\u201cI didn\u2019t have a career in engineering or come from that background, and I wanted to be sure I understood what that might mean for me, coming in as a director,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Two conversations helped set Amy\u2019s mind at ease. One colleague reminded her that the job she was considering was more about people than technology; her responsibility would be keeping the team healthy and making sure they had the support, clarity, and resources they needed to deliver user value. Then, with another Mozillian, she talked about the fact that even people with technical backgrounds frequently have learning curves to climb\u2014when they start working in a new language, for example, or a new domain. \u201cThat helped me remember that it wasn\u2019t about what I already knew, but about my capacity to learn,\u201d Amy says.<\/p>\n
For Senior Engineering Manager Rachel Tublitz<\/a>, a similar conversation helped convince her to join Mozilla in the first place. \u201cI\u2019d been an engineering manager before, but the role I was interviewing for was in an area that was out of my wheelhouse,\u201d she remembers. \u201cWhen I talked with the person who became my boss, I flagged that, and she essentially said, \u2018You have the basics. You\u2019ll figure it out.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n That, Rachel says, is exactly what happened. \u201cThe team put together a great onboarding guide for me, which was super helpful. It was just known and accepted that I came in with both a lot of skills and a lot to learn.\u201d After a year and a half managing teams that worked on Firefox services, including the Installer<\/a>,\u00a0 the Updater<\/a>, Sync<\/a>, and Push<\/a>, she recently moved into a new role\u2014leading Amy\u2019s former team in add-ons, while Amy now leads part of Rachel\u2019s.<\/p>\n \u201cWe both inherited great teams, and they\u2019ve been incredibly supportive,\u201d Rachel says. \u201cWe\u2019ve also gotten a lot of support from each other.\u201d<\/p>\n Paths to growth<\/b><\/p>\n At Mozilla, opportunities to try something new arise in a wide range of ways. With Amy, for example, the company wanted to create a position to help explore possibilities for a new revenue stream, and her experience in add-ons lent itself to the role.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes you\u2019re assigned to something; sometimes you get pulled into another person\u2019s interesting idea; sometimes you generate your own idea and sell it up the chain,\u201d says Javaun Moradi<\/a>, a Senior Manager of Product currently working on Rally<\/a>, a new community data-sharing platform. In seven years at Mozilla, he has worked as both an individual contributor and a manager in the Firefox organization. The common thread, he says, has been \u201cweird, messy problems,\u201d ranging from launching DRM to developing tracking protection, search work to joint ventures with startups\u2014but the paths to new projects have varied. Rally, for instance, was an idea from Director of Data Science Rebecca Weiss, and something Javaun himself had long been passionate about. \u201cWhen she went for it, I said, \u2018I want to be in on this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n When Head of Mobile John Cook<\/a> joined Mozilla in 2019, he, too, knew his role could change over time. But he didn\u2019t expect it to happen within weeks. A specialist in innovation and disruptive technologies and a veteran of companies including Apple, HP, and Norton, John wanted to join a team that \u201cputs the user, not shareholders, front and center. I felt like it was something of a calling,\u201d he remembers.<\/p>\n Initially, he focused on improvements in product management, working primarily with Mozilla\u2019s small-but-mighty Mobile team. But after little more than a month, a reorganization prompted the formation of a new mobile business unit\u2014with John as Director of Product. A year and a half later, he moved into the Head of Mobile role, and he now oversees Product, Engineering, Business, and Growth teams across both iOS<\/a> and Android<\/a> Firefox browsers.<\/p>\n \u201cA big reason I was able to make that transition is that the people on our team were also growing their own careers,\u201d he says. To create opportunities, he leaned on a piece of advice from a mentor he\u2019d had early in his own career: \u201cShe reminded me not to forget someone\u2019s resum\u00e9 after they\u2019re hired,\u201d he recalls. \u201cOne of our product managers had a lot of past experience leading big crossteam initiatives; our engineering program manager had expertise in partnerships. Digging into people\u2019s backgrounds can be a great way to expand their roles.\u201d<\/p>\n As Javaun notes, an expanded role doesn\u2019t always mean management. \u201cPeople have different career goals, and we try to match opportunities to the contribution they want to make,\u201d he says. \u201cSome really do want to be managers; others want to become experts on the individual contributor track. They are different skill sets, and we want to cultivate\u2014and offer a structured path for\u2014both.\u201d<\/p>\n He also notes that goals can and do change over time: \u201cI\u2019m a parent. I was on one trajectory, and then I wanted to be on another one, so I could spend more time at home.\u201d<\/p>\n And it\u2019s not just individuals making changes, Javaun says\u2014as people expand their career goals, Mozilla expands, too. \u201cThe idea is not just to give people career tracks,\u201d says Javaun. \u201cYou actually have to make space for them to do their best work, and know that it could alter the way that you build your products and services. I\u2019ve seen it happen\u2014on product teams, UX teams\u2014we\u2019ve adapted and grown because of what people brought to the table.