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People.ai has always attracted and retained women software engineers - especially women from Ukraine. Ukrainian Oleg Rogynskyy founded the company in 2016 with a goal of finding the best talent, opening doors, and creating an environment that fosters and develops talent and diversity.
The talented Ukrainian women at People.ai are leading and contributing to mission-critical projects including product integration and innovation with large partners like Microsoft, responding to urgent customer requests, and many other highly complex initiatives. “My team is responsible for our CRM integrations,” says Oleksandra Romanenko, Senior Engineering Manager at People.ai. “We are pulling the business context data from CRMs and pushing the new and enriched data back into CRMs. It sounds simple, but in reality there is very complicated machinery behind the scenes to make this happen. It is very exciting to build."
I sat down with four of People.ai’s Ukrainian women engineers: Olga Kuratkina, Senior Software Engineer; Olha Onysko, Junior Software Engineer; Oleksandra Romanenko; and Olena Shmyrko, Software Engineer. We covered everything from how they got into engineering to favorite hobbies (Olga crochets amazing stuffed animals) to their experiences living and working through the Russo-Ukraine War.
What should your “real” job title be?
Olga Kuratkina: I'm “a turtle that remembers everything”. I have worked with People.ai for more than six years. So when newer teammates have a question about some legacy component, I'm like this wise turtle that remembers every decision that was made five years ago.
Olha Onysko: Some folks think being a programmer means you are a tech wizard who can fix anything from computers to microwaves. And so let's have some fun with it. How about calling my job title “Tech Tinkerer”?
Have you had any turning points in your career?
Oleksandra Romanenko: Several times, my managers have believed in me when I didn't. They saw in me something that I didn't see in myself. Even on my first job, I joined as a software engineer and I was excited just to be there. After a year, my manager began to push me toward leadership. He started giving me junior engineers to teach.
This has happened at People.ai too. I joined as an engineer and didn't believe in myself. But again, my manager told me that he saw a great leader in me. Then I received really great feedback from the engineering director at the time. He said that if in several years he saw that I had become a CTO, he would not be surprised. So that was really surprising for me, right? The amount of belief they had in me was empowering.
Olena Shmyrko: I have a financial education and graduated from an economic university in Kyiv. After graduating I realized finance wasn’t right for me. By chance, I received a job offer where I was asked to learn SQL, a language of queries to a database. I liked it so I started learning other real programming languages and changing my career bit by bit to Python developer.
How did you become interested in coding and software engineering?
Olha Onysko: I have always been fascinated by anything to do with computers. It all started with a game called scratch, which is essentially a programming language for kids. It had these blocks and the excitement came from solving puzzles or creating them with these blocks.
And my dad–who is a professor at the university in Ukraine–knows a few programming languages, which probably influenced me. My brother, who also works in programming, encouraged me and I decided to study at Kyiv Polytechnical Institute. At first, I wasn't sure if I'd become a programmer but as my studies progressed, I needed to start earning money and attending some additional courses. Afterward I found my first job, and here we are!
Olga Kuratkina: More than 10 years ago, I started with HTML and it was very exciting. You type symbols which result in a colorful page in your browser. You create a new entity from just symbols. I still feel this magic at the end of a project when I realize that I was typing and here we have a new entity that does something.
Oleksandra Romanenko: I originally wanted to be a teacher but as the time to go to university approached, I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted. I tried to make a conscious choice of where to go, because in Ukraine, university education is free. I wanted to choose a broad area that could lead to a good job.
I ended up going for a bachelor's degree in computer sciences. In the first year of university we had our first software development courses. I think it was C++ or Java. As soon as the course started, I knew I wanted to be a software engineer. I loved it so much.
Do you have advice for other women who want to code?
Olena Shmyrko: You just have to start! You will quickly understand if it's for you. Then keep going.
Olga Kuratkina: The number of tries is what counts. You can never lose, because if you try enough and keep trying, you will get it in the end, one way or another. Go toward your values and toward your dream. A little bit of courage can bring you nice things.
Olha Onysko: Go for it and don't let gender stereotypes hold you back. You can be anything you want to be. We are living in the 21st century and women can be an engineer or a soccer player or a model, or anything she wants. Mistakes happen but they're just part of the learning process. Keep pushing forward, learn from bumps in the road, and never give up on your dreams. We all have the potential to achieve greatness, regardless of gender.
