said, with the communication skills, they can build relationships, they can get their point across, they can influence others on the team, and the technical piece can be easily coached and mentored.

Yeah, that's interesting.

Yeah. So there's been a shift, and I think this shift is going to continue in the future.

Well, I think that's probably a good call out for any young engineers.

Young engineers. Yes.

Make sure you learn your communication skills.

Exactly.

Get a double major. Business and engineering.

Yes. Yes.

If you can't communicate your ideas clearly or communicate with your team, you will have a hard time being a successful engineer.

Exactly. Exactly.

And then as we're doing also, like, I think another shift that I've seen is there used to be like an engineering demo and then there used to be like a product demo. And of course you would have different people in the room. Right. So in an engineering demo, you would have all engineers.

So as an engineer, you didn't have to do lots of polishing or, you know, you didn't have to create a slide deck because it's like, oh, it's just engineers. I can just show them the code and they'll be impressed. Right. But we've actually removed all of those and there's only one demo now.

So everyone from a VP to a junior engineer attends that. So again, if you are a junior engineer or you're just starting your career, a VP is going to see your demo.

Wow.

So again, you have to make sure the content you're presenting is something that jives with them.

So creating a slide deck, obviously doing a lot of dry runs, you know, with your teammates or with your manager to make sure, hey, the delivery is there. Because they're gonna remember that. Right. They're gonna come back from this meeting and say, hey, so and so was great.

Even though they're a junior, they are great. Yep.

So that is kind of the signal that they get from these meetings on, like, who has potential, who could potentially work on, you know, a really up, up and coming important project. That's how you impress them now.

Totally.

It's no longer, you know, I have lot. I've written hundreds of lines of code and it's all been in production.

That's not impressive anymore.

No, that's not impressive anymore because Claude can do that too.

Let's say the expectations for all of us is higher, Right. Because these tools make it easier for us to do our work, then the expectation for how we perform increases.

Exactly.

But that is across the board. It's not just for you, but everyone in your team.

Yes, yes.

I think the 10x thing is definitely real, like, asking, like, hey, an engineer that used to, you know, build like, maybe one feature in a cycle, as we called it, now is expected to build, like, 10 things in a cycle. Right.

Because we are assuming, again, you can orchestrate the design, the communication, the alignment with everybody else on the company, and you just get the AI to build it for you. But you are the. The connective tissue, right?

Yes, for sure. Yeah. Like, and I think that's, you know, the accountability piece of.

Of things actually getting done is, yeah, okay, we can build a bunch of AI agents to do things, but does the end product actually meet the same quality as if you had some humans with AI agents?

Yes, yes.

Almost never.

Yes, yes. And then to your point, like, quality is a big piece. The other piece, I think is, like, how useful is what you just built? Right, yeah, totally.

Because you can. You can, you know, get Gemini or Claude to agree with you, like, hey, do you think this is a good idea to build?

And he would say, of course this is a great idea, but I don't know if your customers are going to share the same sentiment. Right, totally.

How would you say your leadership style has shifted over the years, if at all?

Yeah, good, Good question. I think when I joined a company as, like, a engineering leader, they asked me that question, like, what's your leadership style?

And before that, I hadn't thought about it, but I feel like I've always been in the camp of what they call, like, a collaborative leadership style of, you know, getting different stakeholders to say their piece and then you bringing the team together to come to a consensus. But I do think that we are at a point right now where, like you said, the expectations have raised and you are expected to produce, produce, produce.

So I think for this purpose, I have to sometimes be more assertive in a sense of, like, hey, can we draw the line here? Can we definitively say this is the direction to go?

And when I do ask that question, I see some people retract from taking, like you said, accountability.

Because if I say this is the direction to go, and then six months later we find out it was not the right direction, then what's going to happen to me as an individual? Right. So I think there is a lot of Fear of being accountable for the decisions you're making.

So I'm seeing this sort of, you know, a lot of people retracting and a lot of people deferring to, hey, let's let me get my leadership to make that decision.

So people are scared to lose their jobs, basically.

Basically, yes, yes, yes. And they all deferring to more senior people to make that call. And sometimes the senior people are also like, well, it's not my area of ownership.

Right. So even though you're asking for my advice, I can give you my advice, but I'm not the final decision maker here.

You are the final decision maker here.

So I think that change has made me be, again, like, more assertive because there are certain areas where I feel like we need to be assertive and we need to go in a direction. And yeah, maybe in hindsight, a year from now is the wrong way to go, but then at least the indecision didn't keep the team lingering. Right?

