Every month on our site, we will be profiling senior technical women. This month, Aglaia Kong answers our questions about the success factors in her career.

Profile:  Aglaia Kong, Vice President and Fellow, CTO, Storage and Availability Management Group, Symantec Corporation

How did you decide to pursue a career in technology?

I decided to pursue a career in technology when I was 6 yrs old. I always wanted to go to outer space and explore the universe. After waiting for 6 days on the roof to get picked up by UFOs with no success, I decided to build my own space vehicle. Based on that decision, I went into electrical and chemical engineering fields and I have been trying to achieve my dream in odd ways ever since.

Based on your own experience, what skill(s) or characteristic(s) do you think are most important for technical women to succeed?

Having continuous curiosity about how things work, what new technologies are out there, appreciations for others, knowing everyone has their unique value proposition, listen well with an open mind, and prepare to accept defeat when convinced..

What was the greatest challenge that you overcame in your career?

My greatest challenge is how to balance between business needs versus building the best product with the right technology and architecture. For a long time, I wanted to just focus on building the best product, no matter how long it would take. That makes me the best engineer; however, I cannot advance my career beyond being the best engineer. Over time, after talking with many customers, observing how the business is operating, how the CIOs are making choices, and learning a lot from product managers, I started balancing between building the right products and building the perfect products. That helped me to guide my teams better and helped me to advance to my current position; now, I can be confident that I am driving the products which will meet the customer’s needs and are not a complete hack.

How do you deal with work/life balance?

I don’t sleep much by design, so that makes my day longer. In general, I try to spend time with my kids and family on the weekend and manage my free time around their schedule. I am a kid at heart; I really enjoy watching kids and sci-fi shows and talking with kids. So my kids and I get along very well. I find that they have a very different perspective on life and that helps for some of my work decisions as well.  I spend fun time with friends, mostly around food and camping activities. I will work late after everyone goes to sleep.

What advice would you give to women in high tech who want to advance on the individual contributor technical track specifically?

Stay current with your products, continue to challenge the products and yourself. Always question whether there is a better way to make things, but provide insightful and constructive suggestions. Expand your knowledge base and always be in a learning mode.

How do you stay current in your technical field?

I like to read about the competitors and what they are doing. I meet with customers a lot and try to understand their pain points and challenges. I like to read market trends and predictions. I watch a lot of science and sci-fi shows. I read lots of science magazines. I also like to experience any new computer languages and products by trying to write small applications. The keys to staying current are to understand the needs from the customers and the broader market, knowing what ground breaking ideas are out there, what tools are available for use, and then you can decide what makes sense to innovate and build, or stop.

In your opinion, what (if any) are the remaining barriers faced by women in technology?

I think the barriers are perceptions built into society, culture and self. Somehow, women are bought or profiled to be “girly” very early. Girls are given cooking toys and made-up at a young age. Girls are pushed or given a chance to take non-science classes very early. Women are consistently reminded that it is much harder to advance in technology field. But the facts are that women are as capable in technology as men, as long as they put in the effort. I think advancing in technology field should be much easier than it currently is for women, since technology is very black and white. You know it or you don’t. People do not judge good technology based on gender. I think we have to work together to remove the perceptions in society that fail to encourage women in technology fields.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aglaia Kong Biography

Aglaia Kong is the CTO for the Storage and Availability Management Group at Symantec and also holds the distinction of being the first woman to be named a Symantec Fellow and Distinguished Engineer, the company’s preeminent technology leadership honors. Kong is responsible for overseeing the engineering, product architecture and technology directions for Symantec’s market leading storage management products such as Veritas Storage Foundation products, Veritas Cluster Server and Command Central Storage.  She brings to this role more than 20 years of engineering, technical leadership, and entrepreneurial success to this position.

Kong joined Symantec through the merger with Veritas, which she joined in 1997.  At Veritas Kong held a variety of engineering and technical leadership roles overseeing the architecture, design and implementation for several data center products.  Prior to joining Veritas, Kong held engineering and management roles with global positioning and satellite (GPS) technology and emerging software companies.  She was also an entrepreneur and founder of a successful GPS company which is the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) for GPS systems supported by Motorola, ESRI, Trimble Navigation, and Magellan.

Kong has a strong record of important technical achievements and holds ten patents in a variety of areas such as GPS/mapping technologies, storage management, and storage provisioning.

Kong holds a bachelors degree in electrical engineering from the University of Minnesota. She is an advocate for women in technology and has participated as a speaker and panelist in industry programs hosted by technology and women’s groups such as the Anita Borg Institute.