From ‘Only’ to Equity — How to Recruit and Retain Women in Engineering
There are few experiences more isolating than feeling alone in a room full of people. Especially when those people are meant to be a team.
“Women who are ‘Onlys’ — often the only person in the room of their gender, race or ethnicity, or both — have a significantly worse experience at work,” reported McKinsey’s 2021 Women in the Workplace report.
Women in software engineering are statistically even more likely to be an “Only” in their workplace when compared to the workforce as a whole. According to Built In’s research, only 14 percent of the software engineering workforce are women, a number that has increased by just 2 percent over the last two decades.
For Mia Frank, software engineer and engineering hiring coordinator at Tandem, these findings are consistent with her own experience. “Many women in tech have been the only woman on the engineering team or even in their whole company,” she said. “Being a gender trailblazer is a brave thing to do if you know what you’re signing up for, but it’s not fair for female engineers to always have to play that role. It can be exhausting and demoralizing.”
For Frank, Tandem’s workplace culture provides respite from environments in which she used to be an “Only.”
“Tandem is such an attractive place to work because our engineering team already includes women at all levels,” she said. “People are able to be their unique selves, rather than being tokenized for their gender or race.”
Equitable hiring strategies and generous benefits provide a foundation for the development of an inclusive workplace culture for employees who identify as women. Investment in concrete practices pay off in the long term, as they continue to support the recruitment and retention of women in engineering roles.
“Commitment to balance and having meaningful time outside of work is embedded in our culture,” Kiki Rohde, director of product engineering and content strategy at McMaster-Carr, said. “It shows in the way people use their PTO to recharge and in our parental leave benefit that includes up to 24 weeks of time off for adoption or births.”
In addition to robust PTO and parental leave, policies and benefits including pay transparency and equity, mentorship programs, childcare support, flexible schedules and development opportunities are helping companies recruit and retain women in engineering roles.
To learn more, Built In Chicago spoke with Frank, Rohde and four other leaders about how their workplaces recruit and support women in engineering roles.
CCC Intelligent Solutions prides itself on connectedness across both its products and its teams, which extends into their approach to diversity and resource groups. “Our Diversity Advisory Council, comprised of multiple business resource groups supporting women, Black and LGBTQ+ communities, is central to creating a safe and equitable workplace at CCC,” Supriya Rout, software engineering manager at CCC, said.
How is CCC recruiting more women in engineering?
At CCC, we have taken several steps to attract and hire a more diverse talent pool. We have expanded our partnerships to include more diverse job boards as well as increased our participation in diversity-focused recruiting events. We are also working with hiring managers to ensure our posted positions do not contain any potential biases.
What makes CCC an attractive place to work for women in engineering?
CCC is a leading technology company transforming the property and casualty insurance industry through digital automation. We offer women in engineering the opportunity to work on some of the most advanced technologies, as we have over 100 different software products that are built with many different technologies. Through this, we are able to empower a startup mindset and innovative exploration. CCC’s roster of talent includes women PhDs and patent holders from top universities across the globe, providing opportunities to work with and learn from some of the brightest minds in technology and business.
CCC also offers women-focused development programs, including our women’s business resource group as part of our Diversity Advisory Council, which provides career support, education and networking opportunities for women.
Our commitments to diversity and inclusion help us ensure an equitable and safe work environment for all CCC employees.”
How does CCC support women in engineering roles? What other policies are in place to ensure an equitable and safe work environment for employees?
CCC’s backup child care benefit, flexible schedule and competitive salary benefits are just the start of what attracts women in engineering to work at CCC. Our company values and commitment to diversity, including our zero tolerance policy for gender discrimination, are also key factors and include annual mandatory diversity and inclusion training for all employees.
CCC also offers a companywide mentor program that pairs new employees with mentors outside their teams for a more comprehensive assimilation and ongoing support.
Our commitments to diversity and inclusion help us ensure an equitable and safe work environment for all CCC employees. Key tenets of our plan include developing leaders who understand the value of diverse teams by providing them with the competencies and skills to effectively develop their teams, fostering a work culture where all employees feel they belong, and where different perspectives and experiences are valued and celebrated and leveraging the power of CCC’s people to make a meaningful impact in our communities while improving diversity representation in our ecosystem.
As a strategy, design and technology firm, Tandem is an expert in developing solutions that bring multiple voices to the table, and their hiring practices are no different. “When designing our interview process, we considered imposter syndrome, stereotype threat, the confidence gap and privilege of implicit endorsement,” Mia Frank, software engineer and engineering hiring coordinator, said.