For sure. Indecision is a decision as well.

And I think leadership is trying to be collaborative and then making the decision, being confident that you made the best decision with the information you have.

Yes.

And that's okay. But do you think that sort of fear in the market will lead to perhaps less innovative products?

That's a good question. I think it will in the short term.

Just because everyone's like, very protective of their area of ownership and they are, again, they don't want to get into a place where it's like, oh, well, you just wasted engineering resources. Right.

But I think as the AI tooling and like the ecosystem matures, which is going to mature, maybe we're still like in year one or year two of the cycle.

So again, I don't have a crystal ball, but I would say at least like we are in the, at the start of the journey, once it does mature, there's going to be bottlenecks that is going to be exposed. Right. So then I think that's when companies are going to be more like, hey, everything is stabilized now.

Let's jump into places where we think there is actually a lot of ownership that, you know, we can claim. And I think, yes, a lot of companies are being less innovative.

But on the flip side, I think there's a lot of startups that have come to the market, right, like, that are very innovative. They're taking lots of risk. Again, maybe they're getting good funding because they're working on like AI focused product. Yes.

But you know, there's like, you know, good and bad. Right. So like, let's see how many of these companies are going to be around. But again, I think if you don't take a chance, you will never know.

And sometimes the advantage is the first to market. So maybe, yes, maybe your product is not the most useful feature set, but you were the first to market and you capitalized on customers needs.

You're going to continue to have them to innovate and like you said, iterate on them versus if you wait too long and you are being protective of what you have and you don't want to jump out of your comfort zone. So I think it's going to, it's going to balance itself out.

Yep, that's a good way to look at it. All right, so Sanaz, you've used phrases like autonomous teams and self healing teams to describe what you build.

What does that actually look like in practice?

Yeah, very good question. So I think it comes back to like the leadership style, right?

Autonomous is making sure that everyone on the team knows that they can lead and they have a say in what happens. I think the other word I would use is like proactive ownership.

So giving people the autonomy to own something and then asking them to lead for that piece that they own. And I think the self healing part is a bit, there is some coaching and mentorship that needs to happen to get people in that state of mind.

But I think the self healing is part of the team realizing like, hey, what is not going well? You know, obviously as a part of the software ecosystem, we always do retrospect and we always look back and say, hey, what went well?

What didn't go well? And what could we do differently? Right. And I think as a team you also need to continuously do that, like, what could we do differently?

And that's when the healing happens.

Because, you know, if you see that, hey, someone on the team is not performing at the level that they should be performing, like, you can always look into why. And I think the team can help understand, like, hey, why is this person not performing?

Or you know, why is there, you know, some dynamic differences between the team members? Like again, that happens. We're all people, you know, we have different goals that we want to achieve.

So there's always the clash of the personalities on the team. And I think one of the ways that I've helped foster that is getting people into a room.

It sounds funny when I say it, but there's been conversations, you know, happening over, you know, chats, discussions, meetings, and then when I bring the two people into the Same room. And I say, hey, I'm going to.

Be off camera, I'm going to be mute. You guys hash it out. You will be surprised as to what comes out.

And a lot of it is usually not about difference of opinion, it's more about how they work together as individuals. It comes down to basically laying out the expectations from each other.

We have this concept of what we call rasi, like roles, accountability, support, informed decision making process. But in a team it's really hard to define that.

And again, as teams evolve, they change, we take on new projects. It's hard to say, hey, that was your responsibility or that's what you're accountable for. Right. So it's constantly evolving.

But having people to understand each other's personalities and be able to heal from a mistake that someone else made, I think it's become really important because at the end of the day we have a common goal. Right. So if we can march in the same direction, we make that goal happen.

Totally.

And arguably in the software development community there's a lot of remote work and perhaps there's less time to actually build those deeper relationships.

Exactly.

Trust built up.

Yes.

Everyone's confident in their ability, especially when they've got AI tools that give them additional confidence in their decision making.

Exactly.

But you need to have those relationships built to have thoughtful disagreements and grow together.

Yes, yes. And then I think on the autonomous part also, like you said, there's the remote culture.

There's also like introvert in like we are introverted people by default as engineers. Right. So it's that giving people the autonomy to like learn and show up the way they want to show up.

Because I've again in the past when we were all working in the same office, right, you come to a meeting, you could voice your opinion in the meeting, but now, you know, there's 20 documents being passed around in a, you know, message sharing platform or over zoom calls. So it's no longer like you show up to one place and then you express your interest, you express your opinion, you, you know, lead.

