You’ll Be Fine: Parents in Tech Breakfast Event

What’s it like being a working parent in Tech and discussions of how to manage work/life balance with the addition of little one.

Liz Hamburger
Nov 1 · 7 min read

When looking for other females in Tech who have dealt with having children and working you may think of Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg. Sandberg is not only famous for working at companies like Google and Facebook but also for her book Lean In. If you’re not familiar with this book Sandberg reflects on her career, progression and how to deal with the balance of having a family with the attempt to inspire other women in overcoming the obstacles on the path to leadership.

Though this book has a lot of great advice, it also becomes unrelatable when you look at salaries as well as the childcare options available. When Sandberg first had her children she was working at Yahoo! earning a fair penny, though it’s hard to find the exact figure so for comparison in 2017 Sandberg was earning $25.2 million at Facebook — the salary at Yahoo! would have still been one that many of us could only dream of.

During this period Sandberg and her husband were able to hire a nanny, that alone can cost from £300 to £500 per week in the UK. Many of us in the tech industry can’t afford a live-in nanny so who else can we look to for advice and who else is in a situation similar to ourselves.


Find your tribe

With this in mind, I’ve strived to find other people in the tech industry who have children or plan to have them soon. As someone who plans to settle down in the future, I wanted to hear from as many people as possible about how they manage to have a successful and fulfilling career while having a family at the same time. This is where Triangirls come in — Triangirls is a femme-friendly community for women and non-binary folks working in tech. Usually, the events are held in the evening once a month but as Triangirls found out from the community those who have children may not be able to attend especially if they want to get home for the bedtime story.

That in mind Triangirls has worked with CompareTheMarket to house breakfast events to open up the conversation about being a parent and working in Tech. The event exists to encourage the sharing of experiences as well as building a support network for those who have children already and for those who plan to become parents soon.

The Triangirls breakfast event focuses on real people, in the industry. These wonderful speakers share their experiences as well as what they have learnt which becomes invaluable to the community.


You’ll be fine

Ryan Hyslop — Co-founder We Make Waves

First, up for at the breakfast talk was Ryan Hyslop. Ryan has recently become a new dad in the last 5 months which meant he was a perfect speaker with regards to how he is tackling the transition of becoming a parent. When Ryan found out that he was going to be a dad, he shared this news as well as his fears with others. Naturally, there was plenty of congratulations involved but the response to the fears was always You’ll Be Fine. But what does Fine mean when you become a parent? And does anyone want to be just Fine?

Not only did Ryan’s talk contain plenty of cute baby photos, funny anecdotes, but it also had real and useful information that Ryan has collected over the 14 months.


Top tips from Ryan

Get hands-on

Ryan found it useful to try and put into practice information such as changing a nappy, feeding a baby to prepare for the arrival of his child, groups such as Future Dads and Noobies allowed him to do this. But also looking to other men who were in a similar situation, this blog post 3 Dads On What It’s Really Like To Take Family Leave At a Startup really helped too.

Learn from others

There are other people out there who have experienced or experiencing similar situations to you. Looking at blogs, articles, other places where Dads have written about their experiences is useful.

Take your time

In the UK fathers are only entitled to one or two weeks of paternity leave, which is an incredibly short amount of time. It can be very hard to settle into this new way of life in just 14 days. Ryan was lucky that when he became a parent he was at the start his journey creating a new business so he was able to be flexible with this. We all know that 2 weeks isn’t enough, so if you can take longer than 2-week paternity leave then do it. If you’re the HR manager and are in the fortunate position to decide the paternity packages then if possible don’t just give them what’s required, give them what they need.

Having a kid is like creating a start-up

Possibly the best tip from Ryan is that having a child is incredibly similar to the lean startup process. Be flexible, go with the flow, and ultimately you will be fine.


Parent in Tech: part-time, full-value

Emily Sas — Software Engineer at Compare the Market

Following Ryan was Emily. Emily is currently working part-time as a frontend developer for CompareTheMarket. Emily’s talk was about her experience of having a family and how she found a career that worked around her and her family’s needs.

After spending 3 months investing in herself and joining a coding boot camp Emily was ready to jump into the working world as a junior Software Engineer. When Emily set out on this journey she was after the flexibility that many developers seem to have in their careers, however, when Emily got to applying for roles it seemed that part-time roles are few and far between.

Emily ran through what she learnt on this journey as well as how we can be more inclusive of part-time workers. She also told us how our businesses can benefit from that kind of role.


Top tips from Emily

Part-time doesn’t mean part the effort

For some reason, it seems to be the attitude that if there is a part-time role then the work won’t be completed to the same standard as someone who does the same job but in a full-time role. This myth has been busted many times, so much so that the people of Norway are expected to work for only 27 hours every week. As Emily reassured us in her talk when you have a concentrated amount of time you become focused and all your effort is there. Compared to working a full 5 days, half focused on work but half focused on caring for your family.

The future is working from home

Working 5 days a week, in the company office has been the norm for many employees and employers over the years. However times are changing, many of us who work in tech don’t store our work on our computers but it’s usually in the cloud — meaning we can work from any location. As the times are changing so is flexibility around working, as of 2019 all employees have the legal right to request flexible working — not just parents and carers, so make sure you talk to your employer or visit Flexible Working on the government website to know your rights.

Be vocal about part-time work opportunities

Emily found that while searching for a part-time role a lot of companies didn’t mention whether they support part-time working. That means that a lot of companies may miss out on top talent but also a lot of part-time role seekers are struggling to find the right fit. As business’ when hiring we need to be as transparent and inclusive as possible.

Overall reflection

As always I came away from this event feeling far more relaxed about the industry that I’m working in. Even though there is still a long way to go to make sure that parents who work in tech still feel included, and have the flexibility needed for their lifestyle it’s reassuring to know that there is a community out there of like-minded people who are dealing with issues and situations that I may find myself in, in the future.

If you are in London and are interested in coming to a Triangirls breakfast event make sure you sign up to the newsletter here to make sure you hear about all the latest events.

Have you decided to work part time? Is it working for you? Are you a new parent figuring out the work/life balance? Do you have a story to share? Get in touch with us! Email us at hello@triangirls.com or head over to Twitter and send us a tweet Triangirls


Our next event

14th November 2019 — Everday Actions: Allyship in the workplace

This event is not to be missed! So make sure you get your tickets as soon as possible! This event is open to all people working in Design & Tech. Join for a panel discussion about being an ally at work, and creating an environment for equality.

Triangirls

F*ck ups, masturbation and pay negotiation — Not your average women in tech event. A femme-friendly community, we meet monthly.

Thanks to Luke Charles

Liz Hamburger

Written by

Writing about design and some other bits in between | Digital Product Designer at Inktrap | Event organiser for Triangirls.

Triangirls

F*ck ups, masturbation and pay negotiation — Not your average women in tech event. A femme-friendly community, we meet monthly.

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