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The Internet is ablaze this week with a former Uber engineer’s awful descriptions of sexism and discrimination in her time at the company, plus responses like this one, elevating the discussion to what women are facing across the technology sector. If you haven’t seen Susan Fowler’s report yet, read it with a glass of something strong in hand.
Recently, a friend of mine who is also a female CEO of a tech company forwarded me this article on women in tech. She wanted to know how my company stacked up against the gender trends in “big tech.”
Excerpted from CNET's Women in Tech: The Numbers Don't Add Up report
So I ran the numbers, admittedly with a bit of trepidation. While we actively recruit for all sorts of diversity, let’s face it: There are a hell of a lot of white guys in tech, and when we search for Drupal developers and other engineers, our applicant pools are filled -- often exclusively -- with white cis-gender dudes.
Thankfully, the numbers didn’t suck. Our overall team is 40% women, which is better than the big-tech average of just 29%. But as the article points out, when you dig deeper into the numbers, you find that women make up only less than 23% of leadership positions. Our management team is 60% women. The most startling number in these big tech companies is that only 15.6% of actual programming jobs are held by women. And here is where we shine: 33% of our programmers are girls who code. Not high enough for my goal of at least 50%, but we’re headed in the right direction.
Small start-ups might trend toward having more women in engineering roles. In particular, I’m hopeful that companies like mine who work in the nonprofit and progressive spaces are more mindful of the importance to actively recruit for technologists who don’t look or think just like them, and who might bring entirely new points of view to a company’s work and culture. But my quick research indicates that, at least when it comes to gender, just the opposite may be happening. Girls Who Code reports that in 1984, fully 37% of all computer science graduates were women. Today? Just 18%.
Excerpted from Payscale's Women in Tech report
Needless to say, ladies, we’re hiring.
