She Talks Tech

Emerging Tech Voice Ep.14: Building the Support I Needed - Nontobeko Ncube

In this episode, Hlulani sits down solo with Nontobeko Ncube for a conversation on finding her way into AI, living with PMDD, and building technology from personal experience.

In this episode, we cover:

• Her journey from medical school through forensic science into tech
• Meeting a mentor who helped her get started
• Finding her place in data science and AI
• Winning a hackathon solo with a platform supporting women with PMDD
• Embracing how she works best and keeping humanity at the heart of tech

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What happens when you stop accepting the rules around you and start asking who created them in the first place?

In this episode of She Talks Tech, Hlulani sits down with Jenny Huch, a sociologist and researcher working at the intersection of people, technology and robotics.

Jenny shares her unconventional journey from sociology and international fieldwork to researching human-robot interaction, and why understanding people is just as important as understanding the technology we build.

• How questioning gender expectations sparked Jenny’s interest in sociology
• Her unexpected journey from sociology into robotics
• The experience in Zanzibar that changed how she thinks about technology
• Why good technology can fail when we ignore social realities
• What happens when humans begin treating robots like colleagues
• Trust, competition and connection between workers and robots
• Questioning privilege and the idea of bringing “solutions” into communities
• Breaking away from the expected career path
• Entering tech without a traditional technical background
• Trusting your inner compass and following your curiosity

Plus: Jenny reads a beautiful letter to her 10-year-old self about questioning the rules, creating your own path and why curiosity can take you further than certainty.

🎧 Listen to the full conversation on She Talks Tech.

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Episode 66: Keep That Courage — Sewagodimo Matlapeng on Self-Taught Coding, Big Tech, and Career Pivots

• Sewagodimo taught herself to code at 16 in Rustenburg, before she'd even learned to use Microsoft Word
• Her path went from South African startups to Meta in Ireland, then into machine learning
• She talks about being the only woman in the room, pivoting careers even when it meant moving backward, and unlearning the idea that good work speaks for itself
• She closes with a letter to her ten-year-old self, a signature of every episode

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Emerging Tech Voice Ep.13: Everyone Was a Beginner at Some Point - Joan Wanzetse

In this episode, Hlulani sits down solo with Joan Wanzetse, who pivoted from architecture into data science and tech, for a conversation on starting over, feeling behind, and staying resilient.

In this episode, we cover:

• Growing up creative and torn between music, fashion, art, and a love for math
• Studying architecture, then leaving after studio critique culture took a toll on her confidence
• Pivoting to applied mathematics, where she found she thrives when art and analytical work stay separate rather than merged
• The overwhelm of her first data science bootcamp session, and learning to sit with not knowing
• Balancing her days between running her art studio and building tech skills and projects
• Navigating a competitive, saturated Kenyan tech job market while still job hunting
• Leaning on her sisters, Gertie Sheshe and Cynthia, both already in tech, for support and perspective
• Why she now wants to explore AI and machine learning, especially at the intersection with the creative industry
• Her closing advice: don't compare your journey to anyone else's
• 
  

Connect with Joan and see her art at @zee1zeth_studio on Instagram and TikTok.

Hear from Joan's sister Gertie Sheshe in her own episode here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/68MSArs3C8j8x3EisClU5Y

Follow She Talks Tech on Instagram @she_talks_tech_podcast, and if you'd like to support the show, you can do so at buymeacoffee.com/shetalkstech.

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Emerging Tech Voice Ep.12: Speak for Your Work

This episode's roundtable tackles what nobody tells you in your first year on the job.

Topics covered:

• Why school only prepares you for about 30% of what the job actually demands
• Corporate politics: how to recognize it, when to stay out of it, and what to do when you can't avoid it
• The unspoken rule of not overstepping seniors, even when you know more than they do
• Why visibility matters as much as delivery, and why your work doesn't always speak for itself
• Office attendance policies and why "but I get the work done at home" doesn't always cut it
• Told feedback vs advice: how to tell the difference, and when it's okay to push back
• Closing advice for anyone starting their first job tomorrow

If you've ever wondered whether you belong in the room, this one's for you.

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"Come Out of Your Cocoon": Garima Agrawal on Java, Nike, and Building a Brand

Garima Agrawal is a backend software engineer with a decade in Java development, having worked at Tavant Technologies, TCS, and Nike's India Technology Center. In this episode, she talks about landing in Java by chance rather than choice, freelancing in Tanzania, and moving to the US alone only to learn she was pregnant weeks later. She shares what it took to navigate a new country, a new healthcare system, and H-1B visa pressure while raising a young child, plus her honest take on AI's impact on developer jobs. She closes with why she started building a public brand two months ago and a letter to her 10-year-old self.

Topics discussed:

• From Tavant to TCS to Nike: a decade in Java
• Moving to the US alone and finding out she was pregnant
• H-1B visa pressure and navigating layoffs in tech
• Microservice architecture and cloud work at Nike
• Why deep Java knowledge still matters in an AI-heavy market
• Building a personal brand and joining Java community leadership

Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7aZRzRG0jFs0i8hLrmpG2R

#SheTalksTech #WomenInTech #GirlsInSTEM #AfricaTech #JavaDevelopers

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She Talks Tech | Emerging Tech Voices

Hosts Hlulani, Murendeni, and Nhlamulo sit down for a candid roundtable on what career growth actually looks like once you're in it, and why "boundaries" isn't just a buzzword but a survival skill. From imposter syndrome after a non-traditional entry into data science, to the real cost of overworking for validation, this episode unpacks how growth, burnout, and boundary-setting are more tangled together than most career advice admits.

