Before participating in a career panel at the TechRadar conference in November’22, I sat down with the organizers to talk a bit about my career and of course – the unavoidable subject (even though we tried) – women in tech (Hebrew).
Tag: diversity in tech
Follow the technical road (in high heels)
Over the recent years we’ve seen an explosion in content about and for women in the workplace, and women in tech specifically. Broadly speaking, there are two types of approaches to this subject:
Play the game: Represented by the esteemed and critiqued book Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg, this type of content focuses on getting women to succeed within the existing framework, hopefully getting them into positions of power where they will be able to help others.
Smash the patriarchy: Represented by the 2020 book The Fix by Michelle King, this type of content focuses on highlighting all the ways the system is broken and has to change for women to succeed.
Smash the patriarchy is often opposed to play the game advice because they feel it’s literally playing into the hands of the existing power structures. While this is true in some ways, I personally think waiting for the revolution to come is not the best course of actions for all individuals, we should probably try to do both, in appropriate contexts.
There is a 3rd genre, represented by books like Brotopia by Emily Chang. This type of content can be summarized as “everything sucks, you’re not imagining it, it’s not your fault”. I’ve stopped reading this kind of book because I already know I’m not imagining it and it’s not my fault (though not everything sucks, at least not all the time), so I feel it doesn’t help me grow, it’s just depressing. This content is important to understand, but not for me, not right now.
Most of the content written about women in the workplace targets women on the management track. I think women trying to make their way up in technical roles face a unique challenge which is not being addressed yet. In this post I will try to share my perspective on some of the obstacles in our way and how to overcome them.
Continue readingSettling the diversity dilemma
In this “women in tech” talk, I share my perspective on the tension between being a “good feminist” and being an excellent engineer, and the framework I use to make decisions on how to spend my time & energy.
How to Ruin Your Career in 8 Easy Steps
You may think a career is an old fashioned concept out of the 80s which could be safely ignored. I sure used to… I thought a career was for banking professionals in suits, not for me! I was young and cool and wanted to work for a living, of course, but I couldn’t care less about climbing up the career ladder. Well, I changed my mind.
I’m not saying that a career should be everyone’s focus at every point in one’s life. Just having a job is a totally legit choice. But if you want to to have a career, in the sense of progressing throughout your work life, expanding your horizons and opportunities for personal and professional impact, here’s a list of 8 things to avoid doing.
1. Don’t plan ahead
It’s easy to just flow with opportunities that present themselves, go on a few interviews, take the best offer you get, stay for a few years, rinse, repeat. That will probably work for getting small raises and some variety in your daily work.
