Work Transition Stories: Sabrina Kang

During the pandemic, I was extremely fortunate to have Sabrina Kang as my neighbor in Alameda, California. Beyond our street and backyard chats, what struck me was her fascinating career journey - from thirteen years as a broadcast journalist, to becoming the head of user research at Charles Schwab, and then transitioning to an individual contributor role at Salesforce.

In our conversation, we explore how she navigated these transitions, the surprising ways her journalism background prepared her for user research, and the value of being transparent about your past experiences rather than trying to hide them. We also discuss her approach to mentorship and what she's learned about career development from both sides of that relationship.

Below is the unedited transcript of my conversation with Sabrina:

SAM:
Well, hi, Sabrina, it's nice to see you. Thank you for doing this with me.

SABRINA:
Thank you for having me. 

SAM:
Yeah. So just some context for our readers/listeners, is that we lived on the same street in Alameda, California during the pandemic, and I assume the street is the same.

SABRINA:
It is the same. Yes, yes.

SAM:
Excellent. 

So yeah, I really just wanted to talk to you today about your transitions, because I think you've had a few big career transitions in your life. And the two big ones I'm aware of, at least, are that you were a reporter/anchor, and then you transitioned to research. And then you were the head of UX at Charles Schwab. And then you transitioned to being an IC at Salesforce. So that is my curiosity points. But what I…Let's start with the first one: your transition from being in reporting to research. How did that happen? What was that like?

SABRINA:
I will say I think the transition was pretty…it made a lot of sense. I think journalism to research— you're taking a lot of data points, you're taking a lot of information, and you're synthesizing and analyzing. So, I didn't even really realize how helpful it was, my journalism background. 

But how did it happen? So yes, I was a long time journalist. Thirteen years. Started in small markets, from Peoria to Louisville, then Seattle to San Francisco to – I was fortunate enough to get to the networks working in Singapore. And when I had my first son, we decided—he was born in Singapore—and we decided to move back to the States to be closer to my family. We knew that if I–or I knew–going back to the states and my hometown of Seattle, that there's not that many opportunities to do business reporting like I was doing. And so, I started thinking about what other things I wanted to do. 

And so, I got to do some video projects, because I was a broadcast journalist, and I did some video projects for nonprofits. And that led to a full time position at a healthcare organization in Seattle, where I was doing video marketing and working in marketing, working with advertising campaigns. And so, that was a little bit of a transition. And in that work, I remember I was doing a series of these doctor profiles so that people understood what kinds of doctors we had at our org. And, I thought they were brilliant, but no one was looking at them. And so when I was see, when I, when I was looking at the data points, and there was, like, very few views, if any, I went to our dev team, our development team, and asked, “Oh, is there a way that we can make it easier to find these videos? They need to be more discoverable.” Because they were, like, you had the scroll, and it was a hyperlink lost in a bunch of text. And there was no embed, embedded video. And this engineer said to me, “you just don't understand user research. That is not how people find videos.” And I was like, “Oh, okay. Thank you.” And then I quickly went to my desk and I Googled user research. I'm like, “What is user research?” 

And so, I went to the University of Washington. I went through the Human Centered Design and Engineering School. And was just going to take one night class to learn so I can help, you know, get embedded videos for this project, and it turned out that I ended up getting a certification. I should have probably got my master's, but I was working full time, had two young kids. And that certification really opened up my eyes about user research. And that healthcare organization was really supportive and allowed me to do some really valuable, rewarding work, doing ethnographic research with our patients. So they helped, you know, set up time with um, um, some patients, so I could kind of understand their needs. And that just kind of opened up my eyes of the power of user research and how really it's a lot like journalism. I was going out, meeting with these subject matter experts, or, you know, our subjects or customers, and really understanding their story and trying to make the process of healthcare easier for them. 

SAM:
That's awesome. 

SABRINA:
Yeah. 

