From Apache helicopters to the data lakehouse: An interview with Databricks Field CTO Robin Sutara
As part of our series of articles featuring women working in data and AI, Robin Sutara shares her journey to Field CTO at enterprise data unicorn Databricks.
Robin Sutara studied mathematics and engineering, but ended up enlisting in the US Army as a way to pay for her education.
Whilst enlisted, Sutara diagnosed and repaired electrical and weapons systems on Apache helicopters. The early nineties weren't exactly a golden era for women working in male dominated fields, and Sutara, whilst acknowledging that her military service was a great opportunity, had several years to consider how best to operate as a woman in environments that were very heavily skewed male. She also noticed that she was one of a small number of people who could use Microsoft Excel properly, and decided that Microsoft might be a company that she could build a career in.
"That was my aspiration and my goal," she says. "I needed to figure out how was I going to transition myself into the civilian world and land that job at Microsoft that I really wanted to land. I ended up going through the hardware route, and spent several years doing hardware repair on computers."
Whilst Sutara worked during the day, she also studied in the evenings for her Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer qualification, and ended up making the interview stage for a support engineer role with a Microsoft partner. It was she says, the worst interview she's ever done.
"I interviewed on a Friday afternoon after work and had to bring my two-year-old daughter with me. I gave her a cookie and a drink and she promptly dumped them both into the interviewers laptop bag. I was very sure I did not have this role."
However, by the time Sutara had got out of the building, the interviewing team caught up with her and asked if she wanted to start the following Monday, supporting customers with the up-and-coming release of IE5.
Sutara spent the next year working with the partner, then moved to Microsoft directly where she stayed for 23 years. She considers herself fortunate that her time at Microsoft coincided with its evolution from the consumer to enterprise space.
"I was very fortunate to work with some of the biggest automotive manufacturers globally and help them think about technical strategy. How do you manage things from SMS to MOM (Microsoft Operations Manager) to Windows, SQL Server, Exchange Server etc. An amazing opportunity to really start to leverage other skills outside of technology such as project management and programme management, and negotiation skills between conflicting business stakeholders."
How to build more women leaders
Despite building an impressive career at Microsoft, Sutara admits to disqualifying herself from senior roles earlier on because she didn't feel that she ticked every attribute required. There's a greater awareness among tech recruiters that younger women in particular can rule themselves out when job listings set out long shopping lists of requirements necessary for the role. Many employers have consciously changed how they advertise vacancies to avoid this occuring. Sutara also raises the importance of professional networks.
"I'm a big proponent of Women in Data and at the beginning of this year, I was one of the founder members of the UK Chapter of Chief which is a network of women executive leaders. The purpose is to have a network to connect with and think through the problem of how do up level and get more women into those leadership roles? And when you're there, how do you create a network to be able to collaborate with? Especially if you're in a space where you don't necessarily have a peer ecosystem to be able to work with that is gender diverse."
Sutara's career at Microsoft culminated in the role of Chief Data Officer for Microsoft UK where she led the data and AI business for the UK.
Data and AI has the potential to increase diversity at all levels
Sutara's career at Microsoft culminated in the role of Chief Data Officer for Microsoft UK where she led the data and AI business for the UK.
"Microsoft is definitely going through their evolution and obviously there's lots of things happening in the technical space, but at some point in your career you start to think about what the next step is," she reflects. ""If I looked at maybe the last four roles within Microsoft, it was all focused around how do you drive people in processing culture and organisational strategy to be data led, or data driven or data influenced? And the UK was the first subsidiary to create the CDO role. But as it started to evolve, you really start to think, am I delivering as much value as I can? Or is there an opportunity for me to try something different or something new?"
For Sutara, the challenge appeared at the fast-growing data unicorn Databricks where she holds the role of Field CTO. Statistics for the proportions of women employed in data and AI as opposed to other tech fields such as software development or cyber security are inconsistent. Estimates vary from 20% up to 32%. But on an anecdotal level, it does seem as if companies like this are attracting more women leaders. Sutara thinks that the field has the potential to boost the gender diversity of tech overall and push more women into leadership because the nature of what constitutes technical roles is changing at pace due to developments in areas suchas low-code/no-code platforms.
"I don't think everybody in tech has to come from a STEM background. I think there are capabilities and competencies that women can bring into a data function that's not a traditional math, science or technology. It can be things like arts or languages. If you think about data science, it's just a language. How do we stop being so narrow about the talent that will go into the ecosystem and create diverse teams by actually expanding what we're looking for when we create our data teams and data capabilities?
"I think the arts perspective is such an interesting one. If you think about data, there's such an opportunity for things like storytelling. A GUI interface is really an artistic expression of how you get a user to be able to use a technology platform. I'm constantly amazed at the experiences that some of this new talent has that we could really introduce into technology space.
"If I think about technology, I think data is the best place for us to really drive diversity and introduce more women that are not from traditional technical roles into the ecosystem, which then in turn gives us a better pipeline to expand and grow more diverse technical leadership."
You may also like
/feature/4334521/tech-isnt-meritocratic
Leadership
Tech isn't as meritocratic as you think
And relying on graduates to fill vacancies isn’t working
/feature/4331535/long-reads-women-experience-imposter-syndrome
Leadership
Long reads: Why do so many women experience imposter syndrome?
And is it always a bad thing?
/news/4322678/tech-launches-manifesto-generational-change
Skills
Tech She Can launches Manifesto for Generational Change
Launch showcased an impressive community of sponsors, educators and policy makers