Women in Technology
3 min readMay 7, 2017
“It should scare the sh*t out of you”
Last week I spoke at the Red Hat Summit on a panel of women discussing our careers, experiences, and advice for women in technology. Below is some of the best nuggets for careers, employers, and young women that we talked about.
Career advice
For women who are currently working in technology, what are some key considerations for building a career?
- What’s the dream? Take time to step back and look at the big picture, find a motivating vision for yourself, and then move forward.
- Build your team. It’s not enough to have one person or manager looking out for you. Identify a personal board of directors and make sure they all know who you are, what you do, and what you want.
- Take risks, ask for more. If you’re trying to elevate your career to the next level, your next move will have to expand beyond what you’re currently doing — “it should scare the sh*t out of you”. Cultivate your network to help overcome challenges with the traditional hiring process.
For Employers
Many employers care about diversity and inclusion, what are some really impactful actions for creating and benefiting from a diverse workforce?
- Get involved. Find your local communities for traditionally underrepresented groups in technology and get involved. For example, at Blackstone Federal we host Women Who Code DC meetups in our offices. The partnership benefits our recruiting, hiring, and retention of female engineers and developers.
- Keep learning. Education in the workplace about diversity, bias, and inclusion is essential to avoid common mistakes that can hurt your company culture. In addition to a formal training program, attending related events and facilitating open conversations about these topics can be helpful to everyone in your organization. Women in tech talk about what they would like to see.
- Provide opportunities. Many companies provide leadership tracks, mentoring and coaching, and employee resource groups. Having someone to talk to, knowing how to move forward, and seeing the company’s support are key to individuals’ success.
The Youth
For the young ladies interested in technology now, how do you keep them engaged and passionate enough to pursue a career?
- Encouragement — You may already be doing this, but keep on telling them they’re awesome, buying them raspberry pi’s and littlebits, and going to all their science fairs and events.
- Find a mission. Knowing what passionate geniuses young women are, they likely care a lot about something (i.e. saving homeless cats, rock climbing). Figure out a way to combine learning about technology with their other passion. Identifying that technology is used to solve all kinds of problems will give them a tool they will want to use for the rest of their life.
- Make friends. Peer pressure is real, and being the minority anywhere can feel very uncomfortable. Find local groups for young women in tech like Girls Who Code, or start your own if it doesn’t exist already. The mission mentioned above may also help women to recruit friends to help solve problems together.
