Rachel Thomas, math PhD, software developer and instructor at the Hackbright Academy recently wrote an article about women in tech titled “If you think women in tech is just a pipeline problem, you haven’t been paying attention“.
According to the Harvard Business Review, 41% of women working in tech eventually leave the field, compared to just 17% of men. In the post, Dr Thomas tries to identify why:
I’d rather wake up early than stay up late, and I was already thinking ahead to when my husband and I would need to coordinate our schedules with daycare drop-offs and pick-ups. Kegerators and ping pong tables don’t appeal to me. I’m not aggressive enough to thrive in a combative work environment. Talking to other female friends working in tech, I know that I’m not alone in my frustrations.
So, it’s not only a matter of encouraging women to go into tech and creating role models (Ada Lovelace Lego figure anyone?) but also a matter of retaining those who actually do join.
If you would have asked me yesterday I probably would have talked about women in tech being more of a pipeline problem. I didn’t realise the retention statistics were so poor. Last time we hired a developer in Iceland, only one (very promising) application we received was from a woman. When we asked her to come in for an interview someone else had already snapped her up. But even if there is a pipeline problem, the post highlights that there’s also a culture problem that those of us in tech should be aware of when we do manage to snap up the female talent in the field.