Linda Xiong
Menlo Park, CA USA
"Live intentionally. There are a lot of things in our lives that are not in our control, but there are some that are. We should be intentional about making decisions for the things we can control."
Career Roadmap
Linda's work combines: Business, Technology, and Working with Others
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Day In The Life
Skills &
Education
Advice for getting started
Learn to work hard, build authentic connections, and take feedback. If you're looking to get a foot in the door, networking and making good, authentic connections with people in the industry can really help.
Here's the path I took:
High School
Bachelor's Degree
Industrial Engineering
Cornell University
Life & Career Milestones
I've taken a lot of twists and turns
1.
I immigrated to the U.S. from China when I was in middle school.
2.
My dad urged me to go into engineering and technology because of the security that learning hard skills could provide.
3.
I considered computer science but it didn’t seem like I’d fit into that community, so I studied industrial engineering and operations research instead.
4.
After graduating, I worked as an engineer at Lockheed Martin—it wasn’t a great culture fit for me, so I started looking for something that would match better.
5.
I transitioned into the technology industry and worked as a senior business intelligence analyst for Ubisoft for a few years before moving to Facebook.
6.
I started at Facebook as a marketing analyst and have since worked my way up to data scientist and then product manager.
7.
I’m also the founder of Moms in Tech, an online support community for women.
Defining Moments
How I responded to discouragement
THE NOISE
Messages from Society in general:
You want to have kids, so you'll probably want to take a step back. You can't be a hands-on mother and a successful career woman.
How I responded:
Colleagues and managers often see pregnant women and assume that they'll want to take a step back to raise their kids. Women will also get the less glamorous minor projects because of that assumption. I also almost didn't become a project manager because I thought I wouldn't be able to handle more work and have children. None of that has to be true. We need to normalize hard work. It's not easy, but that's okay. I actually found myself to be more efficient and determined while pregnant!
Experiences and challenges that shaped me
While not overt, I've sensed an imbalance as a female manager. When hiring for a role under me, almost all the candidates that interviewed were women, which isn't fair or efficient. I wondered if it's because the role would be reporting to a woman.