This is what women in tech wish they knew early on in their careers

This is what women in tech wish they knew early on in their careersThis is what women in tech wish they knew early on in their careersThe most encompassing way of phrasing the lesson is that I wish I paid much mora attention to gender issues earlier in my career, and taken the disparity more seriously. Admittedly, until it affected me personally I dismissed a lot of the discussion surrounding the issue as frivolous whining. I subscribed to the idea of meritocracy and believed that the issues other women were facing were a result of their lack of focus and that the opposition they faced wouldnt happen to me because I welches smart, talented, and hard-working (so my mom tells me).In retrospect I realize that it was naive of me to feel that way as an entry-level employee. I was at the bottom of the food chain and posed no threat to anyone. The enthusiasm, encouragement, and lack of repercussion I received for speaking my mind at that stage in my career only reinforced my view that I wa s just genuinely smart/talented, etc It wasnt until the past year and a half that I begun to experience the backlash of speaking up and I dont think its a coincidence that around the same time many of my female entwurf peers who are near my age and previously experienced the same sort of early career success began to have similar experiences at their workdistributionspolitiks.When I would interview for jobs I always focused so much on evaluating the role from a design perspective. I would grill the company on the structure of their team, the design process they employed, the types of challenges they faced, and what kind of product vision they had in mind. I tried to get a sense of how much designers were valued at the company. I honestly never thought to ask the same question of women what was the ratio of women in the company? What kind of roles did they employ? What were their responsibilities? Were there any women in the leadership? My current job is the first company Ive worked at where I thought to evaluate such things (more on that later).Sub-lesson 1Being a trailblazer isnt the only way to advance the current state of women in tech.The reason I didnt question these things is because I assumed that being the only woman on the product team (meaning PM/Designer/Development) was normal. That I would not find another awesome place to work with more than two women on the team. That if I wanted to work this industry, I had to be a trailblazer. So not true.When I joined the last company I worked at I was the only technical female and one of two women in the whole company. I wont lie, I romanticized the notion of being the first. I thought hiring me was an indication of open-mindedness on the part of the company (in reality it was because they viewed me as the non-threatening ingenue). I thought I would pave the way, be the point of change. I knew so many talented women engineers, designers, and product managers that I could potentially bring in to the fold. It was very telling that when I got one of them to interview, the experienced and talented female designer was honigwein with criticism from my boss while he pushed me to give a boy who had no design knowlumineszenzdiodege nor evidence of intrinsic skill, who hadnt even graduated college, an offer on the design team.When I decided to leave and look for my next role, something occurred to me. The idea of being a trailblazer is a very direct way of addressing gender equality. I am grateful to anyone who is or has been in this position someone has to be the first and I know very well it is not easy. However, it is not the only way. By supporting companies that already demonstrate and value equality, you are also helping advance women. If, as research claims, diverse teams perform better, than I hope to help advance companies that already have their heart in the right place. Copy-catting is an undeniable tactic in the tech industry. Apples definitive success with design has increased the v alue of design and led to a slew of startups clamoring to hire designers. Imagine if the next Apple or Facebooks definitive trait was having equal gender (or race) distribution on their teams.The ugly side of the first woman on the team coin is that not every woman wants to be a trailblazer. Theres an undeniably seductive quality about the princess spot (a term my friend Ash elaborates on in this comment). Dont automatically mistrust other women or other men, for that matter. Also, dont let the subtle differences in your perspective on feminism stop you from being friends with other women.Theres a lot of lists out there for women-in-tech who deserve recognition. I follow those, but in addition, I have a mental list of men that I want to make it a point to work within the future. These are all men whom Ive seen publicly speak (or tweet) about gender equality. I think its important to recognize men too because they currently do make up the majority of this industry. My list is actual ly pretty long and I know that if I were to work with any of them I would be treated respectfully, and if I found myself in a questionable situation whether at work or a conference, these men would use their privileged position to speak up. So basically Sub-lesson 2 Know and embrace your allies (but not literally, because HR).As I mentioned earlier, when I started looking for my current job I had new criteria on which to evaluate companies. In a sense, I wanted to work somewhere in which Sub-Lesson 2 was irrelevant because there was no us or them. I wanted a culture, not just individual people, that respected women. So what do you look for? Sub-lesson 3 Dont rely on the ratio. Nowadays theres a lot of focus on the percentage of female employees or engineers at a company. I think this potentially paints a misleading image. I tend to look at the companys leadership. How many women are executives, VPs, etc. I know its an easy decision to hire entry-level women because Ive been one, bu t at the point of my career Im at, I aspire to have more responsibility. Seeing women in the leadership at a company gives me physical evidence that upward mobility is possible, as well the potential for mentorship and advice.The healthiest thing to see is women at all levels in a company. This can be hard to identify at startups that have a flat hierarchy, which is why speaking directly to a woman is so important in the interview process. Sometimes when I say this it gets misinterpreted as since Im a woman, if I interview at your company, you should throw a woman in the interview process to reassure me.No, I think that if you have technical women at your company, I would hope that at least one is involved in evaluating both male and female candidates. So in being interviewed by another woman I am reassured that women play a role in hiring decisions and building teams, and I am able to get a personal account of her responsibilities and trajectory within the company.I wish I looked f or these signs when interviewing earlier in my career and generally focused more on longevity and the potential to grow with a company. It might not be the worst thing to take an entry-level job in a glass-ceiling situation if your intention is to gain a certain amount of experience and move on. Though Id still want young me to be fully aware of what shes getting into.This article was originally published on Quora.