The more I read about experiences of women in tech, the more I become convinced that the only answer is for women to consistently refuse to work for companies that don’t *genuinely* enforce culture of equality and respect. This industry has a HUGE problem of lack of talent. Every time I come to hiring a dev for my team I silently cry inside because I know it will be a long and painful process. I’m sure I don’t have to convince anybody who is involved that attracting talent is difficult.
Whilst female developers are still rare, they are out there, and if all of us actively voted with our feet against companies that don’t put enough effort to create a good working environment, if we actively promoted companies that do — wouldn’t that help?
Would women be more likely to enter IT if they knew which companies to go to ? Wouldn’t these companies get rewarded for *genuine* effort? I stress out genuine because I know a lot of companies pay lip service to diversity — but in reality, nothing is done even in obvious cases, let alone more subtle ones.
For me, working e.g. for Uber is completely off the table — but that decision is easy. It was a loud case. I don’t know how many other companies are just as bad or worse. I don’t know which ones genuinely work for change and which ones just talk about it. I was lucky enough to end up in nice teams/projects, with only a handful individuals who stood out (in a negative way). A lot of my engagements now are through connections. But what about ladies fairly new in the industry? Is it time to build something similar to Glassdoor (or maybe just extend it? do we know anybody in Glassdoor?) that would allow female developers to mark their working environments?
BTW it wouldn’t have to be just about female developers but generally about treatment of minorities of any form. I hear ageism is quite a problem too. So is hiring of non-white people. So… it could cover all of these. My gut feeling is that a female-friendly environment will generally be good for any other diversity too — but perhaps I’m wrong.
To the author — don’t leave IT. I promise there are decent places to work. But definitely do leave that company. They don’t deserve you.