How is Tandem recruiting more women in engineering?
Recruiting women is all about removing the barriers that have been in place for so long in the tech field. Women and people of color are less likely to negotiate a salary offer, which leads to an ever-widening pay deficit over the course of a person’s career. To combat that, Tandem makes our salary bands publicly available. You can go to our website right now and see how much you would make as an SE III or as a principal engineer. Making our compensation scale transparent gives candidates the confidence that they aren’t going to get a lowball offer.
Another barrier we see in tech interviews is high-pressure whiteboard tests to assess technical skills. These tests are so unnecessarily stressful and completely unlike the actual day-to-day work you’re responsible for as a developer. At Tandem, we give job candidates a full overview of our interview process so they know exactly what to expect. We don’t use tests to evaluate a candidate’s technical skills but instead give candidates a take-home code challenge to complete at their own pace.
Recruiting women is all about removing the barriers that have been in place for so long in the tech field.”
What makes Tandem an attractive place to work for women in engineering?
Back when I was job-hunting in September 2020, it was really important to me that in interviews with companies, I was able to talk to multiple women, queer people or non-white men that actually work in engineering — not in HR. Over the course of my interviews with Tandem, I met Mercedes, Kate, Aji, Eileen, Steph and Josh. Meeting not just women engineers, but women of color engineers and such a good crowd of different people was so different from my previous interviews at really conservative, corporate companies. It was very comfortable and easy to see that everybody at Tandem was really diverse in many dimensions.
How does Tandem support women in engineering roles? What other policies are in place to ensure an equitable and safe work environment for employees?
Tandem has many benefits and policies that contribute to our work environment like independently conducted salary audits to maintain pay equity, flexible work schedule, gender-neutral parental leave, full-company retrospectives to assess the effectiveness of our DEI initiatives and many more.
These are meaningful, but for me the most impactful thing is intangible and deeper than a policy could be — Tandem has created a culture where we view each other as full human beings whose emotions and experiences matter.
When Roe v. Wade was overturned, our CEO addressed it with the team. At past companies I’ve worked at, this type of news was either completely ignored or was glossed over by empty platitudes from leaders with no action. Hearing that acknowledgement and knowing that if someone is affected, Tandem will support them, no matter what — support becomes an action, not just a word.
For something like abortion access, the state I live in is in bad shape. This weekend, a man violently attacked peaceful protestors less than a mile from where I live. At Tandem, I’m able to be honest about my feelings and experiences. To me, that’s how you know your work environment truly is supportive.
Farmer’s Fridge dramatically shifted their business model during the early days of the pandemic, and their agility and responsiveness reflects a culture centered on results. “Both pre- and post-COVID, work-life balance and flexibility are key factors that are provided to our engineers. We focus more on what you are able to get done, not when or where you do the work,” Sheila Cherian, senior engineering manager, said.
How is Farmer’s Fridge recruiting more women in engineering?
Our efforts to get female representation on our engineering team starts when we recruit. We’ve joined a few “women in tech” networking groups that we use to actively recruit from, as well as engaging with job fairs focused on female talent and relying on our team’s network from coding bootcamp.
During the interview process, we actively train the team to use anti-bias techniques with the candidate by providing scripts and focus topics to ensure the interview is equitable. We never ask trick questions or try to put candidates in stressful situations — interviews are stressful enough on their own! We ensure that we have individuals from many different backgrounds in the interview process and everyone knows their focus areas. In short, we want to find reasons to hire you and give you the best chance to get the job.
We also make a conscious effort to be open to candidates who may not have traditional computer science backgrounds, such as folks switching careers or boot camp graduates. We have also seen our app operations team organically become a gateway for women who want to make an entry into the engineering and product space.
What makes Farmer’s Fridge an attractive place to work for women in engineering?
Farmer’s Fridge focuses on mentoring and developing all of our talent, but we specifically focus on fostering a welcoming environment for the women building careers on our tech team. Our managers spend their one-on-one time discussing your career and find opportunities to build your skills and push you outside your comfort zone to keep you challenged.
On the compensation side, we have rigid compensation bands that we adhere to across the business which means that men and women are equitably paid, even if a male counterpart is more forthright during the negotiation process.
We also provide opportunities for our team to get involved both on the tech team and cross functionally. Regular hackathons provide opportunities to showcase talents that may otherwise be stagnant during the day-to-day and some of these ideas have potential to find their way to our roadmaps.