And then I, um, fast forward, my husband took a job in the Bay Area. We were in Seattle, Seattle at the time. I was still running video marketing, and I really wanted to do research, and I was just doing these as side projects. And my husband got a job, and I was fortunate enough, I just took some time to really find folks that would take a chance on me to do research full time. And so Schwab hired me as the first full time researcher. And I can't remember the actual dates…but maybe 20…oh, I can't remember the dates. But it was great. 

You know, it was back before, way before the pandemic, and so—a few years before the pandemic—and so we actually had an in-person usability lab in San Francisco, and I was able to run, you know, usability studies with customers. And it was…I learned a lot. So in that first year, I was so gung-ho that I counted, I think I did like, 40-something studies in one year. 

SAM:
Wow. 

SABRINA:
Yeah. I was just so excited to be able to do this full-time. 

SAM:
Yeah.

SABRINA:
And that really got me, I was, I had a lot of support from leadership at Charles Schwab. Still have mentors from my time at Charles Schwab. They…I pitched doing an ethnographic practice at Schwab. And so I got a small, mighty team of, I think there were three of us that did some ethnographic research. Then that transitioned into, they were really into doing all this innovative like small startups within Schwab. So, I led that practice with, like, 10 to 15 researchers and grew that. And then eventually, I was fortunate enough to be asked to lead all of user research. And so by the time I left, we had 45 researchers on my team. 

SAM:
Awesome.

SABRINA:
And it was really great. It was a really awesome learning experience.

SAM:
Yeah. So can you say what ethnographic research is?

SABRINA:
Oh, yes, of course. So yes, I should not use that word without explaining. 

So, it is an anthropology term. And it's really about going to the place where, of the person, or the area the things that you want to study. So going to that area, to that to the person. So, I should call it more—because it wasn't true ethnography, in that we observed people for months, and, you know, true anthropological practices—but, it was field studies in that we went to people's homes. Or we went to people's workplaces and observed. And try to make it I mean, it's not…you probably would change your behavior somewhat if someone's observing, but we try to make it as unobtrusive, so we got a real sense of what people were going through when using Schwab products. And, and it wasn't, you know, I wouldn't say it was true ethnographic in that we actually had interviews as well as observation.

SAM:
Great. Yeah, so it was in context research to see their real lives and their real use cases, and not just like having a phone in a room in your office, and they're like poking at it. Yeah. That’s cool. 

I love that you're talking about…it's so clear to you how your reporting background obviously ties into this area of work. Because a lot of people I talk to, if they're talking about transitioning or wanting to transition, there's this sense that they need to shy away from talking about what they did before. Or, you know, walk away from that previous life fully. And it sounds like you were really able to incorporate that into this new field of work. Do you think that you were doing that from the beginning? Or is that something that’s become clear to you in retrospect?

SABRINA:
That’s a good question. I am pretty open and transparent, so I, in terms of just, just saying what I don't know, I guess. So, I didn't know a lot, you know, like, I just used ethnographic research. Like, that's not a very approachable term. I think in research, people use, potentially, a lot of jargon that people don't quite understand. But at the end of the day, what we're doing, what we're breaking down, is a lot like a journalist—is that you're, you know, you're trying to get a lot of information, and you're my, you know, as a journalist, your your customer base is the general audience, right? And, the customer base for product research is your, your specific stakeholders. And I didn't, I didn't make that tie-in until I was doing research. 

So, I would say that I probably fell into the trap of wanting to understand this jargon or this kind of privileged discourse, oftentimes, that we hear in research practices. We hear that in, honestly—the two areas that I supported—healthcare and in finance, finance, there's a lot of jargon as well. And so I think I got swept up in wanting to show what I, what I really didn't know. Because I wanted to make this transition and make it, you know, try to get in the door. 

But I do think your questions are really good one. I do think, just kind of pulling back and reflecting on why you want to make the transition. And I often, I almost feel like—because I'm fortunate enough to mentor some, you know, like different people from all kinds of backgrounds. And I often think it's their first instinct of the career that they were in, um, they still want to have some part of it, but it's just not quite what they thought it would be. Or things have changed on them, or whatever. But they still have that nugget of that passion for XYZ. It's just, can I potentially, you know, pivot or think about how to use the things that I've learned from that to do something different? 

