WWCode Podcast #16 – Honey Williams, Sr Director of Technology at Liberty Mutual
Written by WWCode HQ
Archana Vaidheeswaran, AI Engineer at Continental Automotive and Senior Leadership Fellow at Women Who Code interviews Honey Williams, a Senior Director of Technology at Liberty Mutual Insurance. They discuss tech in the insurance industry, the importance of networks and company cultures, and other tips for success.
Tell us a bit about your background and your work at Liberty Mutual Insurance?
I hail from Maine originally. I moved during COVID to Northern Vermont to get even more remote with my husband, two kids, and two dogs. As a Senior Director at Liberty Mutual, I lead a team of over 100 engineers, admins, and leaders. We support Liberty Mutual’s databases, data tools, application monitoring, and messaging and streaming solutions. Out of college, I had a math degree and a business degree. That’s not heavy in computer science, but I got into the training program with Liberty Mutual. They trained us to be software engineers, I liked it so much that I went back for a Master’s degree in Computer Science from Boston University, which Liberty Mutual paid for. It gave me more of the nuts and bolts of the work that I was doing and a deeper level of experience in it. It really added to my confidence as a software engineer. It was a great process to go through.
How does technology benefit your company for internal teams as well as for products, or customer-facing roles?
Technology is at the bedrock of all the things that we do at Liberty Mutual. We sell insurance, we service our policies, and we achieve the promise that we provide to our customers. That is that in a time of crisis, we will get you what you need to make you whole. In a crisis, what you need is fast access to money. We stay on top of the innovative ways that are coming out, technologically, to be able to get you that quickly.
What does your tech stack look like? Since you work with insurance, I bet there must be a lot of security clearances. How do you go about using new open-source technology?
Our company is more than 100 years old. We’ve been around since the internet began. We have a very diverse tech stack. You name it, we might have it in pockets across our organization. We have a great cyber security organization. If I have a team that’s looking to utilize some sort of new open source technology, part of our process would be to contact our cyber security organization. They would run through and check and make sure that there’s nothing that we need to be aware of. We get their buy-in before we start utilizing something that’s brand new to the organization from an open-source perspective.
How do you distribute resources and what does your infrastructure look like?
That’s a complicated process across a big organization. It’s a partnership. What are the business needs and what are the feature requests that our business has in order to drive business? What are our tech debt needs? Are we on end to support software that we need to upgrade? How do we marry those together to understand how that will impact our business needs in the future if we don’t solve this problem now?
There’s the additional factor of career paths. How do we make sure that we’re setting our employees up for success, providing them the development opportunities that continue to challenge them and keep them engaged in their job? Having an engaged, involved, and innovative staff is critical to our future as well. The marrying of those different aspects is how we prioritize our work.
I love the fact that you converted from a principal developer to a role of manager. Was it a natural progression, or did you have to pursue something new to become a manager?
I did pursue something new. In my early 30s, I had my first child. When I was home on maternity leave, which can be a low point or a high point, depending on how you think about it. I had a crisis of what I wanted to do next. For me, I thought it would be best to come back into a new role within Liberty. I applied for a manager role and was able to make that transition. Liberty was very supportive of that whole process. As a mom, there are worries when you make a transition. It was stressful and a challenge, but I felt fully supported. Coaching people and helping develop staff was a great transition for me, keeping me excited about work as I came back to the workforce.
Can you tell us about any programs that Liberty Mutual currently has? Who should join in?
One of the programs that my teams work closely with is our TechStart Program, which is for new hires coming out of college. That’s a year-long program, which involves a project phase and a rotation out in the market. My teams are supporting two different TechStart project teams. That will be three to five tech starters. We give them a real meaty project to do together, to help them bond, learn, and understand the company and what we do. That’s been really great for those new hires as they’re onboarding. It is also great for our teams to get those new perspectives of folks coming straight out of college. Mentoring is one of those things that makes you better at your job.
The other partnership I’ll mention is an ERG, Valor@Liberty. We have a partnership with Hiring Our Heroes. Through that program, we hire veterans who are leaving the military and looking for positions in tech. It’s an excellent way to get new staff with different backgrounds into the organization.
What resources did you leverage throughout your career? What are your tips for women breaking into careers like yours?
Find your network that you can bounce ideas off of in a space of openness and trust. Try to make that network as diverse as possible. If you can have friends in that network across different industries, that’s even better, so you get different perspectives. I’ve been lucky to have a great group of peers. They are in the financial industry, the manufacturing industry, and also in the tech industry. They give me good advice and have very different perspectives to bring to the table. I can then work on taking the gems out of the different perspectives and building my own approach. That’s a big one for me.
Another tip is related to interview style. Don’t shift focus in your interview to questions about work-life balance and questions about how am I gonna be able to achieve this while I have my children? Focus on what you bring to the table and how you will be awesome and rock this job. I find men typically don’t take time away from their interviews to ask those questions. You’re handicapping yourself a little bit. An interview is your moment to market yourself. The time for that question is either before, as you’re digging about this job and the culture and the climate of that group, or after when you’ve sealed the deal and you’ve got the offer.
Don’t be afraid to make targeted changes in your career. That exposes you to new people and different experiences that will make you a better leader and be beneficial to you as you move up in your organization.
I will leave you with this. As you’re thinking about places that you want to go in your career, consider the importance of the culture of the organization. A trusting environment will foster innovation and spark creativity. That will make a great journey for you. I’ve been at Liberty Mutual for 19 years. I’ve found that place for me, that has a culture of openness and trust. We are hiring and have a variety of roles open. You can find them at lmi.co/tech. If anybody would like to join us, please check that out.