We find that this journey doesn’t have to be done alone or without support from your workplace and colleagues.”
How does Farmer’s Fridge support women in engineering roles? What other policies are in place to ensure an equitable and safe work environment for employees?
As a woman in tech, it can feel like an unattainable goal to keep climbing your way to whatever the top looks like for you. We find that this journey doesn’t have to be done alone or without support from your workplace and colleagues. Support comes in different forms — from unblocking a task in one’s day-to-day to providing mentorship and networking opportunities.
Regular goal setting and performance reviews ensure that no team member is surprised by feedback and ensures discussion around growth is front and center.
We know that cultivating your network is a must-do for anyone looking to achieve great heights. At Farmer’s Fridge, we have the small-company feel with big-company connections. Recently, one of our engineers took the initiative to create a roundtable discussion with our most senior women leaders, including our VP of Marketing, CFO and COO at the time. This event was met with a lot of interest and was a pretty cool way of showcasing how Farmer’s Fridge makes change happen rather than just ruminating about it. We also ensure that our staff are hearing from our female board members by bringing them to the office and encouraging casual conversations.
“We’re fostering a passionate and accepting community of buyers and sellers that is as diverse as music itself and building a diverse team is crucial to creating the best marketplace for music makers everywhere,” Andrea Soloko, software engineer at Reverb said. Reverb’s team and inclusive workplace makes them one of Built In’s 2022 Best Places to Work in Chicago.
How does Reverb recruit more women in engineering?
At Reverb, we’ve made our recruiting and interviewing processes more inclusive in several ways. For example, our competency-based hiring process includes a standardized global hiring rubric, which helps to mitigate against potential bias by focusing the interview on assessing a candidates’ skills and capabilities against predetermined criteria.
All our interviewers complete interview training prior to participating in candidate interviews. This training educates people on their role in implementing a fair and consistent hiring process, helps them identify how to reduce bias, and provides frameworks for evaluating candidate responses. Additionally, we no longer allow all male-identifying hiring panels. This allows us to showcase our diversity as well as make sure that we are hearing diverse perspectives in our hiring process. Finally, we also are using processes like an AI-powered text editor to review job descriptions for inclusive language across race, gender, and age.
What makes Reverb an attractive place to work for women in engineering?
Since we’re building a two-sided marketplace that didn’t exist a decade ago, there’s always new challenges to solve and new things to learn, and it’s gratifying to work somewhere that recognizes people for the work they do, not just who they are. Our annual review and promotion cycles include a thorough calibration process to ensure performance and growth opportunities are being awarded based on merit, and not biased by non-work related factors like gender. To gauge performance, a clear and impartial engineering ladder is used to provide equal opportunity for all employees. Reverb also helps engineers grow by providing time or resources for folks to attend conferences that will help progress your career.
To support a healthy work-life balance, all team members get a generous benefit package which includes employer-paid health benefits and 18 weeks of gender neutral parental leave. Bringing your authentic self to work means taking care of your physical and mental health, so Reverb’s flexible sick policy includes mental health days to allow us to put our well being first.
As a woman at Reverb, you won’t feel alone.”
How does Reverb support women in engineering roles? What other policies are in place to ensure an equitable and safe work environment for employees?
Our culture makes Reverb a great place to work for women, and training opportunities help people learn about underrepresented groups, which gives us the chance to enhance the culture even more. Reverb also sponsors employee resource groups (ERGs) for folks to support each other based on their identity or shared experiences. The groups are led by employees, help foster a sense of community in the workplace, and work to amplify voices within Reverb. By the end of 2022, Reverb will have five ERG communities centered on parents, mental health, remote employees, women and marginalized gender and LGBTQIA+.
As a woman at Reverb, you won’t feel alone. Currently, our teams in engineering and product have multiple people who identify as a woman, showing how building a diverse team supports our ability to create a welcoming marketplace for music makers everywhere.
McMaster-Carr operates a diverse business as a one-stop shop for industrial supplies, and that diversity is reflected in their hiring practices as well. “Roughly half of our college hires going into engineering roles are women,” director of product engineering and content strategy Kiki Rohde told Built In Chicago. “We strive to meet women where they are – whether that’s in a professional group or through a diversity-focused hiring partnership.”
How is McMaster-Carr recruiting more women in engineering?
