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What does it mean to be a woman in tech in 2022?

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What does it mean to be a woman in tech in 2022?

In the world of work, and particularly within the technology industry, women have long experienced a number of challenges, from the battle for equal pay to breaking the 'glass ceiling', being represented in senior roles, returning after maternity leave and more.

In line with this year's International Women's Day theme, #breakthebias, 15 women working in the technology sector have shared their experiences and learnings, in the hopes of creating workplaces free of bias, stigma and barriers for women.

The challenges for working women

"Without more women and girls pushing boundaries in their field of work, the world will continue to be designed by and for men, while the potential of girls and women will remain untapped," says EJ Cay, vice president, UK and Ireland at Genesys, who believes that workplaces must strive to remote barriers for women.

These barriers have long existed, in the form of the gender pay gap and disproportionate childcare responsibility for women. Donna Johnson, SVP marketing at Cradlepoint, says that obstacles women face to achieving their goals and advancing their careers every day also include "moderating behaviour so others don't perceive them as too aggressive or too emotional and needing to prove their intelligence and competence rather than it being assumed."

Cecilia LeJeune, Pluralsight author and design strategist, argues that other challenges have been brought about by the pandemic - for example, through 'flexible' working. She says "When the 'free' work of the household (children, cleaning, meals) is unequally distributed, remote work is therefore not experienced as a liberation, but as a cage. This results in a very different experience of remote work for men and for women."

This must be addressed, so women can reap the benefits of flexible working. For example, flexible working can offer more career opportunities for women when done right. In fact, Susan Fazelpoor, COO at Demand Science, believes that "the Work From Anywhere model has made it easier to hire women with strong skills who may not live in close proximity to office locations. Talent acquisition teams are able to target candidates who may not have been able to enter careers that required them to be present in an office five days per week."

In a similar way to flexible working, Lori MacVittie, principal technical evangelist at F5, argues that cloud technology has also supported women to access more roles and experiences. She says, "Cloud as a technology is often credited with democratising the resources needed for women to take their place as entrepreneurs. It makes it easy for anyone to drive an idea to fruition thanks to the wide range of opportunities it offers. As a result, we've seen an explosion of women-led start-ups that are based in and on cloud."

By having more ways to work that suit women - whether it's a different work schedule or a cloud-based company - more women will also have access to leadership positions. Poornima Ramaswamy, EVP global solutions and partners at Qlik, believes women have many strong leadership qualities, including "being purpose-driven, empathetic in decision making and communication, having strong collaboration skills across internal, external and stakeholder communities, all while balancing budgets and profitability with varied priorities." Businesses will benefit from making leading roles possible for women.

Get more women and girls into STEM

Careers in STEM have long been male-dominated, but women make many amazing contributions to the STEM industry. For example, Jen Rodvold, head of sustainability, digital ethics & social impact consulting at Sopra Steria, says, "Careers in STEM are more inspiring than ever, with women in science such as Dr. Özlem Türeci - one of the scientists behind the Pfizer BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine - and in tech, such as Tara Donnelly at NHSX, playing such pivotal roles."

However, there is more work to be done as women still represent the minority of STEM experts. Siobhan Ryan, enterprise sales executive at UiPath, thinks changing this isn't all about focusing on 'hard' STEM skills at the expense of others: "Instead of fighting to attract women away from the social sciences, we need to embrace the social sciences and explicitly incorporate them into technology education and careers."

When it comes to ways of getting more girls onto the STEM path, Daniela da Cruz, head of engineering of SAST and engines at Checkmarx, believes there are many things we can do. "There are a number of initiatives that can make a difference, including teachers of younger children teaching exactly what it means to work in STEM fields, and encouraging excitement about the opportunities open to them."

Many organisations are already doing this. Liz Parnell, COO at Rackspace Technology, says the company already aims for "a 50:50 gender split in our postgraduate recruitment", and believes the tech industry should be "making industry heroes like Margaret Hamilton as famous as Alan Turing or Steve Jobs."

Jane Saunders, director of engineering at Secondmind, also highlights the benefits of having more women, and more diversity in general, in teams. "When building a team for an engineering project, I am always conscious of the need to have a variety of views and perspectives in the room. This requires more effort and consideration from the outset, but it leads to a better result.

The importance of role models and mentorship

Visible role models and mentors are another important way to encourage more women into the technology industry. Rosie Gollancz, software engineer at VMware Tanzu Labs, feels lucky to have had role models and mentors, but says "that's sadly not the case for all women getting into engineering." She notes that "having a strong mentor has spurred me on to strive for workplaces where gender is not a factor in how colleagues or clients perceive your contributions."

Typically, mentoring works one way, with a more senior mentor coaching their junior. Alana Lukens, equality, diversity and inclusion lead at Grayce, believes in something different: 'reverse mentoring'. She says this involves "partnering junior employees with senior board members and members of the leadership team and giving them the chance to discuss their experiences." By doing so, "Grayce has been able to use these insights to become more culturally aware and understand the nuances of gender discrimination across industries."

As well as external support and encouragement from a mentor, it is important for women to find their own voice and see the unique strengths they have. Ro Mohindroo, CIO at Sitecore, says "I've been fortunate to come up through my career in science and technology making a seat at the table for myself based on the ideas and solutions I have brought forward. My advice to young women is to own your value." Mohindroo believes women should not be afraid to showcase their strengths and do what they can to "help the business thrive."

Edwina Murphy, director of public cloud management at Sungard AS, supports this idea too. She says "In the past, I did tolerate unacceptable gender-biased behaviour on occasion. I tried to break biases by staying focused on my work and let the work speak for itself. But women must speak up. They might find occasions where some don't want to listen, but no one can take their voice from them, and it is the most powerful tool for bringing positive change."

Final thoughts

Kat Judd, SVP of people & culture at Lucid, summarises her thoughts about women in tech, explaining that "the barriers and perceptions around female careers in tech are changing and many of the solutions are already available, so hopefully increased awareness can continue to boost the number of women in the industry, and particularly in senior leadership roles."

Looking forward, we're hopeful that the next generation of women in technology will face even fewer biases and obstacles and will be able to speak freely and boldly about their successes and challenges and support the women who come after them.