Mints Mods Unplugged - Sandhya Simhan

The “Mints Mods Unplugged” series offers an unfiltered look into the incredible women who help to make our community what it is today. We’re lucky to have so many of our members who generously volunteer their time and talents, and our next moderator is no exception.

Meet Sandhya Simhan, a marketing leader in an enterprise AI startup and dedicated member of our Mints community for over seven years. Sandhya not only acts as one of our incredible moderators but also leads our editorial programming that Mints may have noticed in our main group - think holiday posts, thought-starters, features, and more! 

In this interview, she shares important insight about the value she’s found in the Mints community, the power of connection, and some advice on how to balance motherhood and a career in tech. Read on to learn more about Sandhya, what makes her tick, and what activities she enjoys most with her children. 

Missed a recent profile? Catch up on our conversations with Annie Tsai and Angela Schmeideke, and stay tuned for more moderator spotlights in the months to come!

• How long have you been a mod/volunteer with Mints?
  I joined Mints as a member about seven years ago, while I was on maternity leave with my first. I was the first one of my friends to have a kiddo and it was crazy overwhelming until I found Mints. I’ve been volunteering as head of editorial programming over the past three-ish years.
  

• What initially attracted you to the community?
  Honestly, I was looking for connection. As a working mom in tech, it’s easy to feel like you’re juggling two full-time jobs without a roadmap. Mints felt like a place where people got it—the ambition, the overwhelm, the desire to thrive in both roles.
  

• Which subgroups are we most likely to find you in on any given day?
  I have probably spent the most time in Babies & Toddlers but now that my second is out of those years, I guess I’m graduating to the Elementary group now! My other top picks (the ones that fulfill me personally) are Bookworms and AI.
  

• What do you do in your professional life?
  I’m the head of customer and growth marketing at Glean, an enterprise AI startup. I also run GTM Ops at Women Defining AI (AI literacy nonprofit). My work straddles strategic content, community building, and AI literacy—especially for non-technical professionals.
  

• What has been the most useful or valuable advice/interaction/learning that you’ve had through your membership in Mints?
  It’s the reminder that we don’t have to do it all alone. Seeing how other moms have navigated career shifts, burnout, parenting guilt, or identity transitions has given me the courage to make braver choices—professionally and personally.
  

• What advice do you have for a new mom in tech? What helped you most when you were a new mom?
  Don’t measure your worth by productivity alone. Your capacity will shift—and that’s okay. What helped me most was designing systems (lists, routines, shared calendars) that gave me back mental space, and finding peers who didn’t expect me to pretend I had it all together.
  

• What is your favorite thing to do with your kids?
  I love watching them find joy in the same things that bring me joy - books, music, dance, art. It feels like this little seed of my soul is blooming in its own way.
  

• What’s your favorite thing to do in your spare time?
  I love reading (fanfiction and novels, always on my phone), writing songs, and more recently experimenting with AI tools. I also really love my job so I’ve recently discovered some dormant workaholic tendencies.
  

• What are some areas in which you’re hoping to grow your career or professional development? And, how can other Mints help?
  I just took on the job of scaling how my company thinks about growth - teaching people to use our software (pretty standard) and teaching them how to figure out how their job/function is going to change with heavy AI use (not so standard). It’s a bit of figuring out how to teach someone to fish while the fish keep mutating every couple months. It’s terrifying and glorious and I’d love to find more people working on the same problem.
  

• Is there anything else that you’d like to share with fellow Mints? Or anything you wish I’d asked that you’d like to add?
  Just that you belong here—even on the days when you feel behind, invisible, or unsure. Moms in Tech is my favorite place on the internet because it allows you to shed all the things holding you back (mom guilt, ambition guilt, comparison, self-doubt, decision paralysis, etc). You’re doing important work, and we see you. Also: if you’ve got a story others might benefit from hearing, ping me—we’d love to feature more voices in our editorial lineup.