So, I wished I kind of knew that going in, because I just kind of was like, “Oh my gosh, I need to understand, or I need to be able to speak the language of a researcher.” Instead of thinking about, “Okay, what are the things that I do really well and that I have expertise in as a journalist that I can use as a researcher?” I didn't, I didn't really do that. And I started off this long winded answer with, I'm pretty transparent. I'm usually transparent, but I think I had some insecurities about making sure I use the right language. And yeah, so, so I hope people learn from that mistake.

SAM:
Well, it worked out fine for you. And I pulled up your LinkedIn about section, because I feel like it's so succinct and clear and incorporates this where you say, “I lead a research and data program for the diverse team of diverse content experience team at Salesforce, which is 450, strong. It's a dream job for me, as I love content. I was a long time journalist, content and video strategist, before pivoting to research.” So, you're not like pretending—like you're saying you're very transparent—you're not pretending that you've been in research your whole life. You've been a researcher in some way. But you're drawing that connection for the reader, rather than them having to assume that, which is really lovely. 

But it's also helpful to hear from people, I think, who don't immediately jump to that because what we see on LinkedIn, especially for people who are as successful as you are, is like “Oh, this was such an easy, clear path for them. And they knew that reporting was the key to their research abilities at that time.” But we're all making it up as we go along, you know? And that's normal, I think. But yeah, if people can learn from it by all means. 

So you, you have been in charge of, you know, a large team of researchers. Have you seen any advantage or disadvantages or differences in the people that have come on a more traditional research path? Meaning, maybe they do have a masters or they've, they were in ethnography prior to this work versus people that have transitioned into it from different fields?

SABRINA:
Have I seen a difference? I don't know if I've seen a difference. I think now that I'm an IC—Individual Contributor—I've been really fortunate to work and collaborate with a variety of researchers, not just managing researchers. And I don't know if the background of like the traditional route versus someone like me who transitioned in makes a difference. I think at the end of the day, the folks that I want to work most with are folks that have been challenged to feel comfortable collaborating with a lot of different people. And so if someone comes from a very traditional they got a masters, PhD, they may not have as many opportunities to, like they may go in from academics to true corporate. There's a lot of challenges probably in academics, for sure. But if the the folks that I know, I can think of people on the top of my head, who have worked in academics, try to go right to corporate, but they didn't even do like, some like, kind of—I don't want to say real life—but some projects outside of their academic work. I think it was just a harder transition for them. And it's not that they aren't collaborative. They're just used to, they have to own this, they have to author something, publish something, right? And so, it's just a really interesting, different mindset. 

And I've been doing all this…Salesforce is amazing in that it offers a bunch of leadership, um, trainings and opportunities. And I do think, um, one of the things I've been thinking about is the importance of getting out of your silo and, and, and not, it's so easy for many…you know, many researchers are introverts. And so, it's easy for them to kind of be in their silo and be comfortable in their area. But, a big part of our job is to be able to work with a lot of different stakeholders—some may be more difficult than others—asking, you know, some really good, tough, probing questions about your research and not being defensive. I think that's a big thing. And so, I don't think it's the actual, like, going through the traditional route versus the transition. It's just more thinking through, are you able to put yourself in situations where you've been challenged? Or you've had to collaborate with people that you didn't really want to collaborate with? I feel like those folks that have had practice doing that are easier to work with. And overall, if you're easier to work with, you're probably more successful,

SAM:
Right.

