I re-entered the workforce as a new parent during the pandemic, combined with a relocation from London to Portugal all whilst getting used to a completely new life. After banging my head against the wall – repeatedly! I realized I wasn't going to get there without a system and tools to support me along the way.

It doesn't matter if you are an engineer, engineering manager or a CTO or even if you don't have kids! This session is for everyone!

In this session, I will share what I have learned, which tools worked and how I helped and learned from managing others through similar journeys across different cultures and countries with different realities and socio-economic factors. More and more, we are working in remote geographically distributed teams composed of in-house, outsourcing, nearshore people with big diversity; the pace increases and working environments become more and more impersonal.

It is important to raise awareness of the challenges, pain and dilemmas many of us deal with as new parents, the skills we learn and how our view of the world changes. We will go through what that looks like biologically, and the different phases one goes through from when a baby is born, through the joys of joint parental leave, maternity leave and workforce re-entry.
Leave this session with some memory tags on how we can support parents as an organization, as managers, as co-workers and ultimately as humans.