International Women’s Day takes place every year on March 8th and this year’s theme is: “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality”. As a technology company, highlighting some of the influential women in CareRev’s network is important to us.
International Women’s Day is a global celebration of the achievements of women and an important reminder to recognize gender inequities worldwide. With a focus on closing the gender gap within tech, we asked some of the influential women of CareRev about their experience working in tech and what drew them to the industry in the first place.
What sparked your interest in tech, and what challenges have you faced as a woman in tech?
Kelly Sample, Senior Software Engineer, Web
What sparked your interest in working in the tech industry?
I’ve been a web engineer for 5 years. Before that, I spent 6 years working in higher education and it just didn’t feel like the right fit for me. I was drawn to a career in tech because of the challenging nature of the work and seemingly endless opportunities.
Are there any challenges you’ve had to overcome being a woman in the tech industry?
I have been called a “diversity hire”, and have overheard coworkers discussing how men are inherently better suited for engineering. However, I’ve been fortunate to work with mostly supportive people at all of my companies. I’ve also had great managers who I can speak with candidly about any challenges I’m facing and have my back when issues have come up. I choose companies that include women in the interview process, promote women to leadership positions, and have thoughtful benefit policies.
Lucinda Musa, Product Manager
What sparked your interest in working in the tech industry?
As a kid, I loved playing with Legos, doing puzzles, and tinkering with different toys and games, so I decided to study engineering in college. I went with computer science because it's industry agnostic. That means I can use my skills to work in healthcare, ecommerce, transportation, non-profit - really anything! I've been in tech for about 10 years now, working as a software developer, a UX designer, or a product manager. It's an industry that has a lot of opportunities and is always changing, so it's great for curious people like me!
Are there any challenges you’ve had to overcome being a woman in the tech industry?
90% of the teams and people I have worked with have been wonderful! They appreciate my work and take me seriously. The 10% though… it does take its toll. Those are the ones who have dismissed my ideas, denied promotions, or questioned my expertise. They’ve assumed I was a secretary, taken credit for my work, or given opportunities to less qualified men. They’ve called me “aggressive” or “too vocal”, told me to my face that “women just aren’t as good at math and coding”. One even said “we shouldn’t lower standards just to hire women”, as if that was the only option to hire women.
Encounters like that hurt. It makes me (a very confident person!) question myself and my place. I’ve gotten better at not letting it affect me, and I’ve gained the confidence to call it out when I see it. When I question myself, I think about the 90% who value me. And I think about how my being here and succeeding will make it easier for the next generation of women to do so even more. Our products, companies, and our world are better with women here, so that’s what I’m fighting for!
Caitlin Hyatt, Engineer Manager
What sparked your interest in working in the tech industry?
What sparked my interest was my love for computers, technology and information. I went into college to be a teacher but on the side for extra income learned to repair and fix computers, specifically for females. At the time a lot of women were scared or didn't know who to go to for computer help. That is where I came in! Then one of my customers suggested I should sign up for an IT course in college. Little did I know it changed my entire life. I immediately fell in love with the entire technology field and changed my major that semester. The rest is history. I have now been in tech for 13 years.
Are there any challenges you’ve had to overcome being a woman in the tech industry?
Yes, there have been several. One that is most notable to me is my late start in the tech world. Many of male classmates and coworkers were exposed to the technology world at a significantly earlier age than myself. I felt automatically behind just as soon as I joined the tech world. I remember my IT 101 class most of my classmates noted they had been designing databases and software back in high school. Yet I had no idea what a database even was. It took lots of extra hours of reading, learning and mentorship to what I considered to be "caught up". Because of this experience my personal goal through my career is now to help promote early introduction of technology to females at a young age.
Soujanya Mandala, Staff Software Engineer: Android
What sparked your interest in working in the tech industry?
I've worked in the tech field for over ten years. I've been fascinated by technology ever since I was a child. I love coding and I feel I am always learning and challenging myself. Whether it's a new language, trying out a new software, or attempting to resolve a problem. It is challenging and exciting at the same time. In the end, building something for the future every day is tremendously satisfying.
Are there any challenges you’ve had to overcome being a woman in the tech industry?
The majority of the companies where I've worked have low numbers of women engineers. I had to speak up and interact more to get over those times when I felt alone, especially as the "only" woman in the team.
Amanda Duke, Chief Growth Officer
What sparked your interest in working in the tech industry?
I've been in Healthcare Technology for 15+ years. My interest in this field was born out of a desire to positively impact healthcare. I have a background in nursing and continuously use my healthcare knowledge to identify problems and gaps that technology can help solve. Throughout my career, I've been fortunate to see incredible improvements and positive impact to patient care and overall health system/hospital operations.
Are there any challenges you’ve had to overcome being a woman in the tech industry?
Certainly, I've been the only woman in the room on countless occasions. I've encountered gender bias and been passed over for growth opportunities and career advancements because I was a woman. Throughout all of it, I remained steadfast in my drive to be successful. I worked twice as hard as my male counterparts. I believe the key to overcoming these challenges was my passion and determination.