I love that way of putting it. It's more, it's more an exposure question than anything. Like, have you been in situations where you needed to collaborate, where you came up against challenging experiences, regardless of what background, allowed you to do that? And I teach at Pratt at the graduate level here for a research class, and we try to create that for them. But to your point, you just really can't. You can try, but at the same time, like I'm their professor, if they run into a problem, they can come to me, and it's a much more controlled situation. They have two conversations with the client. You know, it's not like they have to see so-and-so in the hallway or on a video call about something else, and they might get, like, slacked with questions. So it is a different experience. And I could see that’s–

SABRINA:
And, I know it's really hard because when you're, you know. Because right now, I was just yesterday, going one-on-one, going through a study design with a student. We call them Future Force Intern at Salesforce. And this intern had some amazing, brilliant questions, but I was just poking at, like, how I'm like, “Oh, I'm curious. Like, that would be a research question. Why wouldn't it be this?” And I don't know the context of this work, and she was so gracious and really open to the feedback. And I've had other Future Force Interns where it just breaks them down when I'm just asking a simple question. So, I do think, you know, and I'm guilty of that too. I, you know, I was a very young person when I started off in journalism, and I had so many criticisms of my hair or my whatever. It was never about the quality of my work. So, I took it really personally. But that was a really good training ground to like just hearing like real life feedback or just questioning, I think, is helpful.

SAM:
Yeah.

SABRINA:
But I know it's hard, as a student, to get real life experience, so I recognize that.

SAM:
Yeah, for sure. Well, and I think getting real harsh feedback is hard to get that. I'm still not great at it. It's…we're always learning, we're always growing. But I imagine, especially if it's something as literally personal and unchangeable as how you look, that's a real deep dive. That's the real deep end of feedback. This is like, but yeah, I hear you. 

So, it sounds like you do a lot of mentorship, which I remember from, you know, living down the street from you as well, is that being a key thing for you. Is that…as a mentor, what do you find to be the common things people are running up against as they're trying to get into the industry or do their work?

SABRINA:
In research or transitioning? Is that the question? 

SAM:
Either. I don't know how many of these people are transitioning, but if they're transitioning, if there's commonalities, or if they're in research.

SABRINA:
I, I am really I, I get as much out of mentoring as hopefully these folks get from me. I, I don't know if I get a lot of specific questions around getting into a job. I do get a lot of people asking me to refer them to jobs so that there—I feel like that's kind of different. 

So, my mentor relationships are more around “I'm navigating a really tough stakeholder. Can you tell me how you've dealt with that?” Or, um, trying to think…so right now, I'm actively mentoring three different people. And are, you know, some of it is as tactical as “Can you give me feedback on this here, I want to practice my presentation. Can you give me feedback” to, “Hey, I think I'm going to quit my job. What do you think?” And just kind of talking through the pros and cons. So, it's kind of a variety. 

And I'm just trying to think if I've had times when, yeah, I mean, I've had…I was lucky—I was on the alumni board for the University of Washington, Human Centered Design and Engineering School. So, I was on the Alumni Board, and I did get more questions about breaking in, because these were students that were trying to break in. And, you know, it's so hard, and it just…it sounds so cliche, but I do think you have to find someone that will give you a break. 

And you know, that was a couple of years ago when I was on the Alumni Board, and so the market was even pretty strong to get a…but it's still hard, because there are so many people that are, that have experience. And so, it's easier for someone to, to hire someone with experience. So, like I said, Schwab just took a chance on me because I had very little experience. I had, you know, small, you know, projects with, you know, the ethnography, you know, projects that I did. And it was just kind of…I think, I…oh, I and I knew of someone that worked in UX at Schwab through a guest lecturer from my UW program. And that um, guest lecturer—you're now reminding me, I should like check in with her and see how she's doing—um, she she was talking about ethnographic practice, and I just really connected with her. And I just said, “Hey, I'm moving to the Bay Area. I want to apply for some jobs.” And she put me in touch with someone. And I do, so I know it's really cliche, but I do think if you, if you can build relationships with folks that will give you a chance, it makes a big difference. 

And when I'm hiring…when I was in the situation of hiring folks, I really try to look at transition, people that were transitioning into research, folks that didn't have a lot of experience, as an opportunity to build a team that was diversified with a bunch of different skill sets. So, and that's probably the type of team that you would want to go to anyways and not feel like, you know, not have imposter syndrome, right, going in? Being transparent about what you can bring, but that you, you know, need some public mentorship and have to learn along the way. I think it's, it's probably tough to find a lot of companies that would do that, but there are companies that do that, so, and are open to it. Yeah,

SAM:
Yeah, that’s a great point. It does exist. Might be few and far between, unfortunately, right now, but it does exist. 