There's 20 different places you have to, you know, express your interest and your leadership style. So it becomes like more of a hey, I'm in charge of my own destiny mindset versus like, oh, I need to like have someone check on me. Right.

So I think that is again another thing that I found with teams that I've led, who we were really successful is like the individual either had that mindset or I was able to get them on board with that mindset.

Yeah, well, that's good takeaway for any leaders. Right. The culture of the people on the team will lead to success regardless of how technically proficient the team might be.

Yes, yes.

Now for, for those of our listeners who are not maybe aware, what is okta and what does the company do?

Sure, yeah.

So we are the leader in identity management and what identity management means is essentially when you, you know, log into your work laptop, we verify that you are who you say you are. So it comes in different facets, we have different products, but that's kind of the gist of what we do.

My team specifically is working on a brand new initiative called Digital Credentials. So this space is evolving as we are speaking. There's different versions of open API specs that are being rolled out.

But what we do essentially is we are going to be building a service that verifies a digital credential that is either issued to you by the government, it could be, you know, provincial government, state government, and there's also some initiatives happening in the EU where you, every citizen is going to have a EU id.

Digital id.

Digital id, yes. So we can verify who you say you are and then give you access to certain services. This also brings in a lot of privacy.

So example I shared is, you know, know when you go to the club back in the day, right, you had to show an ID and now they actually swipe your id. So now there's an assurance that this ID is actually valid. Right. But with the digital platform, sad news.

For all the 18 year olds.

Yeah, for all the 18 year olds is like now when you go, they would essentially on your phone, you would pull up your digital ID and you would share that with the pro, you know, the person who wants to verify your id. But it would only share that you're over a certain age. It would not share all your other details.

Right.

Which on a driver's license even includes, you know, how tall you are, date of birth, right, where you live. This is not something that you want to publicly share with everybody. Right.

So this digital ID credential space is really also protecting the privacy of the users. Yes, yes, exactly.

Yeah, no, that's important. I think of financial services and open banking was passing into law this summer, but we'll see what the implementation of that looks like.

As an individual, we should be able to control where information goes and where it doesn't go. Yes, that's very important right now.

Yes.

Especially considering there's so much activity as it relates to identity theft.

Identity theft, yes.

So how are you guys going to Help with protection.

Very good question. So, like, I can share another example of this, verifying your digital id.

It allows us also to give you certain access to certain services that is configured on what we call the verifier side.

So, like, to your point, if I am a bank and I'm providing you with some financial services, I can make a contract with this digital ID provider and say, hey, I need these pieces of information for these services. So we will only attain what is needed for the service that you're providing. Right. So there's no longer this, like, big bucket of.

I give you all the details. It's very selective. Right. And then also another piece that this can help is it can give you timed access.

So again, there's some legislature that's going through, I believe, in Australia, which is around shareholder information and insider trading.

And what that means is that certain individuals on a company should only have access to, potentially like a spreadsheet, a financial spreadsheet, by a specific point in time. And after that, that access should be cut off because, again, that would encourage more insider trading if you have access. Right.

To these digital assets. So, again, this is like a big evolving space. It's moving fast. And there's also, like, to your point, a lot of legislature that is coming into effect.

It's evolving again. The government, I don't think, is keeping up as fast as this space is evolving. Right. And identity theft. Right.

So again, if we can verify certain pieces of information about you, it's hard for you to be able because it's based on the crypto background, it's hard for you to fix. Fake.

Like blockchain.

Blockchain, yes. So all of this verification is built on blockchain technology. So it's almost, I would say, nearly impossible to fake.

And again, because we have certain issuers which are government bodies at this point in time that we trust. Right. So you have to be in this trusted list. Not anyone can set up some shop and say, hey, you know, I'm gonna issue some digital IDs.

No, there's a governing body that is actually managing that and making sure that, you know, corruption and fake identities can get into the system.

Wow, there's a lot to that.

Yes, yes.

Now, if we were. If you were gonna look back on your career, what are some things that you believe now that you wish you knew back when you started?

Yes, good question. I think some of the things that I believe now, again, is like knowing how to find people who have influence.

I think that's something that I didn't know, early on in my career, I think the other piece was just like building a community around me.

I think initially, again, when I first started, I thought, hey, you know, if I wanted to network, I will only go to tech events because that's my people. Right? But as I've learned over the years, you work with so many cross functional folks, right?

So if I know someone who is in a different, you know, function, but is in the same space as I am, it doesn't matter, Right. Because I can still learn from them, I can share ideas, I can collaborate with them.

