Our Lead(H)er series features impressive women leaders in the tech industry. In this Q&A, we are featuring Monika Ochocki, Director of Customer Care at SmartBear.
Where did you grow up and how would you describe yourself as a child?
I grew up in the suburbs of Vancouver, British Columbia as a first generation Polish Canadian. My parents moved to Winnipeg, Canada from Poland in the late 1980s and in the 90s moved to the suburbs of Vancouver where they raised me, my twin sister, and older brother. One of my most vivid memories as a child was receiving a kid’s recipe book from a Scholastic Book order that was filled with different desserts. Snickerdoodles was the first recipe I tried, and it ignited my love for baking, something I did often with my sister. I was lucky to win the sibling lottery. Growing up with a twin sister meant we spent loads of time playing with Barbies, exploring the outdoors, and trying to find ways to annoy our older brother.
What did you study in college and what was your first job out of school?
After high school, I enrolled at the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) where I graduated with a diploma in business management. After graduation, I started working at a well-known Vancouver-based athletic clothing brand in their call center which started my customer support journey.
Can you share the details on your career path and what were the critical moments that got you to where you are today?
I think one of the most critical moments in my career was moving from Vancouver, British Columbia to London, England while working in my first software role. I was in my early 20s when I made this move, and it exposed me to a wider set of customers and an opportunity to work with colleagues in various countries. I was also exposed to a much larger tech scene than what was in Vancouver at the time.
After working at larger companies, I joined a small startup called SEDNA based in London where I was one of the first five employees in our London office and only two people in customer support serving customers across the globe. Joining this company gave me the most exposure to building processes, working with executives, working cross-functionally with engineering, product, and sales teams while also helping to build my confidence in the work that I was doing. Undoubtedly, this experience was the biggest stepping stone to where I am today.
What is your current role and responsibilities?
At SmartBear, I am the Director of Customer Care for our API lifecycle products which include SwaggerHub, PactFlow, and ReadyAPI. I oversee the Customer Care team in the U.S., India, and where I’m based in Wroclaw, Poland.
While I wish I could say what a typical day looks like, the day-to-day differs from one day to the next. I am responsible for ensuring the teams are meeting service level agreements (SLAs), are up to date with their product knowledge along with ensuring my direct reports and their reports have everything they need to be successful in their roles and are continuously growing professionally.
I am involved in quite a few projects across the SmartBear Customer Care organization and the API lifecycle team while also looking into our statistics and making data driven decisions for the team. I am very keen on ensuring everyone on the team is happy in their role, and I try to spend as much time with them as possible. Without my team’s success, I don’t succeed.
Looking back, is this where you thought you’d be professionally? Was it always your goal to be in this position?
I always knew I wanted to be a people manager, however I didn’t think I would attain a director role this early in my career. I have been in the tech industry for about a decade now, and looking back at where I started, I would never have imagined I would be at SmartBear living in Poland and watching the tech scene grow and mature here.
For people who are looking to be in a similar position, what advice would you give to others in terms of helping them achieve their career goals?
One of the best pieces of advice I was given early on in my career was to always ask for help and remember that no matter what you are tasked with there’s always a team behind you to help you and bring you up. While we all have our own goals and KPIs, those always roll up into team goals and KPIs. We should leverage our team to help us but to also help them with their goals.
Remember a title is just a title and the relationships you build with others will always trump any title you will have throughout your career along with how you treat others. People will always remember how you interacted with them rather than what your title was.
Never stop learning. No matter where we are in our careers, the landscape is always changing, technology is always changing, best practices are always changing. Lifelong learning and curiosity make great leaders.
What are the most important skills that you need to do your job well?
In any customer-facing role, you need the ability to quickly build relationships with the customers you are helping and with colleagues. The role involves quite a bit of cross-collaboration, and without building good relationships, it can make the role more difficult.
Staying organized and calm can come in handy, especially when it feels like things are happening all at once. There can be days when there seems to be an emergency on every corner, projects are coming due, and your team needs you. This is where organization is important.
What do you find most interesting/rewarding about your work? What’s the most challenging?
I always try to hire and build a team that will be better than me. I always find it extremely rewarding when people on the team get promoted, move to different teams where they wanted to move to, and generally do well in their job performance. At SmartBear, we have a member of our team moving to a development team shortly which is a move I can’t wait to share with everyone and celebrate the crossed-off goal.
It's challenging in any customer-facing role to balance the expectations of the customer and with the goals and scale of a company. Our main goal in Customer Care is to make the customer happy by resolving any issues they may have or answer any questions promptly. Sometimes we are faced with a feature request that may not be on the roadmap, and it can be tough letting customers know that what is a priority for them may not be a priority for the company right now.
What is your proudest professional accomplishment?
Sitting in my role at SmartBear is a massive accomplishment for me, and it’s cliché to say, but I never saw myself in a director role so early in my career and leading a team of so many wonderful people in a company that is constantly changing and growing. The role is a challenge, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Also, in my previous role at SEDNA, we built the team from two people working with a global customer base to a team located across the globe to help our customers. This is never easy for a company looking to grow, but it’s something we were able to accomplish as a team. My jobs throughout SEDNA and the growth of that team remains one of the most important accomplishments in my career.
Q&A
What do you enjoy doing in your free time?
One of the main things I like doing in my free time is spending time with my dog, Daisy. I adopted her in August 2022, and ever since, she has been the absolute light of my life. We often go for long walks along the river near our home or cuddle on the couch while watching TV. Daisy loves laying on the kitchen floor waiting for something to fall so she can “vacuum” it up.
I also find cooking and baking a sort of escape so after a long day or stressful situation, this really helps me de-stress. The best part is always eating the food after it’s done. One of my favorite things to bake is sourdough (made the starter myself) and the pizza dough that I can make with it is truly the best homemade pizza dough I have ever had. One of my favorite things to cook is any sort of dumpling. I recently made over 100 vegan perogies and 80+ vegan gyoza. There’s something about the careful folding and pinching that makes the process really therapeutic.
Any book or podcast recommendations?
I have quite a few crime/spy related podcasts I listen to throughout the day and while I cycle to work, but these are the ones I listen to the most and eagerly await new episodes each week:
- Canadian True Crime
- Casefile
- Piąte: Nie zabijaj (recorded in Polish)
- True Spies
- Kryminalne Historie (recorded in Polish)
What advice do you have for recent college graduates?
Don’t stress if you don’t know what you want to do as soon as you graduate. Use the early years of your career to experiment and pivot with different roles that align with not only what you want to be doing but align with your values.
When you land your dream role, have goals for where you want to be in one year, five years, and ten years because there is nothing more satisfying than being able to share these milestones with your loved ones and crossing them off your goals list.
Never forget the hobby or hobbies you had before having to study and get a job. Having a great work-life balance helps you excel at work and helps you to stay motivated to keep working hard without the fear of burning out or feeling like you no longer have time for yourself. After working at a very fast-paced startup, I learned that work will always be there in the morning. Everything keeps moving and spinning if you take a week off, but time spent doing what you love and spending time with those you love won’t always be there.
