Last week, I had the honor of sharing my knowledge at European Women in Technology on lessons learned in web localization and in working abroad. Read on to discover how international experience can benefit your company, your team, and yourself (Part I) and simple tips to help you get there (Part II coming soon).
Stepping outside the bubble
I was born and raised in the charming city of San Francisco, attended university in the pristine Orange County, and finally found my way into my dream workplace in the Silicon Valley. Most people ask me why I ever left beautiful, sunny San Francisco — home of all the tech jobs and billionaires.
Well, sorry to disappoint any California dreamers out there, but San Francisco isn’t all sunshine, rainbows, and entrepreneurs working from hip coffee shops — though there are a lot of those. And as much as I love my hometown, it wasn’t long before I realized I was stuck in a California bubble, limited by my world view — and I don’t mean by the fog.
Although a lot of great innovation happens in the Silicon Valley, I hate to admit that, often, people there tend to forget there’s a rest of the world. And obviously, technology is international, with even more amazing ideas coming from all over the world. It’s not a matter of one place being better than another — it’s about broadening your horizons and having the curiosity and courage to understand what else is out there.
So if you have the privilege to step outside of your bubble, wherever on Earth that is, then that experience abroad will pave the way for a rich and enlightening tech careeer. Working in another country comes with its challenges, of course, but doing so will improve your understanding of the world. And if you don’t have that opportunity or desire to leave your hometown, then that’s OK, too. There’s still a lot you can learn by just keeping an open mind and making an effort to be more culturally aware.
Internationalization
When I first learned about internationalization, I had just started my new job at Google HQ as a Web Developer. Internationalization — or i18n, as it’s commonly abbreviated — refers to the development of a product that enables for easy localization for audiences that vary in culture, region, or language. Although this is the relatively dry developer definition from W3, I started to realize over time how important this should be to anyone in the tech world.
In my early days as a Google dev, I quickly learned how difficult it was to design and build websites so that they could be translated and modified for other languages and cultural differences. Before this, I had only ever built websites in English for American audiences. Looking back at it now, I think I was grossly underqualified for this role. In any case, I learned everything about i18n during my time at Google in California, but I had yet to learn that there were still huge gaps in my understanding of the world. And in the learning process, I realized that filling these gaps not only helped me improve myself, but it made a huge positive impact on my surroundings.
These learnings inspired me to share some insights on how experience abroad will:
- Help your company do great work
- Make you a valuable addition to your team, and
- Allow you to grow into your best self.
i18n makes your company better
Internationalization helps your company to do the right thing — to build better products or services for everyone. Google’s recruiting slogan is “Build for Everyone”, and I’m a proud contributor to this mission, having built global sites and open source projects with my team. With such a huge international user base, I carried a big responsibility to ensure people around the world could access the information quickly and with a seamless user experience across cultures.
There are many elements to a good user experience, but localization is one of the most fascinating to me, especially as I started to learn from my experience abroad. Localization means more than just sending your website copy through a translator and automatically getting launch-ready results. It actually doesn’t mean that at all.
When developing or designing a website, you must also consider how your code or user interface adapts to:
- Translations of different lengths
- Product availability
- Currency of different formats, values, and disclaimers
- Legal text which varies across countries
- Text direction
- Cultural relevance
My first localization projects involved sending off web content to be translated in 20+ different locales and exporting them into static pages. I imported the translations and reviewed the content, often with frustration. Some naïve questions that arose included:
“Why do British people love to say ‘unmissable’ in their marketing?”
“What’s an impressum? I have to add silly logic to my code just for the German version??”
“Russian words soo long, it’s breaking my beautiful one-line headers!”
“Switzerland has three languages? And I need to export a static page for each??”
“I don’t see the difference between this Canadian English version, Australian, Singaporean one… can’t they share the same page??”
And the most frustrating part, when it’s time to check the right-to-left layout and everything breaks.
Looking back at my ignorance at the time, I’m pretty embarrassed. But as I gained a deeper understanding of localization needs, my frustration lessened,
and I enjoyed learning more about cultural differences as I went along. More importantly, I felt more passionate about making the right decisions to consider users all over the world.
i18n makes you a better teammate
By bringing diverse perspectives together, you create a strong and inclusive team full of brilliant ideas. When I first moved to the UK, it was my introduction to Europe. Before that, I was always proud of how diverse I thought my hometown of San Francisco was. Well, there was apparently a lot I still had to learn about culture. While San Francisco is ethnically rich compared to the rest of the States, you’re usually surrounded by culturally American people.
Living in Europe, where borders are nearby and relatively open, I was amazed by this next level of diversity. Among my teammates from all over the world, their global experience and strong connection to their home culture was inspiring to me. And when you have to collaborate together on complex international challenges, everyone brings their own perspectives and learns from each other.
One of my favorite projects was a Google Maps experience for the city of Petra. When building this microsite, we knew that there were some important cultural considerations to make as a team. We reviewed the translations with native Arabic speakers and ensured the design was feasible for low-end connections that we might expect in the Middle East. We also came out with many valuable learnings from the technical project challenges, including slow JavaScript libraries and sloppy code patterns we will never dare to use again!
i18n makes you a better human
All of these benefits that you bring to your company and your team ultimately shape you into a better person — a more culturally aware one. By stepping out of your comfort zone and out of ignorance, you become more informed, inclusive, and intentional.
When I first moved abroad, I was so afraid of being the ignorant American. I was tripped up by the simplest of things, like…
How many kisses do I have to give in a greeting?
Two kisses for Spanish people?
Three kisses for Dutch?
Four for French, but not the Parisians?
Or do I give the good ol’ American hug?
These are obviously not the most important of your worries, but sometimes a simple effort in cultural awareness can go a long way. Not only in kissing etiquette, but also in language, cultural traditions, or other insights that can prevent you from misunderstanding others.
What’s a more important lesson from working abroad, however, is personal growth. There is so much to learn just from stepping out of your comfort zone.
When I first moved to London, I stumbled upon this motivational sign which read, “Do one thing a day that scares you.” Embarrassingly, this was at Lululemon, the expensive yoga shop. I posted a photo of this phrase that caught my attention, jokingly referencing the first two days of challenges I encountered since my move abroad:
DAY 1: Moved halfway across the world.
DAY 2: Bought a ridiculously overpriced yoga mat.
Jokes aside, I saw this as a unique opportunity to challenge myself to actually do one thing each day that pushed me out of my comfort zone. Being in a new country with plenty of new experiences to check off my list, this was a fun way to hold myself accountable for making the most of my first few months as an expat, while also inspiring and delighting my friends back home. I eventually decided 101 was a good number to stop counting, but I haven’t stopped trying or learning new things everyday.
i18n 4 u
If living internationally is something you aspire to do, then stay tuned for Part II for some simple tips to help you get there. And maybe you realize that working abroad is not something you personally want to do. That’s totally fine. Thanks for reading this far, and I hope you enjoyed my embarrassing tales as a young developer. The good news is, you can still make a difference by stepping outside your comfort zone and bringing an open mind to the workplace, in the same way an expat should.