<\/p>\n But regardless of the role, or the path taken to get there, Javaun says projects at Mozilla have had some key things in common. \u201cYou get to work with smart, driven people who don\u2019t want to work anywhere else, and you get to do things no other company gets to do,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019re often swimming upstream against big, entrenched interests. But we\u2019re trying anyway, and there are ways we can win. That\u2019s addictive.\u201d<\/p>\n Culture of learning<\/b><\/p>\n Rachel says the help she\u2019s received from Amy and her teammates since moving into her new role is the norm at Mozilla. \u201cPeople shifting positions and learning new things is pretty common here, and I think that\u2019s helped build a supportive culture,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n For Amy, that culture starts with creating space for people to ask questions\u2014something she\u2019s felt since her earliest days on the team. \u201cA few months after I started as a community manager, most of the team shifted to another project. I had to learn a lot about the operations, product, and engineering aspects of the ecosystem I supported because the team became much smaller, but I never felt judged when I asked questions.\u201d<\/p>\n Even in a relatively senior role, John says, \u201cThere is a lot of going to your peers. Javaun was one of the people taking my calls when I first joined, helping me navigate. I\u2019ve been in the industry for a while, but Mozilla is unlike any other place I\u2019ve been\u2014you really can reach out to anybody to learn about what they\u2019re working on or just have a conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n Because learning is \u201cnot only tolerated but encouraged,\u201d John says, team members sometimes find themselves in the spotlight more quickly than they expect. \u201cEven if you\u2019re brand new in the company,\u201d he says, \u201cyou might be sitting in a meeting with our senior vice president.\u201d<\/p>\n Of course, balance is required to navigate such \u201ctrials by fire\u201d effectively. \u201cIf someone has everything figured out they\u2019ll be bored, but you also don\u2019t want to throw them in over their head,\u201d Javaun says. \u201cI think ideally, they\u2019ll be at about 70% or 80%\u2014struggling a bit, but not drowning.\u201d<\/p>\n To that end, programs are taking shape to help Mozillians develop their skills and careers. In addition to formal offerings like a learning budget to pay for books, conferences, and even coaching, leaders like John are thinking about more structured ways to help team members explore potential paths. \u201cWe\u2019re experimenting with carving out time for someone to sit in and get assignments in different areas, so they can test the waters and see what it might be like to make a career change,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen you\u2019re a lean organization, it can be difficult to have someone spending time away from your team\u2014or to be the other manager who\u2019s spending time to train them. The key is to work together, so we can do what\u2019s best for the employee and for Mozilla.\u201d<\/p>\n Paying it forward<\/b><\/p>\n As she settles into her new role, Rachel recognizes that doing what\u2019s best for each of her team members requires truly getting to know them as individuals. \u201cFacilitating learning is going to be different for each person,\u201d she says. \u201cOnce I understand what someone is going for, then I can help them try those things, pick up those skills, and connect them with other people they can learn from.\u201d<\/p>\n For Amy, setting an example has been helpful, as well. \u201cI try to normalize learning by talking about what I\u2019m learning myself,\u201d she says. \u201cI’ve been beefing up my knowledge of services engineering, for example, and several people on my team are beefing up their knowledge of Rust. We talk openly about the books we’re reading and the things we’re learning.\u201d<\/p>\n As John notes, growth is a two-way street: \u201cYour manager should be helping you get where you want to go, but you\u2019re in charge of your career. You really need to have those discussions, so you can be ready when opportunities come up.\u201d Mozillians can also reach out to other mentors and peers for support, and it even happens between entire teams: \u201cRight now in Mobile, we\u2019re learning a new tool that\u2019s been up and running on the Desktop side for a while, and they\u2019ve been supporting our first experiment,\u201d John says. \u201cIt\u2019s not in their job description to help us be successful, but we\u2019re all in this together.\u201d<\/p>\n Rachel, too, has benefited from cross-team support\u2014including via a working group that helps managers share knowledge and techniques for things like having difficult conversations and supporting team members during periods of change. When the founder of the group left Mozilla, Rachel took over. Amy, likewise, has paid forward the support she received as a new Mozillian, by working to make the company more inclusive to volunteers who, like her, don\u2019t have engineering backgrounds.<\/p>\n And with each new opportunity created, Javaun says, the company itself will grow. \u201cWe want to retain all the beautiful, renegade parts that make us Mozilla,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen we adapt our processes and operations and culture to accommodate skill sets that are pushing the industry forward, we unlock a lot of possibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"image](\"http:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/files\/2021\/06\/Growing-Career-4.png\")
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