Recently, I had the privilege of interviewing Kathleen Hayes, a data leader with an impressive career. She’s served as the Head of Data Engineering for Instagram's growth team and the Head of Data for Google’s Search Analytics & Business Data Science department.
Currently, she teaches data engineering and analytics at the NYU School of Professional Studies and Baruch College, while continuing to help companies build out their data teams and infrastructure.
When you see someone with a career spanning large tech organizations like Google and Instagram, alongside leading data efforts at companies like Blue Bottle, it naturally sparks curiosity. How does someone grow into a director role and successfully drive teams at such high-profile organizations?
What skills did Kathleen either develop or possess that helped her stand out in the competitive tech world?
In this article, I want to explore three key skills Kathleen shared during our conversation (which you can listen to as part of this article).
Recognize and Solve Problems Before They’re Assigned
Often, other teams won’t explicitly tell you what they need. You have to actively listen and pick up on their pain points, even when they’re not spelled out. For example, Kathleen shared a story about one of the projects that helped her stand out at Google. Interestingly, it all started as a joke. Her stakeholder said:
“Oh, this was great. Too bad you can’t clone yourself and do this over and over and over again.”
Her response:
“I am going to figure out how to do this.”
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