Robin Maher, Director of Technical Project Management
What sparked your interest in working in the tech industry?
I didn’t want to be in tech, both of my parents had careers in tech and I just didn’t see it as something I would enjoy. I even had one of the very first IBM home PCs! I was firmly focused on obtaining a degree in the medical field. With my parents nagging, I did get a minor in Computer Science and am grateful for the encouragement. After earning my bachelors in science, I took a break from school to decide if I wanted to be a Physical Therapist or a Doctor. I needed to make money that year and got a job at a Telecommunications company, where I was a trainer but also got to help install the equipment including servers, networking cables and equipment. I really liked the mix of teaching and technology in that position and from there I continued to have an open mindset for the next thing that presented itself. I started to get all kinds of IT certifications and moved into consulting.
One of the things I quickly realized was that I was very good at translating between the non-technical and technical people, eventually leading me to move into Project Management and earn my PMP. From there I began to get involved in more strategy and earned an MBA to help my career move to the next level. Over the years I have had the opportunity to move from more IT focused to helping to build SaaS products, to managing an operations team for a startup. It was a lot of fun to blend my technical, project management and business skills.
Currently I am the Director of Project and Program Management at CareRev. In this position I really enjoy the opportunity to build a team of leaders who work on initiatives throughout our company, from working with our Engineering and Product teams to deliver features for our Marketplace to digging into operational initiatives that improve the company’s ability to scale and be profitable.
Are there any challenges you’ve had to overcome being a woman in the tech industry?
For me the biggest challenges were bumping up against outdated assumptions made by people based on my gender. As an IT consultant, in addition to knowing the technology, I was expected to know how and what to order for lunch for the teams as the woman on the team. I was regularly singled out as the ‘right’ technical person to take notes and schedule meetings for others. I was not consulted for my opinion on technical details and decisions. I am not sure if this contributed to my move into technical project and program management or not.
I think it is important for people to speak their minds during meetings, in slack channels, and documentation. If you have the question, someone else probably has it as well and if they didn’t maybe you are thinking of the key thing that is needed to get the feature built or resolve the bug. I encourage this no matter what your role is, your gender, tech or not. In my opinion this is one of the ways we can try and break down the assumptions people carry regarding people different from themselves.
Kate Reiss, Machine Learning Engineer Support
What sparked your interest in working in the tech industry?
Prior to starting in tech, my professional background was focused within the healthcare industry. What drew me to tech was the flexibility it offered in terms of work-life balance and career advancement. I appreciated the ease of transitioning between industries and roles, and that progression is based on the skills you acquire rather than a formal license. Currently, as a machine learning engineer, each project presents a new opportunity to expand my knowledge and expertise, further enriching my skill set. I have been working in tech for nearly a year now.
Are there any challenges you’ve had to overcome being a woman in the tech industry?
As someone without a previous technical background, the most significant obstacle I faced was breaking into the tech industry itself. Although it's a challenge for everyone, women, in particular, encounter difficulties in finding mentors and have had negative experiences in technical subjects during their education. I firmly believe that the key to increasing women's representation in tech is to spark interest and enthusiasm for technical subjects among girls and young women as early as possible. However, I've found the tech industry to be far more inclusive than I thought it would be, which can be attributed, in part, to the abundance of online courses that make learning new technical skills more accessible.
Courtney Hans, Security Manager
What sparked your interest in working in the tech industry?
I'm in my third career reinvention. I spent a decade as an adventure travel guide, then got my MBA and dove into strategy and intrapreneurial work in the experiential product space (outdoor recreation, travel, wine) before pivoting into the tech industry 3 years ago. I love it because it feeds my insatiable curiosity, there's always something new to learn and phenomenal colleagues to work with. I enjoy making technology more approachable and understandable to folks who don't consider themselves tech savvy. And of course, I feel strongly about information security and custodianship.
Are there any challenges you’ve had to overcome being a woman in the tech industry?
Most of my challenges have been internal; imposter syndrome (which I've come to realize affects far more people than I ever realized), and the need to constantly remind myself that - in most cases - progress is better than perfection. As I've gotten older, I've tried to be the change I'd like to see and ensure that I am championing other women, their work, and their contributions explicitly and materially.
Phoebe Law, Software Engineer
What sparked your interest in working in the tech industry?
It was a bit of a roundabout path for me — I didn’t grow up around folks that were in STEM, so I actually didn’t consider a career in tech until after I had graduated college with a Linguistics degree. I had picked up an admin job while I was exploring different career paths. One day I was managing some complex email filters in my Outlook (e.g., if from sender with email X, skip the inbox and mark unread, etc). It reminded me of a symbolic logic course I took in undergrad, and got me to consider programming. After a couple Udemy courses, a coding bootcamp, and a lot of applications in the worst parts of the pandemic job market, Derrek gave me a shot in July 2020. I’m really grateful that my first job in tech is at a company with a mission I can get behind.
