Diversity and Inclusion from the POV of a Female Software Engineer
By Paige Sun, Agile Software Engineer
I’ve been to a dozen women in tech events, each one failing to leave a lasting impression — that is, until I had an absolutely amazing time at the Move the Dial Global Summit in Toronto! Move the Dial is a global movement to advance the participation and leadership of women in tech. The summit gave me an honest tour of the problem space around diversity and inclusion in the workplace and beyond, teaching me how small actions from everyone and incorporating diversity and inclusion practices helps share the flow of power. I found it inspiring to watch a full day of powerful women present their deeply thought out views on these topics.
These featured women and non-binary people were able to rise to CEOs, CFOs, and directors and still be their weird, funny, and authentic selves. This implied a strong message that women of all backgrounds can be heard and lead without changing their core. You can succeed without becoming what I had imagined a c-suite leader would need to be: outwardly perfect, reserved, and carefully polite.
In tech, women are an underestimated minority.
Let’s flashback to two years ago when I attended my first women in tech event. After being exhilarated at seeing more women in tech gathered in one place than ever before, I sat down to listen to the issues they experienced in the workplace and beyond.
Many of these issues start when women are perceived to have a lack of knowledge and expertise — especially technical expertise. Many weren’t being heard at meetings. An example is when a man repeated what a woman had said and then received the credit. Have you heard the story where a female director walks into a meeting and is immediately asked to fetch coffee? I have too — multiple times from multiple women. As women, we feel that we need to reach a higher bar to get the same recognition and respect as our white CIS male colleagues. That bar is even higher for women of colour, folks who aren’t able-bodied, and members of the LGBTQ2+ community.
Female CEOs count for less than 5% at fortune 500 companies. Women hover at 4%–15% of all software engineers at most companies. I’m often the only female in a team, and I’ve had a manager tell me on our first meeting that it was his first time mentoring a female. More than 30% of women over thirty-five still hold junior positions. Women are often being passed over for opportunities with challenging and engaging work, sometimes because their manager assumes they would always prioritize family over career. The wage gap is substantial. #MeToo is real. Networking and getting sponsorship is harder for minorities. Partially due to the lack of role models to normalize their career path. Imposter syndrome remains one of the most popular topics among women and non-binary folks in tech events.
We quickly learn that the higher we climb in our career, the more challenges we encounter when fewer people look like us in the room.
Before the Move the Dial Summit, “wow! I didn’t know it’d be this bad to be a woman in tech!” was my main takeaway, along with a weak sense of “you can do it, huzzah, women-power.” As a non-white, female software engineer who grew up in the immigrant working class, I drew cards that ensured that I would be frequently underestimated. I knew that I would need to work even harder and exceed expectations to move forward in my career.
A company with neurodiversity makes better products.
Having diversity is not just a moral imperative and the right thing to do — it’s proven time and again that it greatly benefits the bottom line. A company whose employees reflect the diversity of its audiences have a deeper understanding of its customer needs and therefore creates better products.
Diversity is more than gender identity. It is about neurodiversity from people who have lived through many different experiences. There are more than 32 axes of diversity, including visible axes like gender, race, religious beliefs, age, and disability. This also includes invisible axes like class, sexuality, educational background, culture, physical and mental illness, and the circumstances of where someone grew up. Listening to people with different lived experiences brings more to the table in terms of creativity and development of products.
Intentionally practicing inclusion creates a better environment for everyone.
Without inclusion, diversity won’t have staying power. A study by Deloitte University found that more than 61% of employees, including 45% of straight white men, feel like they are “covering” at work. That is, downplaying a part of their identity in order to fit in with the mainstream. Real change doesn’t just come from increasing diversity numbers though the hiring pipeline. It’s fostering an environment where everyone thinks “I am welcome here, my experience is valid, and I belong.”
How can inclusion be intentionally designed into our products and into our workplaces?
- We include the traditionally most excluded groups in the design process.
- We make personalized solutions by tackling the problem from many different angles — no one is perfectly average, so a design for the perfectly average person is a design for no one.
Kat Holmes, a designer from Google, talks about inclusion from the perspective of designing spaces and products to be accessible to people with disabilities. These people have bodies that have a high degree of mismatch to the designs of the world around them.
If you design for people who have a higher degree of mismatch, you will simultaneously benefit many others. For example, if you design for someone with one arm, you will also help someone who is holding a baby or someone who broke an elbow. If you make your website or app accessible for people who are blind, you’ll also benefit people who have vision loss due to age.
At the Move the Dial Summit, there were two huge screens with live captions that could be easily read from anywhere in the venue. Even as a native English speaker, I found the live subtitles helped me retain information and helped me catch misheard words. This seemingly simple act of practicing inclusion makes everyone feel more welcome and have a positive learning experience.
Diversity and Inclusion practices also helps us feel comfortable to be our authentic selves. As Erin & Sarah Foster, Heads of Creative at Bumble said, “Everyone has a thing about themselves that they think is a failure, but that uniqueness can be their greatest asset.”
Even small acts can move the dial for yourself and for someone else.
In her book Go Out Of Your Way, Founder of Move the Dial Jodi Kovitz wrote that the privilege that we all have is power, and “small acts can create big change for someone on your team when we flow our power.”
Despite some of my disadvantages, I still live with a lot of privileges. I am able-bodied, I speak English, my parents have two degrees each, and I have passion and experience in my profession. I can help people on my team or in the community who don’t have these advantages. I can help them by encouraging and practicing diversity and inclusion, ultimately moving the dial in the tech world.
Did you like my first blog post? Please hold down the hand button to give me 50 claps!
This is part 2 of a three part series discussing Diversity and Inclusion in the workplace, featuring the point of view of women in tech, and TribalScale’s 2020 goals. Read Part 1 here or Read Part 3 here.
Paige is an Agile Software Engineer at TribalScale specializing in iOS development and AR/XR. She has led mobile engineering teams for various startups and established apps. She is passionate about writing clean software and creating intuitive and valuable experiences for her users. Paige gains inspiration and drive from tech meetups, experimenting with new technologies, and teaching others.
TribalScale is a global innovation firm that helps enterprises adapt and thrive in the digital era. We transform teams and processes, build best-in-class digital products, and create disruptive startups. Learn more about us on our website. Connect with us on Twitter, LinkedIn & Facebook!
Resources
Yoshino, Kenji. “Diversity Does Not Mean Having to Choose Between Identity and Inclusion.” YouTube, uploaded by Big Think, 10 Nov 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ii1LUMKiJ4.
“Facebook’s Class on Unconscious Bias That All Its Employees Takes.” Facebook Managing Bias, https://managingbias.fb.com/. Accessed 27 November 2019.
Kovitz, Jodi. Go Out of Your Way. https://jodikovitz.com/publications/, Accessed 27 November 2019.
“Inclusion, Intention, and Investment.” Feminuity and #movethedial, 2019, https://static1.squarespace.com/static/59e75f9e9f07f52a3fe846c9/t/5dcca95ea8f5af7720515a2d/1573693824678/Feminuity_%23movethedial_RetentionPlaybook.pdf. Accessed 27 November 2019.
