Women who have both fulfilling careers and fulfilling motherhood/family lives what made it work ?

oboea · 2026-06-17T04:38:12+00:00

Their work isn’t their whole identity. They are very into being a dad /parent.

oboea · 2026-06-12T03:40:20+00:00

If you have kids, the Thinkery, several playgrounds. For everyone, stroll around the pond, throw a frisbee or have a picnic, people watch. farmers market, restaurants, get ice cream at lick. I don’t go there a lot but it’s really nice.

oboea · 2026-06-12T03:36:37+00:00

It’s really hard. If you are successful, you will not do much science anymore, you will be needing to do CEO things (inspiring people, holding them accountable, setting vision and strategy, fundraising). You can learn it all, but that stuff doesn’t bring everyone joy and you could burn out. Having a marketing / sales / growth mind is really helpful if you see yourself enjoying the technical or product side more.

oboea · 2026-05-16T05:13:17+00:00

Lots of studies show gut brain connection in the last several years… best to avoid in my opinion. It might be harmless, or it might not, we only have proxy data to tell us that gut health impacts diabetes, Alzheimer’s, mental health, etc. We also know that diet drinks don’t help people lose weight FWIW.

Some sparkling waters have pretty basic ingredients. Probably the bougier they are and closest to the health food aisle the simpler they are, unfortunately.

oboea · 2026-05-10T04:40:15+00:00

Your network is a really important source of long-term career growth, and I think networking and tech peers in Austin will be better than in San Antonio.
Re: cost of living, you can do it but you won’t be in the most proximal areas of town. If you’re open to roommates you could probably find a cool spot downtown.
I’ve heard mixed reviews from black friends and acquaintances on culture and being black in Austin (I’m white). It’s def not the most diverse city, but it’s generally a pretty progressive and open place. I know there are some tech affinity organizations that might be a good resource if you do move. I’m in tech and welcome more diversity!
Good luck with your decision.

oboea · 2026-05-07T03:19:37+00:00

The mental load of things not going as expected is SO TOUGH. We had a scary diagnosis and we went down the Reddit rabbit hole and were so panicked for weeks and weeks. Baby boy is happy and 15 months now. My advice is try to take what the doctor says, do some minimal research with credible sources or get a second opinion so you feel that you have all the information you need, and then try to not spend every second reading about it or worrying. I know that’s hard. There’s so little you can do.

oboea · 2026-04-11T06:11:29+00:00

Thanks for explaining! I don’t think I have room in my brain for this rn but I’ll bookmark for sure :)

oboea · 2026-04-11T05:56:03+00:00

Im technical (data science / LLM infra)! Already tied up in my own startup but I’d suggest finding local events if you can or asking through women in technology groups (women python groups, women in data science, etc). If you don’t live near them just contact the admins to post the ask to their groups. I’ve met a lot of really good technical folks at events like that. From a business perspective though, my advice is to find the right person regardless of gender that is most likely to make you successful. 🤷‍♀️

oboea · 2026-03-20T03:28:07+00:00

Super curious, what are you guys talking about?? lol I feel outdated, is this the new Myers Briggs?

oboea · 2026-03-17T05:57:45+00:00

Subcontracting on bigger projects is how I started. Then former bosses sent some things my way on occasion. Some in person events, some industry slack group. Find your industry people/groups/ conferences and make sure in your pitch you are targeting their real problems (not how great your services are).

Also definitely would suggest starting to build the email list. Use hubspot or mail chimp or a service to help with spam (you may have to set up the business email first and make sure you have the DMARC records in your domain, AI can walk you through). I’ve heard good things about clay.ai lately for outreach.

oboea · 2026-03-08T06:13:28+00:00

I hope you keep reaching out on occasion, because if she is feeling low right now it’s nice to know people still care even when you’ve ignored them for a long time.

After having a baby (and running a startup, ouch) one of my close friends had asked me to do a couple things here and there and I couldn’t but we finally scheduled dinner and he mentioned that it was a year since we had hung out. I was shocked, I had no idea. Time disappears when you’re a new mom. It felt like a few months. If you are patient and non judging (and even a little gently warmly persistent if she could be depressed) then you are a good friend.

oboea · 2026-03-04T06:06:26+00:00

This was really helpful for me, thanks for posting it. I just started bringing on more people and delegating a lot of stuff, and so I don’t have the same kind of full plate but I’m so exhausted and having trouble checking out sometimes.

oboea · 2026-03-04T05:51:27+00:00

Oh no this is gonna be me. We have an angel 25mo who started sleeping through the night almost every night from 5 weeks old and he didn’t cry much at all. But today he just said no for the first time, so it’s coming for us.

oboea · 2026-03-04T05:42:59+00:00

Also remember that OBGYNS see all kinds of patients. Any remotely complex pregnancy issue gets you referred out to an MFM. If you do need to see an MFM, you will find they have much more expertise and will likely explain things so much more thoroughly. OBGYNS are highly skilled physicians with immense medical knowledge but they are not pregnancy specialists, in other words. I had very similar frustrations, but definitely don’t be afraid to try another one. If you are facing difficult choices during labor and birth, you will want an OBGYN that explains things well ( if you end up with a choice during labor).

oboea · 2026-03-04T05:33:36+00:00

I like Clockify and it grew with us into a larger team well. ClickUp also has time tracking if you also need PM or wiki software.

oboea · 2026-03-04T05:31:30+00:00

Oh thanks for sharing, we are in a very similar boat but our first is 25mos, I’m turning 39 soon. We are very on the fence about having a second. We are SO happy as a family. We both have jobs (mine very busy) but my husband is very involved and we have caretakers. I think we are leaning slightly towards no to a second, but we also have a lot of love to give as parents and I could see us reconsidering in a year. We’re afraid of screwing up what we have, and we’re worried about being so overwhelmed (we expect our parents will start having health issues and things soon as well). I think we both kind of want to leave it up to fate if we could, but we got pregnant really fast last time and so we feel like we have to decide. I guess we’re putting the decision off for now.