We’re intentional and creative in the way we look for diversity in tech — specifically women. We offer internships to engage and prepare women for technology roles early on. Internships are often a student’s first opportunity to apply their education to real business problems, and it creates excitement around all that engineering roles have to offer. We also recruit people from a variety of academic backgrounds out of college. Rather than limiting ourselves to technical engineering degrees where women are traditionally under-represented, we look for curious problem-solvers from all majors. We celebrate the diverse perspectives and invest in teaching software skills to ensure successful careers in technology.
Recruiting women with technical experience is another important part of our plan to grow the technology organization. We offer a transparent look at what it’s like to work at McMaster-Carr through sharing real experiences and examples of the great work we do.
Roughly half of our college hires going into engineering roles are women.”
What makes McMaster-Carr an attractive place to work for women in engineering?
McMaster-Carr offers a unique experience for women in software development. Working on in-house software solutions means we control milestone dates and the way we spend our time. We’ve created a set of work-life balance guidelines and hold each other accountable to respecting them.
We also place a focus on development. Engineers explore and build skills that they’re interested in, even if it’s not always directly relevant to their assignment. Everyone attends at least one conference a year, along with 100 percent tuition reimbursement at any accredited program provides people with many opportunities to learn and explore interests. Similarly, careers at McMaster-Carr are designed for customization. For example, a switch from front-end to back-end technologies is common, as is a change from infrastructure to applications engineering to UX design. We want people to build careers they find meaningful and that doesn’t look the same for everyone.
How does McMaster-Carr support women in engineering roles?? What other policies are in place to ensure an equitable and safe work environment for employees?
We strive to create a culture where women in technology can thrive. Our longest-running effort has been our Women in Tech community. It has evolved to serve the needs of women in the department by including large Employee Resource Group (ERG) sessions and small accountability and mentoring circles. The goals have remained constant —- facilitate mentoring, foster a sense of community and build allyship. Women meet regularly on their chosen area of focus, varying from technical learning and professional development to reflecting on articles or books they’re reading together.
Our mentoring program aligns people’s preferences and career goals with mentors well-suited to help them flourish plus curated resources to support productive relationships. External development programs, such as Bonfire, encourage women to step away from work to focus on self-development and the skills they need to lead.
Beyond these programs, practices like creating dialogue and taking responsibility create an environment that enables candor and psychological safety. A commitment to equity is evident in our approach to pay practices, performance assessments and how we select people for opportunities.
VTS wants people to be delighted with where they live and work, and their mission extends from their work in real estate tech to their company culture. According to Anu Joshi, senior talent acquisition manager, “As per the latest employee engagement survey, 91% of employees feel included and accepted at VTS.”
How is VTS recruiting more women in engineering?
As part of our ongoing commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, VTS partners with several organizations dedicated to diversity and inclusion, such as one with Women in Tech, a non-profit focused on closing the gender gap in technology. Additionally, in June, a number of our talent acquisition, product, engineering and design team members attended the WomenTech Network Conference, both the global virtual conference and an in-person networking event in Toronto.
VTS also partners with The Mom Project, which connects professional women with companies. In one of the recent events, our Chief People Officer, Margaretta Noonan, partnered with The Mom Project during their “Mentor Power Hour” event series. Beyond allowing attendees to learn more about VTS, our company culture and DE&I efforts, the virtual conversation also addressed ageism in the workplace and how we can work to combat it every day.
What makes VTS an attractive place to work for women in engineering?
VTS fosters a diverse and inclusive workplace that empowers our employees to bring their true self to work and to grow and develop. We have continually improved our BIPOC and gender diversity within teams year-over-year.
We’ve built mentorship programs across the organization and our mentors enable their mentees to grow and develop in their roles. We ensure that we train the entire company on values interviewing and unconscious bias workshops, and we also host monthly a DE&I speaker series to learn and acknowledge the diversity at VTS.
VTS fosters a diverse and inclusive workplace that empowers our employees to bring their true self to work.”
How does VTS support women in engineering roles? What other policies are in place to ensure an equitable and safe work environment for employees?
AT VTS, we ensure that all our employees are taken care of. Working at VTS offers peace of mind through generous salaries, meaningful equity packages and fully covered comprehensive health benefits that begin on day one. Other benefits include learning and development support and allowance, coaching, a variety of live educational sessions and mentorship programs across the organization. Our culture includes flexible vacation, working hours and summer Fridays, as well as generous paid parental leave. We support collaboration by building inclusive teams of great colleagues and also provide personalized technology for those working from home to set everyone up for success.
