The Highs and Lows of Being a Woman in Tech

There has been momentous push to highlight gender inequality within tech, yet the question still remains: Why are there so few women in tech and in top leadership roles?

According to a recent Reuters study, 30% of 450 technology executives stated that their groups had no women in leadership positions. Only 25% of the IT jobs in the US were filled by women and considering the fact that 56% of women leave IT in the highlight of their career, it’s no surprise that there’s so few women leading the tech industry.

30% of 450 technology executives stated that their groups had no women in leadership positions

The value of having women in leadership is common sense — women make up half of the purchasing demographic so having limited or no representation of women leading companies can make them miss out on valuable insight. This common sense is backed by a study by a DDI consulting firm that found the top 20% of top-performing companies had 27% or more women in key leadership positions while the bottom 20% of companies had less than 19% of women in these roles.

I asked women in leadership roles to share their experience in the tech space, everything from why they chose a career in tech to perks/challenges of being a woman in a male-dominated industry to advice for young women considering tech as a career.

Advice to young women considering tech

Brush up on your math.

Becca Stucky, Director of Demand Generation at tech company Thycotic, says that math skills are critical. “Tech companies move fast, and to know you’re making the right choices, you need to be able to read trends and metrics for how your initiatives perform — this is true not only for marketing, but also for making choices for product features or UX, running tech support and client happiness teams, and even working across teams and explaining to other managers why your team is making certain choices.”

Diane Merrick, VP of Marketing at Teradici agrees with Stucky, adding “Don’t be intimidated by math and science. Ask questions. Sometimes the problem is the teacher, not the subject. You…