So I think that those are some of the things that I wish I had learned earlier in my career.

So don't just specialize in your network, but have a sort of a broad network.

Yes, have a broad network and always, I think, be curious. I think that's the other, like I talked about, you know, being a student, I feel like if you're always a student, then you're always learning, right?

So there's never a dull moment.

Well, totally. No one wants to talk to a know it all.

Yeah, exactly.

Now, Sanaz, you're a mom to your beautiful daughter. How has becoming a parent changed how you lead?

Okay, that's a great question. I think once you become a parent with everything else that you have to, you know, fit into your day. I think efficiency would be the word I use.

I've become so much more efficient since having a daughter. And then also empathy.

I think that was the other piece that in the past, you know, when I had someone on the team where they were like, oh, you know, my child is sick, it would go over my head like, okay, they're sick, but you're not sick. Right. But as a parent, it affects you a lot more when your child is sick than when you're sick. Right?

Because when you're sick, you take Tylenol, what have you, right? You, you, you deal with it.

But when it's your child is sick, like you feel like, hey, is someone else that you care for and you're responsible for is sick. So you actually have this added responsibility that you didn't have before. So I would say the empathy part.

Like now I'm a lot more, I want to say, empathetic to people when they are going through a rough patch or, you know, asking for, hey, can I be excused from this meeting? Can I show up later? Right. And I think the remote culture definitely did help me. I don't know how people did it before remote was a thing. Totally.

Yeah.

No, no. We have a pretty Flexible environment.

Our team comes in three days a week and depending on if there's meetings, we'll shift the day and yeah, I think the expectations. Correct. Corporately have changed. Performance is still important.

Yes.

But if employers can be and leaders can be flexible and supportive of their team, you'll build more trust.

Yeah, exactly. Yes. And it's not always about, like I said, you know, used to be that you just come to this one meeting.

Now you can show up in so many different ways. Right. You can look at the meeting minutes, you can review the document and provide your feedback. So you're showing up in different ways.

Totally. And asanas, if we're going to look forward the next five years personally, professionally, what are you hoping to accomplish?

Yes, I think professionally I would love to stay in the identity space because I think again, it's going through a big evolution, especially with the rise of AIs and deepfakes and all that it has opened us up to. On the personal side, I think I would want to get more handle on how to raise a strong daughter.

I think parenting is also another avenue where you have to show up in different ways. So I'm still learning in that space and I think it's also a very big, I want to say people focused area of life that no one really prepares you for.

You just, you know, put in there and then you're like, well, now perform. Right. Figure it out as you go. Figure it out as you go. Yes. So it's in a lot of ways it's like I compare it to like running a startup. Right.

For sure. You get immediate. You can immediately see if you've made a mistake. There's a reaction.

There's a reaction for sure. Yes. But hopefully, you know, the, the long term effects are not gonna be there. Right.

So I think that's the piece that as a parent I'm always worried about is like, oh, if I act a certain way, is this gonna have a long term effect on my daughter? Or you know, is this something that she's just gonna brush off and she's gonna forget about it tomorrow? Right?

Yeah, but like a startup, I wonder when we're gonna get to cash flow positive.

Yes, exactly. That piece too, right? Yes. Like, I think again, another thing that no one really prepares you for is like the cost of raising a child.

Especially when you're working as a full time, you know, working parents is like, how do we spend time? But also we spend quality time. Right. So a lot of your resources goes into, hey, what of the, you know, the household things.

Can we outsource so we can have more time together? Together as a family?

Oh, for sure. Yeah. No, we got the cleaner coming once a month and we definitely leverage experts to come support us.

So we actually spend time together, not just be always doing chores.

Chores together. Exactly. There needs to be a fine balance, right?

Totally.

Yeah.

Because you also want your child to know what it's like to do things themselves and not feel like everything's being done for them.

Right? Yes. Yes.

Well, Sines, thank you so much for sharing some time today.

Of course,.

It's inspiring to see your career and all the things you've managed to accomplish. And the way you treat people, I think, says a lot about your character. So hopefully those listening will be able to take a few things away.

If anyone's interested in staying in touch with you, what's the best way for them to reach out?

I think the best way is reach out to me on LinkedIn. I don't post much on LinkedIn, but I do read all my messages and that's my only social media media account. So reach out to me on LinkedIn.

Good for you. Yeah, well, you saved yourself in a lot of distractions.

I don't know if I would have time to be on all the different media platforms.

Well, Sanas, thank you so much for joining us and thanks again.

Thank you for having me. It was great pleasure. Sa.