A Spotlight on our Engineers—Celebrating the Women in Product and Technology at Bench.
We are on a mission. A mission to make a profound difference in the quality of life of one million people.
Our Benchmates are a key part in accomplishing this.
As we grow, so do our teams! Our Product and Technology team is structured into two streams, with one focusing on Business Technology and the other focused entirely on Product Development.
We look for people who resonate with our company culture and our technology values. Engineers who love to work in truly collaborative environments, and working with modern tech stacks to create highly impactful products. Individuals who are passionate about tech, and never stop learning.
Hence, we want to share a collection of stories from the incredible women who are part of our PAT team at Bench.
This is what they have to say about growing their careers, navigating the industry, and inspiration for other women who are looking to break into tech:
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“In college, I did some work in office administration with an emphasis on computers because I was always really good at computers. After I finished, I always regretted not doing the IT course, but it was probably because of a lack of representation and confidence when I think back.
I eventually got a job doing tech support at Apple and then moved on to do seven more years of tech support for one of Canada’s largest telecommunication companies. Then I took a break and moved to Bali, did some scuba diving, and came back to Canada looking for a change.
I got a job in sales at Bench, but tech was constantly calling me. Then another sales rep at Bench took me to a Ladies Learning Code weekend session. We were both hooked, quit our sales jobs, and became engineers together.
I will never forget the engineers at Bench cheering us on and helping us get into our coding school (and even helping us with some of the coursework). The rest is history!”
— Alysia, Engineer 3, Support Engineering team at Bench.
“I first stumbled upon Bench through our blog posts a few years ago. They were relevant to the tech scene, written by passionate engineers, informative and didn’t try to push an agenda.
I’ve always had strong women around me throughout my professional career. When I did my college internship, my managers were women. My first job out of college, my manager was a woman, and here at Bench, the Platform team is majority women.
I’ve never had any doubt that women were capable of doing anything.
Once I started engaging in women in tech discussion groups and hearing about other women’s experiences, it helped me to realize that yes, being a woman who works in tech does matter.
Something that I’ve realized as a woman in tech is overcoming my own biases about how others perceive me — things like adding exclamation points or a smiley face in messages because I don’t want to come off as aggressive, or keeping my opinion to myself because others may perceive it as nagging. These kinds of behaviours are almost inherent in women because of years of perpetuated stigma that comes with being a working woman.
I’ve been here for 4 months so far, and we’ve already had 2 Hackathons with many of the ideas ending up as part of the technical roadmap.”
— Hazel, Senior Platform Engineer at Bench.
“I’m no longer the only woman on the team!
Having been at Bench for a year and a half as a Senior Engineering Manager, I can confidently say this has been the best experience in a tech role for me.
Back in my formative years, having gone through a technical institution for my studies, it gave me the certainty that I did not want to work in the field because I learned early on that it was a man’s world — there were no female role models to look up to, and the very few women in the industry were having an awful experience.
I wanted no part in that.
But life always throws you some curveballs. 8 years later, I found myself back in the tech scene here in Vancouver. I started in customer experience, then tech support, then QA and finally worked my way into team leadership, and after 14 years, I finally feel like I’m right where I belong.
As a non-coding woman in tech, I have often felt out of place, marginalized, talked over, pushed aside, discriminated against, and tokenized.
But more importantly, I have also found allies — people who saw and heard me and valued my contributions, who helped me get away from my insecurities and out of the “Imposter Syndrome” I have suffered from.
That gave me hope to push on, and when the going got tough, it forced me to do right by them and work hard to continue doing what I knew I was good at.
But I knew it was not only about fixing my perception of myself and my capabilities that I had to work on continuously, it’s about fixing the places where we work so no other women have to go through this in the future.
And this is a BIG part of why I love working at Bench.
We want to make changes to our company, and our own biases, as well as the companies we work and partner with. We are far from perfect, we know we are nowhere near done yet, and that it is a long journey, but we are actively and wholeheartedly working on making things better so other women and marginalized identities can find role models they can relate to.
Working on making those changes is not my full time job, but I love that it is an inherent part of my role as a leader at Bench.
— Vee, Senior Engineering Manager at Bench.
“After immigrating to Canada, I was looking to continue my career in a place that aligned with my values and aspirations. Bench’s values really aligned with me — empathy, boldness and transparency.
The technology industry has fewer women than I wish, this I believe is rooted in biases against women choosing STEM. I believe this can be solved if we are more supportive of girls at an early age exploring STEM fields.
Being a woman in tech, I feel that this not only adds diversity in terms of gender, but also adds diversity of thoughts and value, and brings more empathy to this profession.”
— Nidhi, Platform Engineer at Bench.
“I did my Engineering back in 2013 and here I am working as a front-end expert with over 8+ years of experience in technology. And I must say this has been a hell of a ride. I have seen the tech space change from being in offices to being fully remote, how the focus has shifted from just finding high potential talents to finding talents that can grow within the company, and how women in tech have increased at all the levels in the hierarchy.
Don’t be afraid to stand out, get scrappy, be bold and take stand up for yourself.”
— Pooja, Engineer 4 at Bench.
“Bench’s commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) was a major factor in my decision to join. I spent years hesitant to join Tech because I didn’t see myself in the space, and I wanted to make sure I joined a company that not only celebrated diversity but actively works against systems of racism and discrimination.
More importantly, I had the support of two amazing engineers who are also women, that mentored me and have continued to provide support.
I think it’s very important to see women in all levels of a company. My concern is that women are not applying to jobs they don’t feel 100% qualified for, even if they are the perfect candidate. I have no doubt more women would apply to be in various tech roles if they saw themselves represented. With that said, I think it’s important that companies highlight and celebrate the women in their companies and be honest about their Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives.”
— Idil, Junior Software Engineer, Support Engineering team at Bench.
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Bench is a people first organization, and that starts with our Benchmates!
Join us and make an impact through your work. Our teams are growing, and we’d love to hear from you!
We’re 100% transparent about our salary ranges, compensation process, how we level and assess engineers at Bench.
On top of our compensation and benefits package, Benchmates enjoy a variety of other benefits, like unlimited flex days, hybrid and 100% remote work options, access to a virtual counselling service to support mental health, and Bravely — a confidential 1:1 professional coaching service.
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Learn more about Technology at Bench:
- Check out our Github!
- Meet Vee Weller, our Engineering Manager 2
- We Built A Tool To Help Us Foster Growth In Our Engineers
- Breaking Good — Having A Blameless Engineering Culture
- Three Unexpected Benefits of Career Development Tracks in Engineering
- Measuring Agility
- Don’t Optimize For Tenure
If you are interested in learning more about Bench Accounting or a career with our Engineering team, apply here: https://bench.co/careers/
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Want to know more about Bench? Check us out in Daily Hive, Georgia Straight, Inc.com, the blog of Perkins + Will and our Instagram.
