AWS Partner Network (APN) Blog

ElectroMech’s Gargee Bhatnagar: Celebrating International Women’s Day and Breaking the Bias

By Gargee Bhatnagar, AWS Ambassador, Solution Architect, and DevOps Engineer – ElectroMech
By Wajiha Masoud, Sr. Ops Manager, GSI – AWS

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As we celebrate International Women’s Day in 2022, the AWS Partner Network (APN) is honored to share perspectives from female technical leaders from our global AWS Partner Ambassadors community.

This blog series highlights six trailblazing women who have shared their personal stories of how they overcame challenges, stereotypes, and barriers in their careers, who inspires them to #BreakTheBias every day, and valuable advice on developing a career in technology.

Gargee Bhatnagar is a cloud enthusiast who has worked as a Solution Architect and DevOps Engineer at ElectroMech Corporation for more than two years. She has 6+ years of experience in architecting and implementing highly reliable, secure, efficient, and cost-effective solutions on Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Gargee is a certified AWS Data Analyst, AWS DevOps Engineer, and AWS Solution Architect. She is also a part of the AWS Community Builder, AWS Customer Council, and AWS Certified Global Community programs. She is a technical blogger, speaker, co-organizer, and volunteer of AWS Community Ahmedabad and South Asia.

Gargee is passionate about helping clients to solve their problems and provide them the best feasible solution.

Q&A with Gargee

AWS: The theme for this year’s International Women’s Day is “Break the Bias.” What does that phrase mean to you when it comes to your career?

Gargee: For me, breaking the bias means achieving something great in my career and to keep going. You must have heard the statement “Opportunities don’t happen, you have to create them.” This is exactly what I have implemented in my career and what my role model has taught me—my mother. The way she has raised us and managed both her professional and personal life without ever giving up is truly remarkable. I have followed her positive attitude of never giving up regardless of the situation.

AWS: What gender-specific challenges, stereotypes, or barriers have you had to overcome during your career?

Gargee: I have gone through various challenges in my career in India. People talk about gender equality but they just talk. The reality is that there are still some areas where people think women should not do this or that. There are times when some men really don’t want to work for a female boss, or sometimes they don’t trust a woman’s decision.

I still remember the time when I had decided to start my career as an engineer and decided to step out. There were various people around me, including my relatives, who had objected. “She is a girl, the only work she can do is related to household,” they said. People told my parents they were making a big mistake by sending a girl to study in a new city.

AWS: How did it affect you, or in other words, what was the outcome?

Gargee: Starting a career as a Solution Architect is not easy, but having a craziness to learn more, gathering learning opportunities, grabbing knowledge from wherever I can, is the approach I took. My first step was getting admission in IIST Indore, enrolling for a Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Science, and then getting my post graduate from Vellore Institute of Technology (M.Tech) in Computer Science with a Specialization in Cloud Computing. I then started my professional career by working as a network engineer and switched to a new company as a cloud engineer. I later joined ElectroMech Corporation as a Solution Architect.

I achieved certificates such as AWS Solution Architect Associate and AWS Certified DevOps Engineer Professional. I became an AWS Community Builder, and with it I got an opportunity to publish blogs on the Dev community platform. Being a part of AWS Community Builder I have hosted various events, published blogs, and conducted webinars. I have also participated in various events to generate skills like AWS re:Invent, AWS Builder Series, and AWS Sambhav for experiencing challenges.

I now have achieved my third certification that is AWS Certified Data Analytics. When I was selected as an AWS Ambassador from India, that was a point in my life where I could say finally I have earned something huge.

AWS: What advice would you offer to women who strive to grow as technical leaders?

Gargee: Being the first child from the family who has stepped out and built up a career, I have motivated my siblings to do something in life. In my college tenure, I guided others in taking various career-related decisions. Now there are women who have made me their inspiration and followed me throughout their career.

My advice is, if you want to succeed in your life you need to work hard and bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to be. People will try to stop you, but trust yourself, trust your own decisions, analyze, and make the best out of it. Being a woman is an honor and a pride—don’t let it down for the people.

Just #BreakTheBias and do what your heart says!
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More from Gargee

Here are some blog posts written by Gargee:

International Women’s Day and #BreakTheBias

International Women’s Day (March 8) celebrates the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for celebrating women’s achievements, raising awareness against gender bias, and accelerating gender equity.

The International Women’s Day theme for 2022 is #BreakTheBias. This theme acknowledges that gender biases, discrimination, and stereotypes exist, and provides an opportunity to be part of a movement that promotes a diverse, equitable, and inclusive culture both individually and collectively as an organization.

Amazon is committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and the company’s diverse perspectives come from many sources including gender, age, race, national origin, sexual orientation, culture, and education, as well as professional and life experiences.

AWS Ambassador Partner Program

The AWS Ambassador Partner Program features a vibrant worldwide community of technical experts, known as AWS Ambassadors, from our services and software partners.

If you’re an employee of an AWS Partner, hold multiple AWS Certifications, and contribute to the AWS community through public presentations, open source projects, social media, and more, see if you qualify for the AWS Ambassador program. If you’re an AWS customer and want to contact an AWS Ambassador, we’ve listed each Ambassador on the AWS website so you can connect with them through their employer.