And, I want to move on to your management to IC transition. But before I do, how do you find your mentors? Or your mentorees? Are you in a program? Do people just come to you? Because I know a lot of people are like, I would love to mentor, but the organizational logic of it is, isn't there?

SABRINA:
Well, I joke that I'm an introvert, but my husband and my kids and all my friends are like, “You are such an extrovert.” I love—this just sounds so lame—I just love meeting new people. So, so I guess I'm not an extrovert, but I do like my quiet time. 

So, I'll just give you one example, this week. We have an Asia Pack Force. Everything is Force at Salesforce. We have an equality group, equality groups. And I went to a town hall for the Asia Pacific Equality Group and heard this leader speak, and was just blown away. And so, I just messaged her and said, “I really learned a lot from you, and I happened to be in Austin in October. Would you meet with me?” Because she's based in Austin. She's like, “Of course!” So that's one example. 

I've had the person who helped me land my first TV news job, I still keep in touch with him. Whenever I have something like something, something really gnarly, something that's really kept me up at night, I usually email him. He is an amazing mentor. He's not in journalism, he is not in research. But he is a very wise business person and very savvy, and someone who I trust 100%. And he is a very straight shooter, so I, he's still my mentor. I learn a lot being, you know, just mentoring students as well. So I think it's just a variety of ways that I've learned. I'm trying to think, if I from any organization…

SAM:
How do the people you mentor find you? Do they…

SABRINA:
Oh, okay, yeah. So, like I was saying right now, I’m mentoring three different people. Two are from Salesforce, like we have mentor programs and matches. And then one is someone that I've known that, yeah, so, someone that I've known from—I’m trying to think how I was connected with her. She might have been related to someone that I worked with.

SAM:
Okay. So the random outreach can work either way. If someone reaches out to you…

SABRINA:
Yeah, I think so. I will say, I've had people reach out to me asking if I would mentor them, and I…I usually always at least have one conversation. But we've all gone through this where maybe it just doesn't click, or the person, you know. So, I've definitely said, “Hey, I'm happy to meet with you once to see if it makes sense.” I usually always caveat that. So, yeah, so I'm usually open to it.

SAM:
Yeah. That's great, because I think that's one thing I hear, it is something I hear from people who are trying to transition. You know, the network or your relationships do matter a lot, and they are so overwhelmed by the prospect of cold emailing someone. Even if they saw them give, you know, have something to refer to in that communication. And they're just like, “Oh, I can't.” And so I think to hear from someone who's been on both sides of that, that it's okay. Worse, that you know, in my opinion, the worse they can do is not reply. 

SABRINA:
Yeah. And I have done that. You know, like, through LinkedIn. I'm like, “I will get back to that person then I forget.”

SAM:
Right. But it doesn't sound like you're sitting there going, “ Ugh, I can't believe they had the gall to email me or LinkedIn me.” And it doesn't reflect personally…

SABRINA:
But, you wouldn't want that person to be your mentor anyways, right? 

SAM:
Exactly. Good point. 

So, transitioning to thinking about your other transition from leading a team to IC, tell me a little bit about that thought process for you.

SABRINA:
I think…so my thought process. I had a small list of companies that I would consider moving to. Salesforce was one because I was very fortunate in that, my leader at Salesforce, my boss's boss, I've, I've always respected her. And she did, she did this ingenious, like networking event when I was still a leader at Schwab, where she, um—I think for recruiting, because she knew that the team would grow. She just did this happy hour, where she kind of brought a bunch of us, potential leaders to this happy hour. So I always, I knew of her, and I've always been impressed by her. So I, because of that, that Salesforce was always in the back of my head. 

