Girls Who Code x FOX: Supporting New Careers Through Speed Networking
As Reese Witherspoon once said, “If you’re one of those people who has that little voice in the back of her mind saying, ‘Maybe I could do [fill in the blank],’ don’t tell it to be quiet. Give it a little room to grow, and try to find an environment it can grow in.”
At FOX, we encourage growth through pursuing your passions. In fact, Women in Tech (WiT) at FOX was formed to help our fellow female colleagues thrive. This group of women was established to help advance, empower, and connect women technologists and amplify their impact both at FOX and beyond. As an employee resource group, WiT provides events, resources, mentorship, and connections to advocate for its female employees as well as underrepresented groups in technology, ultimately leading the way to close the gender gap in tech. As such, our partnership with Girls Who Code– a non-profit dedicated to building the largest pipeline of future female engineers globally– was a natural fit from the start. In their nine years, Girls Who Code has reached more than 500 million people globally and 450,000 girls through their programming. Of the girls reached, half come from historically underrepresented groups in tech.
As of 2021, nearly 90,000 Girls Who Code alumni are college-aged or post-college aged — almost 3 times the number of women graduating with CS and related degrees in the US in 2019. Now that’s the kind of meaningful impact and environment WiT is actively working to help grow.
To kick off our series on Women in Tech @ Fox, we’re excited to share our volunteers’ experience at the Girls Who Code’s Fall Speed Networking event. Each FOX volunteer was paired individually with a total of five college-aged students for 10 minutes each so the students could ask questions about their career journey, technical expertise, and more! Over ninety college-aged women and non-binary students participated and met with seventeen corporate partners from various industries. FOX’s volunteers joined from different teams within the FOX Tech organization– all united with the common goal of supporting and serving as mentors for these students as they take their next steps in their technology careers. Read below for more on each volunteer’s experience.
Clara Hernandez
Senior Manager, Information Technology Project
Consumer Products + Engineering
The Importance of Communication
I’d like to thank Girls Who Code and Fox for the opportunity to be a mentor and join networking events for Girls Who Code. I find it incredibly giving to be able to talk with and share my experiences with other women who are interested in tech. I work as a technical product manager (TPM) for data platforms, advanced analytics, and data activations. As a TPM, we focus on how we can form a data strategy that allows us to better understand our users by storing and tracking user data, identifying them within different ecosystems (marketing, sales, distribution, product), and being able to deliver insights and data when and where needed to help the business. With my role, it is important to be able to understand at a high level the technical aspects such as the architectural data flow and the tools used to manage and use data. It’s also equally important to be able to communicate with stakeholders and understand what their needs are in order to work with a team to create a solution.
Girls Who Code is special to me because of their work in representing women in technology and giving opportunities to women who may not have access to connect with technological resources in their school or work environment. I enjoyed speaking with students from different majors and backgrounds during the networking event. I learned that they’re very sharp young women who will be great assets to the technical industry in the future. They were interested in understanding the value of being technically capable; for example, either knowing coding languages or understanding architecture diagrams. Additionally, they wanted insight on how to break into the workforce and also what types of positions are available in the industry. I shared that in my experience it is equally important to be willing to learn, to communicate effectively, and be able to work with others than having solid technical skills. One piece of advice I shared is that the key to being able to work well with others is being open to being wrong. Throughout your career, certain individuals will have more information or you will have moments when mistakes are made, but when you are able to admit that you are wrong without taking it personally, you demonstrate that you are honest and you can build strong relationships with others.
Communication and collaboration are key to success in any company as you must learn what a team is trying to achieve. A team’s unique differences can’t be taught in a classroom and you will grow as you ask questions and work together.
Sreeya Das
Director, Media Services
Media + Broadcast
The Benefits Through A Volunteer’s Eyes
I am grateful that Fox’s Women in Technology gave me the opportunity to interface with bright young women. I wanted to volunteer for this networking event as I understand how intimidating it can be to navigate through this big IT world when you are starting out and if I could help even 1%, it would be my great pleasure. I was thrilled to see how well informed and curious these students were about the recent technology advancements as well as about FOX. My advice to them was to be courageous and speak their minds and know that they are worth it! I am looking forward to more such events so I can learn from the students and share what I know.