• How career growth definitions shift over time, from chasing promotions and titles to defining growth as sustainable delivery and self-trust
• Starting a data science career through an online certificate instead of a university degree, and the pressure to "prove" ownership of the title
• Why growth isn't linear, and unlearning the instinct to plan promotions on a fixed timeline
• The early-career trap of overworking to be seen as relevant, and what that costs long-term
• Turning performance reviews and check-ins into a personal habit, not just a company policy, including weekly one-on-ones and informal "coffee chat" alignment sessions
• Knowing when to hold boundaries firmly versus when the season of the business calls for flexibility (e.g. close to a launch or deployment date)
• The moment of realizing that consistently overdelivering (finishing 5-day tickets in 2 days) sets an unsustainable expectation
• Who really benefits when someone has no boundaries: the individual, the employer, or both
• Practical boundary tactics: blocking calendar time for lunch and focus work, communicating workload feasibility upfront, and understanding "what time it is" in the business before deciding where to push back

• "I'm only learning now that growth is not linear."
• "Boundaries work well when you have priorities."
• "Who actually benefits the most when you don't have boundaries? ... It's both."
• "It's not sustainable, but it did help me earlier on in the career."

🎧 Listen: She Talks Tech on Spotify

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Share your own definition of career growth and how you set boundaries at work — tag us using #SheTalksTech.

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Age Should Not Hold You Back: Jacqueline Berger on changing careers at 35, from drilling engineering to AI and cyber defense

What does it take to walk away from a career you've already conquered and start over? Hlulani talks to Jacqueline Berger, who spent six years as a directional driller on oil rigs, including a seismic field internship in the Sahara, before reinventing herself at 35 as a data scientist now working in AI and cyber defense.

Inspired by Michelle Obama's Becoming, Jacqueline went back to school for a computer science degree as the oldest in a class of twenty-somethings. She talks about why motherhood, not the work, became her breaking point, and the part-time fight that followed. She also challenges the "AI or die" narrative head-on, making the case for small language models, for protecting junior developers, and for the diversity that guards against the blind spots behind faulty facial recognition.

And in a letter to her 10-year-old self, she lands on the line that gives this episode its heart.

In this episode: Vienna childhood and the chemistry lesson that started it all, the Sahara shock, life on the rigs, motherhood as the turning point, going back to school at 35, breaking into tech, challenging the AI hype, and a letter to her younger self.

Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7aZRzRG0jFs0i8hLrmpG2R

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63 - Hard Work and Focus: Silvia Gonzalez on 27 Years in Industrial Automation, Global Leadership, and Paying It Forward

Silvia Gonzalez has spent 27 years in industrial automation, moving from her first role at GE Fanuc in Mexico City to her current position as Global Head of Software Business at Emerson, where she holds global P&L responsibility and sits on the board of directors of Progea SRL. Hers is a career built on learning fast, staying curious, and refusing to be defined by the rooms she walked into alone.

In this conversation, Silvia takes us through the full arc of her journey: from tearing apart radios as a child in Mexico, to training sales forces on PLC programming before she felt ready, to developing critical control solutions for some of the largest oil and gas companies in Latin America, to leading global software teams across multiple time zones and cultures. She is direct about the moments she doubted herself, the leaders who believed in her before she did, and what it took to eventually believe it herself.

This is a conversation about what it actually looks like to build a career over decades, not overnight.

What we cover

• Growing up in Mexico with an engineer father and a brother who pushed her to compete, and how that shaped her early drive
• Walking into her first job at GE Fanuc without feeling ready, and what she learned from getting up to speed fast
• Building the critical control business across Latin America, working with Pemex, Petrobras, and PDVSA
• Spending over a decade at GE across multiple restructures, and when she first started thinking of her work as a career rather than just a job
• The move to Baker Hughes and why she said yes to a role that took her outside everything she knew
• The shift from individual contributor to global leader, and how the narrative changes when it stops being about you
• Owning a global P&L for the first time and what it feels like from day one
• Sitting on a board of directors and learning to communicate from the driving seat
• Leading across time zones and why she does 6 AM calls without complaint
• Being a woman in industrial automation, what has changed, what has not, and how she approaches mentoring the next generation
• The leaders throughout her journey who saw something in her before she saw it in herself
• Her blueprint for anyone building a long career with integrity

Support the show

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62 - Show Up and Do It Well: Sinah Legong on Ecosystems, mLab and Staying the Course

Sinah Legong is someone Hlulani has known since the early days — back when they were both finding their footing at mLab in Pretoria, surviving on noodles and showing up to every event that had free food.

Today Sinah is at the forefront of one of South Africa's most enduring tech ecosystem builders. She has opened provincial offices, managed partnerships at executive and grassroots level, walked startup founders through their first business registrations, and sat with them when the wheels fell off. She has been doing this work quietly, consistently, and without stopping.

In this episode they catch up properly — and the conversation covers a lot of ground.

From growing up in a household where entrepreneurship was just survival, to stumbling into computer science because a university application arrived too late, to becoming the person who holds the ecosystem together when everyone else is chasing the next big event.

In this episode:

• Growing up in a family where business was a daily necessity, not a career choice
• How a missed application deadline redirected Sinah into computer science
• What mLab actually is and why it is the only one of five African labs still standing
• Why big tech companies are still treating youth programs as KPI tick boxes
• What early stage startups consistently get wrong — and where the real drop happens
• The hidden cost of working in silos across South Africa's innovation hubs
• What it takes to build an ecosystem that people actually trust
• Why she still shows up, even in rooms where she was told she did not belong

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#SheTalksTech #WomenInTech #GirlsInSTEM #WorkCulture #AfricaTech

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