Sophia Hsu is a system administrator at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. She is an expert in Salesforce.com, a software platform that helps businesses track customer activity, and she trains employees in how to use it.
Please describe your job.
In technical terms, I'm a system administrator for Salesforce.com, a very easy system that we customized specifically for the Port Authority. In everyday terms, I answer people's questions, conduct training, and build relationships with my customers, the employees of the Port Authority. I make sure that they understand how to use the software and that they’ve selected the right tools for the job.
What do you do on a typical day?
I really love that each day is different. There’s a lot of diversity in my day-to-day.
Typically, I log in, check my emails to see if anyone's asked me any questions about the software, and log those questions in the system. I work through the questions by providing a bit of extra training. I might set up a virtual meeting so that the customer can share their screen, and I can walk them through the solution. I want to help them to become more self-sufficient.
Some days I do business analysis, the technical term for understanding the business’s needs and translating them into technical terms. It takes special people to be that bridge. It's like being a foreign language interpreter–knowing what one side of the table is saying, and explaining it to the other side in terms that they understand. A business owner may ask for something in simple terms. However, the people who are coding and building out a piece of software may not understand how the business process works. The person in between interprets the process so that both sides understand. I am basically that bridge all day.
Today, I did some process mapping, updated some business requirements, and developed a really easy-to-understand PowerPoint slide so that all of the things that the business wanted would be easily understood by the technical side. I walk a really fine line between business and tech. I have to make sure that neither side feels left out of the collaborative process.
Can you tell me a little bit about your journey into a technology career?
Technology has always been in my life. When I was five or six years old, I went to summer camp, and we had “computer time.” I got to code in a really old language called Logo, and the little triangle on the screen was called a turtle. You would make it draw designs and do little things by writing code. I never considered it a career–I just thought it was fun.
In school, like many children of immigrants, I had to excel at everything. I did well in chemistry, bio, physics, art, and English–a wide spread of things. That's something that I appreciated, that I was lucky enough to be in a school system that emphasized more than just STEM, including art and music. Surprisingly, experiencing other subjects really helped with the STEM subjects because I could see things from a different perspective. I didn't have to memorize everything. Instead, I could make connections and see patterns.
From there, I went into undergrad with the idealistic view that I was going to save the world by going into environmental science and chemistry and fix the ozone layer. I ended up helping a professor with his research, and one of the other lab assistants was sloppy and caused a series of accidents, which made me rethink a future in a lab. While I could control my actions and my environment, I couldn’t control others’ actions.
So I looked at the credits I had already earned as an undergrad, and I decided to switch my major to Spanish and secondary education. Unusual, right? You don't usually have someone who's so heavily in STEM turn on a dime and become a double major in Spanish and secondary education.
I took my graduate school exams, the GREs, passed easily, and went to NYU in Madrid for grad school. Every day we debated politics and literature. I took every opportunity that I could to expand my horizons, to see how other people live. I was actually applying the scientific method to my literature program. I would test something, and keep testing it until it became a theory.
9/11 happened while I was in grad school, and everyone was worried because they knew I went to NYU. They didn't realize I was in Spain, not in New York. That also flipped a switch. I started thinking again about what I could do to help people when I got back. Instead of becoming a Spanish teacher, I decided to do some temp jobs at an insurance company because after 9/11, so many families and businesses were devastated. That turned into a permanent job because they needed someone who spoke Spanish to answer field calls. They soon realized that my analytical skills from my science background were top notch, so I was asked to be part of a project team. I moved into a role called strategic initiatives and worked on a way to consolidate all of the insurance policy data from smaller companies into a centralized system. They were also starting to move into e-signatures and filling out insurance applications online, so they needed someone who really understood technology and user experience.
I was introduced to Salesforce.com, the software I work with now, back in 2006. It really interested me because I could build a lot without having to code. I was really interested in this hybrid, where there was a lot of drag and drop. And that's how I got into technology and business analysis. Very round-about and not straightforward.
What are some key differences between your current career and other jobs you've worked in the past?
I actually keep finding a lot of similarities in my different jobs. For instance, I find that the customer service skills I developed from when I worked in a restaurant, from when I volunteered at a hospital, and from when I was a teaching assistant in college, really help with my job now as a senior system designer and business analyst. When I was studying to be a teacher, I learned patience for when I have to train somebody, or train a group. Being a high school teacher taught me how to keep my students’ attention in the classroom, to interpret and develop things in a way that would make sense for a lot of different learning styles, because there are kinetic learners, visual learners, and auditory learners. So, there are a lot of commonalities that have really come into play.
Why do you enjoy your job?
I enjoy my job because it is diverse. I get to work with all different kinds of people all day–different skill sets, different learning styles.
At the end of the day, there's something satisfying about someone who says, “Oh, I totally did that on my own. I totally got that.” It's satisfying to see that all of the effort that I put in to make things easier, intelligible, and easy to digest, really works.
Something that I learned is that you don't always get the praise that you deserve. If something works well, you don't hear anything about it, but if something works poorly, you hear a lot about it. So it really warms my heart when at the end of the day, I still get that thanks.
Do you have any advice for young women who want to go into STEM?
Take every opportunity that is offered to you. When you're young, you can absorb anything, and you don't always get the opportunity to try again later. Look for opportunities, even if they're not presented to you, because in life, people are not going to present something on a silver platter.
If you get the opportunity to travel, I suggest doing that. Traveling will broaden your horizons and help you gain different perspectives. Being able to learn about another culture expands the way we think. The way we look at science is different than someone who lives in another country. For instance, when I was in Spain tutoring English, I learned from my students that they were taught that there are only five continents on the globe, while in America we are taught that there are seven. Being able to see the world from a different perspective changes the way you think and makes you more innovative.
Don't say no before you've tried it. There were kids who, before I even got a chance to teach them, would say “I can't. I don't know. I don't know how.” We are self-limiting in that way, and it’s something we need to stop. There was a study that I read about how women create a resume out of actual experience, while men create a resume out of perspective experience–meaning this is what I can do, versus what I could do. As women, we have to push ourselves and have more confidence to try. Be okay with failure, because not even trying is worse.
Some personal takeaways:
Becoming a teacher was something that was always in the back of my mind, and I haven’t ruled it out. I was always good at helping my friends understand material and solving problems, and it’s always rewarding to truly help others. While being a systems administrator is not what I imagined a teaching job to be, it sounds as though it has many of the elements that I enjoy about teaching.
One aspect of technology jobs that I wrestle with is the need to sit at a desk on a computer all day. While being a systems administrator does involve that sometimes, the job allows for a lot of interaction with others.
I was inspired by how Ms. Hsu used and appreciated her experience in non-STEM subjects. While I love math and science, I also really enjoy learning history and reading. It’s nice to know that even if I go into a STEM field, my other interests are still helpful.
Ms. Hsu’s advice to look for every opportunity really resonated with me. My school has an excellent STEM program, but sometimes it doesn’t have exactly what I’m looking for. I’ve learned that sometimes I need to go out of my way to seek out other opportunities. No situation is perfect, and sometimes I have to take a little bit from one program, and a little bit from another one.
I’m the sort of person who needs some routine, but can’t be doing the exact same thing every day. It sounds as though Ms. Hsu’s job as a systems administrator provides that kind of variety, which could be appealing.