Marta Lang
Kaia Brem interviewed Marta Lang, Interim Director of Identity and Access Management at UT Austin, in May 2021.
Can you share a little bit about what it is that you do and what a typical day for you is like?
I recently took on the role of Identity and Access Management team lead at UT Austin. Prior to that, I was a senior project manager on the IAM team. I now manage a team of 12 people, which is fully staffed with 15 people. A typical day is: logging on to check email, making sure that all of our services are up and running smoothly, addressing any issues or customer requests, making sure we’re making progress on our projects, and resolving any impediments that are preventing staff from getting their work done.
How has the pandemic affected your work/life?
When the pandemic hit, I was eight and a half months pregnant with my second child, so it was already a period of change for us. The pandemic started and the world around us shifted. And then I quickly left on maternity leave to have a baby. I look back at having a baby then as almost surreal. Our family was changing while the world was in this weird state of existence. Coming back to work was the continuation of adapting to the new state of the living - for our family and everyone else. My husband and I both have full time jobs. Trying to manage two young children, even with daycare, and two full-time careers - it’s just hard. For example, whenever there was any COVID exposure, the kids had to come home for two weeks. They were home and we’re juggling their schedules and trying to work - with no help because COVID. Work has changed too. The shift to completely working from home has many advantages but then managing and hiring people remotely has been very different. We have to think about people's mental and physical space, so that they can get time away from work that IS actual time away. And in the middle of all of it, I was asked to step into this bigger management role. Lots of change!
Many people don’t plan to work in Identity and Access Management, but end up doing so through a circuitous career path. How did you end up in this field? What has kept you in the field?
I was in the private industry for eight and a half years after college and was looking for work-life balance. I came to work at the university by following an old manager who had come to UT and loved it. I’ve stayed because it has been very fulfilling to my own personal goals while making an impact at the university with the type of work that we do. I believe that the IAM team is the lynchpin to a lot of technology services at UT, so providing reliable IAM solutions and access to the right things is important. We do important work.
What is the most rewarding aspect of your position?
The most rewarding part of my job is the people that I work with. It’s probably a cliché answer, but I really enjoy that I learn from every single person that I’ve worked with over the years. Whether they’re still here or have moved on, I remember what I learned from each person.
Have you seen Identify and Access Management change at all during your time working in it? If so, how?
There seem to be a lot of tools, but not many know how to implement them or how to best use them to meet the IAM needs of a university. I believe we are still learning a lot about IAM, in the industry and in higher ed. It’s all still evolving, so as technology evolves, more IAM concepts are being introduced.
What are some of the most influential ways?
The effort to better define different types of populations of users and being able to configure solutions for each type of user. If it’s a guest user, you want it to be easier to authenticate but with limited access. If it’s a student, you’re trying to give them access at the right time based on where they are in their identity lifecycle. We want to make sure we aren’t just giving everyone access to everything.
What is a pivotal moment in your career or a moment that you are proud of?
Two years ago we started a big project to consolidate all of the applications of the university to using one authentication solution. We’d done this kind of project before, but it hadn’t been done as well as it could have. I outlined a project plan that would enable our team to do it efficiently and effectively, with the cooperation of campus. The team then executed it - one milestone after another. And it went really well - it has been a very successful project! I think that is one of my proudest moments, because I feel that my contribution, in a sense, was a culmination of all of my years of experience of implementation, both before UT and since I’ve been here.
Are there any projects and/or initiatives you’re working on currently that are especially interesting?
We are starting to tackle a modernization effort with some of our more legacy applications. I think there’s a lot of opportunity for us to learn, grow, improve, and most importantly, deliver more value to the university community. I think the prospect of what we need to do is massive, but it’s exciting. There’s a lot of opportunity for positive change.
Where would you like to go with your career? Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
Ultimately, I would like to get to a Director position that provides leadership for a department or larger team. However, I can see myself staying in this position for sometime and following through on this modernization effort because it will take time to get it all done.
What would you like to see changed in the field?
I think it would be nice to see that more universities share similar IAM solutions and implementations. If you go and talk to different universities, everyone has a different grouping of various products. It would be nice if we could start seeing some sort of pattern of product solutions that we can use in a similar way. I also would like to see more collaboration, more use case sharing. There’s got to be a way that we can all figure this out together, instead of working in little or big silos, trying to make industry solutions work for higher-ed.
Is there anything in particular about being a woman in this field that you’d like to comment on?
I think being a woman in IT in general is a unique experience, and it brings on its challenges. It is still a male dominated field. I think that we should be encouraging more diversity throughout IT. Diversity brings thinking outside the box - new ideas, new concepts, new perspectives. It’s not just about being a woman in IAM - it’s about being a woman in IT and how the diversity efforts that are ongoing need to continue and to be prioritized in higher ed too.
What is your biggest stress reliever?
Spending time with my kids and my husband. I love hearing my babies giggle. Their joy and happiness is stress relief. I also love my time going to Barre3 classes. Each class is a physical and mental relief where I can re-center my mind, body, and soul.
What’s a fun fact about you?
I’m not sure if these facts are fun but… I do love to travel. I’m a total foodie too, which is part of the reason I like to travel. My parents are both from Poland, so I grew up speaking Polish and I’m still fluent. I’ve been to 49 of the 50 states in the US. If I could go anywhere right now, it would be to a beach in Portugal, or the south of France, or Mexico, somewhere magical. But, definitely the beach.