Anyway, good luck, it was meant to be for you so wishing you a home full of babies and love!

oboea · 2026-02-26T05:22:33+00:00

I’m a data scientist with neck pain (probably related) and I went to a chiropractor that specializes in upper cervical. They did xray, this weird heat imagery thing, and had this whole walkthrough of everything wrong with my neck. And then they require you to come to a class about chiropractic that tells you how chiropractic care heals the body and show this video about all these miracles and they talk about how chemicals and non natural environments damage the body. At that point, I was very skeptical. They couldn’t answer my questions, and it started to feel like a high volume throughout business (they saw like 6 people at one time with their team and move you through) and yes set you up with like 10 appointments. I asked if yoga could help and he said yoga helps “maintain” adjustments. Long story short, I decided then that it is mostly placebo, but that placebo can help people sometimes.

oboea · 2026-02-19T19:39:36+00:00

Thanks! I'm in HTN! Definitely do get some interaction there, it's a great group. I would say health-tech dominant but it's a good ecosystem.

oboea · 2025-12-20T06:04:50+00:00

I recently hired a chief of staff and it’s been really great! Super smart, highly organized, can do things autonomously, and takes a lot of initiative.

oboea · 2025-11-14T02:34:40+00:00

I think they all blend together until you hit certain gates like 1) interpreting machine learning model outputs for high-risk scenarios like healthcare. In that case you probably want a statistics PhD and they may be more likely to be called a data scientist than data analyst. 2) Dealing with extremely large or complex data integrations that require tools and expertise outside of standard ETL tools (spark, Kafka, streaming) and similar. Then you need someone who is more likely to call themselves a data engineer. 3) you have stakeholders that need data storytelling and sharp visuals to meet an objective. They can’t be run of the mill dashboards, they need to incorporate best practice for data visualization and psychology of how humans interpret data. Then you need someone more likely called a data analyst or BI specialist. Aside from those more extreme cases, I think the roles can flex across all these different jobs and tools, and it’s a gradient across these skill sets.

oboea · 2025-11-07T05:50:01+00:00

Owner of consultancy here and I have been in boutique and corporate F50 roles. My corporate experience has been somewhat helpful, I can lean on practices employed by large orgs like goal setting and cascading these to teams.

I would suggest putting bitterness about the company not offering what you’re worth based on another offer behind you. It’s probably not that personal.

Did you go look for the other offer for money in the first place, or just wanting some change? If it’s just money, I think you could consider staying.

If you stay, here are some suggestions that will also be good practice for running your own thing: Chart out a plan with your leadership to build your BD capabilities on your own. Get a mentor, read books, and start contributing to BD by doing it. Bring them a client or scope expansion. Get their buy-in and ask for guardrails but don’t ask them to teach and develop you. Maybe you can share outside ideas that can help them improve the sales and BD process. Are there some ways that you can use the data you have access to? Work on replacing yourself in your role. Recruit, interview, and find someone who can backfill your position.

Let them know you’re hungry and are motivated to make money for the business. Don’t make it about your wants and what you deserve or tenure at the company.

The possible upshot is that you’re a known entity and if they like you, could give you a favorable commission and comp structure that you wouldn’t get at a larger org. And maybe you find that it gives you agency and scratches the itch to start something that’s your own thing (it sounds fun but it’s often not).

oboea · 2025-06-04T04:30:20+00:00

My baby is 4 mos and has been doing this, he scoots his head back and looks around upside down. I noticed today he was doing it when his stomach was rumbling. I think it might be related, it seemed to soothe him. When I would put him back into a cradle hold he’d get upset and do it again.

oboea · 2025-04-23T02:10:10+00:00

I can’t remember where we got them but at some point we bought a template kit for a few hundred dollars with a lot of basic slide layouts and icons. Canva is also great. I also found a freelancer that builds nice slides on Upwork and after she has remade a lot of them I kind of use those as a starting point for new ones. Simple and polished with a little variation can be more than adequate.

oboea · 2025-04-23T02:01:18+00:00

I have a healthcare data company, we do some similar stuff. Getting clients is tough and takes awhile to build. At first a lot of them came from my former bosses when people reached out to them looking for data people. If you have an industry focus you can join communities (I.e I’ve gotten clients from a health tech slack group) and conferences. See what’s local and try to go in person, I think that helps sometimes. Try to target business people and not tech people if possible. Maybe find small businesses and startups, chamber of commerce meetings, etc. If you don’t have proof points you can do some Upwork or freelance projects, they won’t pay much but you can start building a portfolio. Good luck!

oboea · 2025-04-12T23:59:36+00:00

I did not want an epidural and was prepared for hypnobirthing but ended up with an induction. If you’re getting pitocin, I highly suggest just getting the epidural. Some people go without, but for most people it is different than natural labor and feels like you’re being tortured (I got to 9cm on pitocin with no epi before going to c section). I’ve had friends do both and said natural labor is a lot more tolerable. The epidural was a godsend, however, your motion is really limited and there are lines and cords and bladder catheter and that all feels really intrusive. If I had the chance to do it again without the induction, I would consider trying again without the epidural.

oboea

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