Advice for Women in Tech

Note: This is part of some thoughts I wrote up in 2018 when I was interviewed about being a woman in tech. I posted the more general advice as Ownership or How to Be the Best Junior Employee Ever. Since it’s March, here’s my advice for women* in tech.

Photo by Ian Schneider on Unsplash

Should women enter tech?

I heard this question more last year, when Uber and other tech cos were rightfully in the news for their treatment of women. And let’s be real — tech can be a hard place if you’re not a straight, white cis-male. Once I started working at Facebook I saw Sheryl Sandberg and Lean In in a different light. Lean In doesn’t work for most women because it isn’t about most women; it’s a manual for how to survive at Facebook as a woman. It’s how one high-level woman saw the world after spending five years at Facebook and seven at Google. So yes, tech can be a hard place for women, but:

Do it. Don’t be scared away. There are so many reasons to work in tech.

First, just because it’s difficult doesn’t mean it isn’t rewarding. I can’t imagine working in another industry.

Second, it will only get better if you do it.

The more women there are in tech, the more women will have a voice in changing the things we don’t like about the industry.

Third, it’s already getting better. I’ve seen a lot of articles referring to the past few years as a potential watershed moment. And that was before #metoo. The truth is, it’s been changing for years, and it will keep changing. I’ve talked to women who were in tech 10 or 20 years ago who say it’s better today. We still have a long way to go to close the CS graduate gender gap, but women make up close to 50% of coding bootcamp graduates.

Now That You’ve Decided to Enter Tech — Some Tips

Talk to a lot of people and ask a lot of questions.

Certain things are common to all women in tech, e.g. implicit bias (at least to a degree). Still, if you’re trying to learn about a specific company, you’ll want to talk to several people to learn what that company is like for women. You’ll want to know how many women are on the engineering (or product) team, how many women are at the company, what kinds of diversity initiatives they have, and, if it’s a big company, whether there are any groups for women.

You’ll also want to know about the company’s culture. Does it feel inclusive? One of the things I loved about Climb and love about Quill is that we don’t have a culture of “brogrammers.” Our office doesn’t feel like a 22-year-old’s dorm room. We don’t have beer pong tournaments.** Unlike my first week at Facebook, we don’t have offsites at shooting ranges.

So when you are considering taking a job, talk to a lot of people at the company — women and men — and learn about their experience at the company.

If advice doesn’t feel right, treat it with a healthy dose of skepticism.

Whether you’re considering a job or looking for a mentor, you will hopefully talk to a lot of people. This is good (see above), but it also means you will receive a lot of advice. Some of that advice will be unsolicited. Some of it will be good. Some of it will feel impossible. Remember that everyone is different and everyone’s experience is colored by thousands of factors such as their past, the company they work at, and their personality.

Take the advice that works for you. For the rest, take it with a grain of salt.

Find mentors and sponsors.

These can be men or women. Sponsors are people who can advocate for you and your career (e.g. getting you opportunities or recommending you for a promotion), while mentors are people you can learn from/turn to for advice. You need both and they’ll often be different people.

Speak up.

Don’t be afraid to talk in meetings and don’t be afraid to ask questions. You were hired because you’re valuable, and part of that value is in your voice.

Find allies.

I was lucky in that I had one very good male boss at Facebook who I worked with on an internal tool. People often assumed he did all the work for it because it was technical, and he was very, very good at sharing credit and making sure people saw my contribution. I haven’t personally had a need to do this for meetings, but if you feel like you’re being ignored in meetings because men keep talking over you, you can ask a trusted male team member to pay attention at meetings and jump in if they see this happening. Or better yet, see if the team is open to running meetings differently.

Stay Technical.

If you enjoy engineering or product managing or data science, keep doing it. If you find people trying to push you into less technical roles or trying to get you to take on too many non-technical projects, resist. Even if that means finding another company, because there are great workplaces for women out there.

Find support.

In tech you are a minority and you will probably face unique stresses. There are definitely others out there facing those stresses but you have to find them. Maybe join the women’s group if your company has one. Or join a community like Women Who Code, Women in Product, or Tech Ladies®. There’s also a new community called Elpha. I just joined so I don’t have an opinion yet, but it looks interesting. Also, while I haven’t done this yet, there are several slack communities for women in tech that sound promising.

If you see an interesting job and you think you could be good at it, apply.

There’s a statistic that’s been floating around for years that women only apply to jobs they feel 100% qualified for, while men apply to jobs if they meet about 60% of the qualifications.

Now that I’m hiring for several roles at Quill, I can tell you with 100% confidence that I won’t be offended if a resume doesn’t meet all the job “requirements.” With tools like AngelList, reviewing resumes is easy. If it’s not a fit, you’ve taken up a few seconds of my time. I promise you, I do not care. I won’t hold that against you. I’ll gladly take losing that 5 seconds if it means I find the person I didn’t even know I wanted.

Remember, humans write job descriptions. Humans are imperfect. We try to write what we want, but we don’t always know what we want. Sometimes we think we want something, but then talk to someone compelling and realize we were thinking about it wrong. Give us the chance to meet you.

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*I’m using “women” her to includeanyone who identifies non cis-male, and with the caveat that the whole “advice for women” thing feels weird since hopefully it’sjust useful advice.

**Nothing against beer pong, I played a surreal game of it at Facebook that included Sheryl Sandberg and Chris Cox.