And then, our leader in UX is a woman who I admire a lot during—we had that tragic shooting in I think it was Atlanta, with the women in, that were massage therapists. The whole Asia hate movement…really, I wanted to do something, and I didn't know what I wanted to do. And so, I got connected to Kat Holmes, who is our Chief Design Officer at Salesforce. We were thinking about, “What can we do as a design leadership organization, because we're seeing all this violence against women and Asians?” And so I knew of her in that context. 

So, between knowing, you know, Kat in that context, who I really admire, and then Namini, who's our leader from research, I kind of knew that Salesforce would be a special place. And then on top of it, my content experience leader is amazing woman, Jill Ward and so this, like trifecta of women kind of made this a dream job, right? And I found so much reward in leading a team of researchers, but I also wanted to do research. And then, I also knew there are other companies that I should probably explore, and these are three very like, people that I look up to—women tech leaders. And so, Salesforce must be doing something right, because they have these women there. And so when this role came up, it seemed like the right fit, and it felt like moving to an IC role made sense. 

And I was pretty upfront with folks that I had been leading a team for the last two to three years and growing that team so it was kind of more the business end of research versus doing the actual practice of research. So, I definitely had imposter syndrome. I definitely had issues going in, but I definitely, but I felt really supported.

SAM:
That’s great.

Yeah, I didn't realize that there—I know of Kat Holmes, because she wrote a book on inclusivity that I've read and love. And I think she maybe even gave a talk when I was at Netflix at one point as well. But, I didn't realize that there was kind of a whole ladder, literally, of women in that area, which is so sadly rare, but awesome to see. And it sounds like it's a good fit, and you admire them, and wanted to be in that atmosphere, that's fostering that which is huge. That's great. 

So last question: what advice do you have for people that are thinking about transitions?

SABRINA:
Well, it's so, it's so courageous to think about a transition. So one: just, you know, just be kind to yourself because you are going, you know, it won't be easy. And kudos to you for making this first step.

I, I don't, I feel like all, most of the people that I know, that I admire, I don't know if they had a linear path to where they're at today. Instead of thinking of it as a transition, it’s more around like your evolution of where where you end up wanting to be. And I get it, that is hard to publicly find that job or whatever, because you don't have the experience to do that. So, it's easier said for someone that transitioned okay. But I would just say, like, it's almost a mind shift, you know, like, you have to, like…I don't want, I don't want people to think, “Oh my gosh. It's like, not achievable.” It's more like, most of us don't go from one job, promoted to the next to the next to the next to the next. Most people, it's like a very, um, meandering journey. So, it was just kind of like thinking of it that way. 

SAM:
Yeah.

SABRINA:
And I also—the other thing that I want to say—I just read, or I'm about to finish reading this, this book, this business book, which has been really eye opening, and is from an author who I really admire: James Rhee. He wrote Red Helicopter, and he was talking about how important it is for people to not think linearly and not think about the job and the transition. But like, understand philosophy, understand physics, understand, you know, just like, have it be very well rounded, but it's so hard to do that because we have so much going on. But I do think a transition allows you to kind of pause and think broadly about everything, you know?

SAM:
No, but I love what you said about…it kind of hearkens back to what we talked about the very beginning of in retrospect, you can see the through line and you can articulate that story of reporting made me really good at research. But in that moment, you're not able to see both things, and that's normal, right? Like, it's not like you missed something. It's not like anyone I'm working with is missing something, but it is more of an evolution. I think that's a really good way to put it.

SABRINA:
And, I will say some of my teachers, professors in the research program at UW early on, I was like, “Oh, this isn't as hard as I thought it would be,” because I have this journalism background. And they did help me kind of connect dots, saying, “Oh, well, you should be bringing in your experiences to this new role.” But I didn't, I wasn't really listening to them. And so, I think instead of like chasing that new skill set, just knowing that you're bringing in a lot of expertise and skills that will probably unlock, you know…you know, I don't know. I don't like, be like, “Oh, wow, I actually can do that and transition. It's just like a different way of approaching XYZ job.”

SAM:
Yeah. No, I think that's very well put. Well, I've taken plenty of your time.