Oleksandra Romanenko: I would advise them to believe in themselves more. Every time I have a woman engineer in an interview, I'm always the biggest fan and want her to pass. To me it seems that women engineers are less confident in themselves and hold themselves to a much higher standard than male engineers. Male engineers brag. They might have seen the name of a technology one time in the title of an article which they never read, and they put it on their resume as if they know it. A woman would never do that. A woman must know it, and have worked with it for 5 years, and then she will still have doubts whether or not she's worth it.
So the main advice would be to believe in themselves and to listen to people who praise them and believe in them. Those people are correct. You don't have to hold yourself to much higher standards than everybody else.
What has it been like living and working during the Russo-Ukraine war?
Oleksandra Romanenko: I'm from Kharkiv, a city in the Eastern part of Ukraine, really close to the Russian border. On January 24, 2022, I woke up at 5am to the sound of explosions, and my husband and I jumped into a car and drove west. We picked up our friends and found a place to stay in the Carpathian Mountains in the western part of Ukraine.
During the first week there, we didn't do anything except gather into one room together and watch the news. We all knew people who had stayed back so we’d listen to the reports and read about what buildings had been bombed. We’d be looking at the photos trying to figure out, “Is that your house? Is that your friend's house?” That was awful. Nobody worked in those early days.
What got me out of it was a new hire on my team who started several days after the full scale invasion broke out. He started writing to me and asking me what I wanted him to do. I had to onboard this person into my team and that kind of snapped me out of it. I don't know how much time it would have taken me without him. Two years have passed and it's impossible to live with that kind of nervous tension as you have in the first few weeks or months. I'm a very calm person, so I think I got myself together faster compared to other people.
The war still affects work a lot. There is a natural performance drift overall in people - and that’s ok. Sometimes people are in the mood to be really productive, then they have their slower times. But now there is an additional fluctuation for Ukrainians depending on the news and depending on their personal situation. This is something you just have to account for and remind your colleagues of from time to time. I know that Ukraine might fall out from the news in other countries. So that's why I’ll remind fellow company leaders that there was a new tragedy and you might notice that your Ukrainian colleagues are not very productive this week.
It's impossible to predict. You just have to show understanding. And Ukrainians have to remind people that this is still happening. This is something that we are living through. It's not alright all the time.
Olena Shmyrko: It was very difficult when the war started and when the Russian army was near my city, Kyiv. Recently it's more peaceful. Most people are continuing to live their life. Even though it's not always easy due to energy shortages and missile strikes.
A lot of Ukrainian men are in the military front and it's even more difficult for them. And it's important to support and donate for the army.
Olha Onysko: I was fortunate to be in Western Ukraine, which didn't suffer as much then.. But there was still a lot of stress during the initial months of the war. It was very challenging to work. Everyone in Ukraine has their own story. I prefer not to dwell on my own experience
I believe that no matter how difficult things may seem, we must continue to believe, and support our defenders, and because no one else will come to defend us. And even if you're not currently in Ukraine, think about those who are there and remember that every donation can save lives.
Olga Kuratkina: With the magnitude of suffering and pain that were brought onto Ukrainian people, it seems like I don't feel the right to complain, because I find myself safe. But I'm overwhelmed with all this tragedy that Russia brought to us. And my parents are still in Ukraine
My work has a new purpose now. I support my parents, who don't want to leave Ukraine and their home for any reason, and I can support the army.
Editor note: Shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Rogynskyy began to incentivize employees to leave the country. The company paid for employees and their families to leave the conflict zone, covering costs relating to passports, transport, mobile phones, and housing. Rogynskyy, who hails from the central-eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro, had a gut feeling that war was going to start after living through the Russian annexation of Crimea when conflict also broke out in Ukraine.
How has People.ai changed since you started working here?
Olga Kuratkina: Drastically. When I started six years ago we only had an engineering team in Kyiv. There were up to 10 people in a small office. And it felt like a big family-type of team and everything was not that formal. We didn't have many processes.
To be honest, people worked exhaustively at that time. It may be a startup company cliche, but it was like that. And I remember, engineers had two stand-ups per day with the American team, at 10am and another at 8 pm. So basically, your day was cut in a few pieces by these stand-ups.
But I saw the company growing and establishing processes, policies, and values. It's completely different now. There have been many changes for the best.
What are your favorite items on your desk?
Olha Onysko: Two items. First one is a Rubik's Cube. And the second one is this Chinese kitty waving her arms that my friends gave me. Like a good luck kitty.
Oleksandra Romanenko: The empty space where I put my snacks.
The future success of People.ai will be driven in no small part by these and the other women engineers on our staff.