Sara Haider
Android engineer at Periscope. Previously Secretly, Vine & Twitter.
Discussion
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Sara Haider
@pandemona
I'm Sara Haider, an engineer at Periscope. I've built a few social media apps on Android, like Twitter, Vine, Secret (RIP), and Periscope. I'm also an advisor to Girls Who Code, an organization focussed on inspiring young girls to pursue technology. My hobbies include: video games, music (I love to sing!) and Las Vegas.
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Sara Haider
@pandemona
@ekp love this question. Right now, Snapchat and Facebook Messenger are on my dock. I also use the on demand stuff (Uber, Lyft, Caviar, Postmates) a LOT. I've recently started using LiveText from Yahoo and strangely enough I've found it addictive. I'm also a DAU of Spotify, Slack, Instagram, Google Photos, and Swarm. Ps Can I meet you sometime?! You're a hero.
Kayvon Beykpour
@kayvz · Co-Founder & CEO, Periscope App
What's your favorite emoji, and why? Asking for a friend.
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Sara Haider
@pandemona
@kayvz my fav emoji is this one: ⛄️
it's the best response for a variety of scenarios. here are some examples:
coworker: did you finish that presentation yet?
me: ⛄️
drunk dude: hey baby wanna hang out
me: ⛄️
mom: hi darling are you getting enough sleep?
me: ⛄️
Dilyar Askar
@dilyaraskar · Canadian Entrepreneur pioneering;
@pandemona @kayvz LMAO dkm.... Sara ⛄️
mike lin
@mikelinsf · Founder & CEO, influencersTV
There are so few women engineers in San Francisco/Silicon Valley. What do you think can be done to bring in more 'Girls Who Code'?
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Sara Haider
@pandemona
@mikelinsf This is the most important question of our industry and will be for some time. It's simple:
1) Go out of your way to hire, promote, and champion women of all stages in their career in the industry. It doesn't matter what stage of company or startup you are. If you care about it, you must do this.
2) Help those who are working to inspire girls to enter the industry, like Girls Who Code.
3) Stand up against all the inequality, big and small, that you see.
Jonah
@jonah · Engineer at Twitter
@pandemona after having been through the rise and fall of Secret, do you think there's still a place for mass consumer anonymous tech?
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Sara Haider
@pandemona
@jonah YES. Thank you for asking this.
My biggest regret about Secret is that we had so many ideas - SO MANY IDEAS - on how to deal with the problems of anonymous social media, that we never got a chance to explore. And I think, especially given the quick rise of Secret, that people do need an anonymous outlet to share things they aren't comfortable sharing as themselves.
I don't think any of the current suite of anonymous apps have it right, Secret (RIP) included, but I'm hopeful the next generation of anon apps will make more progress in this space and the industry will try it again.
Hang Zhao
@sgzhaohang
Hi Sara, it seems that you've been working at lots of startups/teams in the past. So how did you make the decision to switch? What did you think at that time?
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Sara Haider
@pandemona
@sgzhaohang
When I joined Vine, it was my first opportunity to build an app from the ground up and I leapt at it. When I joined Secret, I had been at Twitter for 4.5 years and I wanted to join a startup :) When I found Periscope, I fell in love with the app.
None of these decisions were that difficult to make - I followed my heart each time. Leaving Twitter was hard but somehow I knew in my heart I'd be back!
Guy Mazzeo
@guymazzeo
@pandemona @sgzhaohang And This Android user is happy you did come back....thank you very much
Ian Rumac
@ianissoawesome · Android Developer @ Kino.de
Hey Sara, after working on multiple big apps, what would you say are the biggest pain points in the development process and what steps would you take while starting on a new project to ensure future maintainability?
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Sara Haider
@pandemona
@ianissoawesome The temptation to overarchitect at the beginning can be a painful trap to fall into. Constantly simplify, and even when you have to refactor to re-architect something, keep simplifying throughout.
JJ Tang
@jjrichardtang
Hi Sara - If you could time travel back to day one of those startups (current or past) and have 15min with your former self to communicate any lessons you've acquired with the intention of saving yourself mistakes and heart ache, what would you tell yourself?
ps. love that you advise girls who code, i've mentored ladies learning code before in Toronto :) It was a lot of fun!
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Sara Haider
@pandemona
@jjrichardtang
The one piece of advice would be - read the tech blogs but don't take them to heart :) Everyone has an opinion, they don't all matter.
JJ Tang
@jjrichardtang
@pandemona @jjrichardtang Thanks Sara :) what were your 2 favourite tech blogs?
Jess
@jess · Senior Director of Corp Dev, Twitter
Hey Sara -- You've seen a lot of different start-ups at different stages of growth from Twitter, Vine, Secret, Periscope, etc. Across all of these, what are the common factors that make a work environment great?