Niha Syamala
Platform Engineering Manager
Raleigh, United States
Don’t worry if you are the only woman on the team. Don’t overthink it. Use your voice and lead with courage towards better business outcomes. Get comfortable with uncomfortable.
I have been with RELX since 2016 and manage a globally distributed cross-functional team with responsibility for setting technical direction and evolving cloudnative platform capabilities for a portfolio of over two hundred applications to deliver the world’s best legal software solutions.
I graduated in electronics then started in tech as an intern in India. I was always fascinated by tech and what it could do. I went on to do a master’s degree in computer networking in the US ten years ago. I have worked for several multinational companies in different tech roles. This experience enabled me to explore different disciplines, but it is LexisNexis which has had the biggest impact on my career and male allies across the business who have greatly influenced my career trajectory. There are also brilliant female leaders with whom I work and they have always been available to guide me.
Interacting with a diverse team forces people to prepare better and anticipate alternative viewpoints and there are ongoing efforts at RELX to improve hiring, career development and promotions processes to better support minorities. Although, there is a long way to go, I see many women leaders paving the way in technology.
Hackathons at LexisNexis are my favourite. I regularly get to mentor college students and all-women teams. We always make a conscious effort to remove non-inclusive language in the code we write and LexisNexis is authentic and transparent about diversity and inclusion efforts, sharing progress internally and externally.