Celia Lee

Current position:

Senior Director of Technical Product Management for CAD software

Education (degrees and school):

MS in Mechanical Engineering, MIT

BS in Mechanical Engineering, MIT

Hobbies:

Making Jewelry, sewing, 3D printing, and many other crafts. I also go for jogs with my 2 dogs every day, and I swim with a masters swim team.

Where were you born and where did you grow up? Where did you go to high school?

I was born and raised in Honolulu, Hi. I went to a local public high school there (Kalani High School) and left to attend MIT.

What did you want to be when you were growing up?

I knew I wanted to be an engineer the first time I took apart my sewing machine. I wasn’t sure what kind of engineer until I did some exploring at MIT. I chose Mechanical Engineering because it is kind of a jack of all trades of engineering. You learn the basics of engineering.

How did you get into computer science?

I was a Mechanical Designer and started using CAD software. I then joined PTC, the company that creates that software. At first, I was a super user of the software, but then my experience led to working with the developers who write the software. Now I am one of the people who decides how the software should work and I define what the people who write the code (the developers) should build.

What other jobs have you had?

I started as a design engineer. One of my past jobs was working on thermionic energy converters. These are the power sources used in space. I worked on a power module that was meant to be used on the International Space Station, and worked with teams at NASA. I designed test power modules that we would test by putting them in nuclear reactors for a year or so to see how they performed. It was interesting, but it takes a long time to see any results.

What is an average day at work like for you?

I end up attending meetings for most of the morning.I have meetings with Product Management (the business side of the project), Development (the people who write the code), QA (the people who test the code), DevOps ( the people who deliver the code), and Customer support (the people who help the customers use the code). Technical product managers are the bridge between all the groups who deliver software and the customers. As a Technical Product Manager, you have to understand the business side, the customer, and also how the software is created. I lead a team of 15 Technical product managers for three different software products.

Most of the people I work with are in Israel and in India, so mornings are the best time for meetings.

In the afternoon, I am talking to customers and trying things out in our software. I don’t actually write any code, but as a Technical Product Manager, I decide how the software should work. I also am responsible for improving the code and improving the software design process.

What is your favorite part of your job?

I love the software that I work on. It is a CAD system that customers use to build 3D models. I enjoy building my own 3D models on it, and our customer models when requested. Our customers create everything from satellites to simple nuts and bolts. Our customers are the designers and producers of things, and we help them improve their designs. I’ve worked on 3D models for cars, elevators, airplanes, cell phones, watches and much more. With new technology of virtual reality and augmented reality, it has become even more interesting to see the 3D computer models with 3D google, or put a view of a 3D model on your mobile device in the same room you are standing in. Technology keeps changing, and our software needs to keep pace.

What is the best opportunity you have had because of computer science?

I have had the chance to visit engineers who were working on the X-Plane program at NASA, car designers for Fiat in Italy, jewelry designers at Cartier, the designers of Santa Cruz mountain bikes, and designers of the Rhomba (iRobot), and many designers of products we use every day like washing machines, air conditioners, televisions, and even toys. It is always fun to find out how something is designed and then how it is made and delivered to customers.

The software field is also changing. We have to keep trying to write better code: easier to use, easier to test, easier to maintain, and more secure. I am constantly learning about new ways to work in order to deliver better software. It’s never boring.

Any great stories about working in computer science?

Last year, I was able to attend the Grace Hopper Conference, which is a technical conference for women. There were over 25,000 women there, most of them in computer science. There was a career fair floor and what struck me was almost every large company you could think of was there looking to hire women in computer science and other technology fields. Not just tech companies like Apple, Google, and Amazon, but retail companies (Target, Anne and Taylor, Nike), entertainment (Netflix, Disney, Hulu), financial (Capital One, Wells Fargo), hospitality (Hilton, Airbnb, Jetblue) and food industry (Nestle’s, Starbucks). What that spelled out to me was that if you went into computer science today, you could go into any industry you wanted.