Traditionally, the tech industry was male-dominated society, but this is not the case anymore. “Now women play an equally important role in this domain and have been doing wonders for quite a while now”, says Laura Garbers, a career coach from CraftResumes. All the leading tech organizations realized the importance of mixing gender workforce and how it can add value to work culture and productivity. Now we can see that people are deliberately hiring women, and some people prefer them over males.
There are numerous success stories of wonder women shared by Forbes, who made their mark in the tech world with their vulnerability and dedication.
KATIE HAUN, ANDREESSEN HOROWITZ
The woman who was associated with law and court, but she surely knew that she could create her own destiny. Initially, her resume was about clerkship with Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, but now she leads a $350 million cryptocurrency fund. Before being a part of the tech world, she didn’t know what cryptocurrency was, but she made sure to pave her path through it and now acts as a role model for millions of people all over the world. She became VC of the company and continued to play a prominent role in blockchain technology.
JENNIFER TEJADA, PAGERDUTY
A rare woman who made her mark in various aspects and earned up to $218 million. She knows how to make her way through different businesses and added value to them with her expertise. Her software company has value around $1 billion, and apart from that, she also plays a significant role in Estée Lauder.
The best thing about her is that she knows her strengths and utilizes them in an efficient manner. “I’m a lot of things, and self-aware is definitely one of them; I knew that I was not somebody who was going to start something myself”- says Jennifer Tejada.
TANYA MENENDEZ, SNOWBALL WEALTH
She is the Co-Founder and CEO of Snowball Wealth, a much-needed platform to help students to deal with student loans and debts. They provide free recommendations and affordable coaching, which can guide students to get through this phase in an easy manner. Before becoming an entrepreneur, she has worked in Google and Goldman Sachs. She is a perfect example of beauty with brains and was listed in Forbes 30 under 30 for playing a prominent part in the tech world.
Rachel Mushahwar
A person who is considered as a role model for innumerable women and who aspires to achieve what she worked for throughout her life. Rachel is a Vice President at Intel. She made her way through a rewarding career, but the journey was surely not an easy one. She worked for it, day and night. The path was never straight nor smooth, she had to pave it and made sacrifices to be where she is today. She learned valuable lessons throughout her journey, and today she appears as a strong name and personality in the tech world. Rachel shaped the data-centric future of technology and the communication world.
She won numerous titles which backed up her credibility and professionalism, “Most Admired Women in Business,” Top Ten Women in Technology” and “Top Industry Transformers” are few titles she was awarded. Forbes featured her interview for her remarkable performance.
Women of Color In Tech Industry
In all these years, we have seen women playing a prominent role in colleges and universities and acquiring more education as compared to men, but not all these women choose to pursue their career in the technology world. We can not say that the technology world is gender biased, but it also faces racial discrimination too. Currently, Pinterest has the highest rate of women employees who belong to minority groups, and it makes the winning number of 8%.
How do women continue their tech careers?
All those women who enter the tech world have different goals and objectives to pursue. Some want to climb the corporate ladder while being a prominent part in the industry while some prefer to start with their own business and come forward with a start-up, some also prefer to relate with the technology world while opting for some non-technical job.
If more women are needed in this industry, then there are some points to be considered, which makes it convenient for a woman to grow professionally in this sector.
- Mentoring Programs
- Networking Opportunities
- Flexible Working Hours
- Personal Development
- Workforce Diversity
Quarter of Women are in Tech World
If we look into the tech world, we’ll realize that almost 25% of women are in this field and making their mark with tremendous efforts. We can expect this number to grow with time and expect that men and women ratio would be the same. To help women opt for a tech career, they should be provided with opportunities, so they do not have to quit at the mid-career level. The majority of women quit their growing careers or switch industries due to certain factors, some of which are listed below. Hubpost mentioned the reasons and percentages regarding women leaving the tech world.
- 30% of women leave their careers due to working conditions. They find it difficult to bear long working hours, non-competitive salary packages, and when they realize that there is no career growth.
- 27% of women find it hard to have a work-life balance. All that extra time spent traveling makes it difficult to manage families alone.
- 22% of women lost their interest in work with the passage of time. With numerous other responsibilities and commitments, their priorities change with time, and they prefer other things over work.
- 17% of women quit due to the unfavorable circumstances and environment they are working in. At one point, the environment becomes toxic if proper measures are not taken to improve the work culture.