Monica Orozco
Associate Developer
Media Services
Networking Is Vital To Closing The Gender Gap
I wanted to volunteer with Girls Who Code because at Fox I have been fortunate to have inspirational mentors and colleagues. I wanted a way to pay it forward, share my experiences, and help inspire those who are just getting into the tech field. Partnering with Girls Who Code means a lot to me because of their hands-on programming experience for girls who may not have had the exposure otherwise. I did not grow up building or fixing computers, coding at a young age, or had a woman in the engineering field to look up to when I was growing up.
I learned that some of these students have been empowered to become leaders through their Girls Who Code program. Many are first-generation college students in their family and are working to create their own network & community to help each other. A few students asked for advice on how to get their first software developer job. I recommended that if they did not have any work experience to build a few personal projects on their Github portfolio and fine-tune their projects. In the interview process, employers are seeking individuals who can produce high quality projects and who can describe in detail their process rather than individuals who have a large quantity of personal projects that do not meet that caliber.
One student wanted to know what advice I would give my younger self. My answer was simple: be fearless and ask questions even you think you have a “dumb question.”
Additionally, I shared with them my career journey. In 2013, I took my first college programming course, Visual Basic. I was one of three other women in the class with a professor who was less than encouraging. Because of that programming experience, I changed my college major and decided not to pursue coding.
In 2016, I joined Fox as a Sr. Technology Support Analyst supporting Fox Legal Executives. Through hard work and relationship building, I was able to establish unofficial mentors and obtain guidance through asking questions and observation. In 2017, I helped develop a Fox Women in Tech group to connect with other women technologists. By way of WiT’s mentorship program, Knowledge Circles, I was able to learn from others and get the encouragement I needed to learn how to code. One of my Fox mentors urged me to attend a coding bootcamp and this experience kicked off my path as a developer!
My first front-end developer job is for Fox’s Media Services Team. I currently update Fox’s MediaCloud website, a cloud-based media management platform built for media distribution that controls the acquisition, transformation, and archival of our assets including promos, commercials and more. With the guidance and support of my senior developers, I helped develop a Fox employee on-boarding website as well as an introduction to coding event for Fox employees to share my coding knowledge, giving others the opportunity & resources to learn how to code.
I thank Fox for empowering me with the skills to be a mentor and able to share my coding journey with Girls Who Code alumni!
Alex Fexy
Software Engineer
Data Products
Inspiration For the Future
I volunteer with Girls Who Code for messages I received like this —
“I must say, you were the easiest person I talked to tonight.”
“I just felt like you understood me best.”
So often we don’t find people who “get us” because the focus is strictly on technology. When mentoring young women, I like to shift the focus back more holistically on who you are and what you can do with your passions alongside tech.
For me, it has never solely been about being a “woman in tech” or a female engineer. Those are merely parts of who I am, but I am much more than my gender and my job title. Rather, it is all about the brilliance of a career field and company that allows me to follow multiple passions under one roof. A place that embraces all the various parts of who I am, regardless of my gender identity.
I mentor college engineers so they know they don’t have to forego their passions to work in tech. You can have it all. Every field needs technology, so pick one you are equally interested in. Say you love to travel? You can work in the tech department of an airline and travel for free. You get excited about learning different languages? Go work for a language learning app! For me, I didn’t have to give up my love of sports. Working on Fox Sports products allows me to say I love what I do and mean it.
It may sound corny, but I volunteer with Girls Who Code to remind these young engineers that they truly can do it all. Duality is beautiful, and a career in tech allows you to embrace all your sides. I didn’t have to sacrifice my interest in athletics to work at Fox. In fact, Fox encourages me to pursue my goals with training and mentorship. I feel lucky to work at a company that celebrates multifaceted women and I love reassuring college engineers that they too can find a great “fit” post-graduation. You don’t have to minimize your passions to work in tech — you can pursue them all with the right company.
Interested in joining our FOX CPE team and helping close the gender gap in tech and more? Come join us — we’re actively hiring!
If you would like to learn more about Girls Who Code or get involved, check out their website at https://girlswhocode.com/
Be on the lookout for more from our Women in Tech @ Fox series and follow us on Medium so you’re the first to know when the next update is available!
