20 years later: what has actually changed for women in tech

I began my career in tech in the late 90s. It’s 2020 and we like to say things are much better for women now. But… are they?

In this talk I’m going to share some of the things I’ve seen, done, and faced over the last 20 years as a woman in tech, and ideas of what we can do better for the next 20

I have a career that spans over two decades in technology, mostly in systems. We like to think of ourselves as a group of open-minded, modern, forward-thinking folk, yet when you attend a tech event or just look around your office, there are still so few women, cis and especially trans, and also people of other genders. Why is that? I’m going to share some things that have happened to me and others I know. Things that “absolutely don’t happen anymore”, things that are “not acceptable in this workplace”, things that “we are 100% committed to doing” but are not necessarily a priority.

It’s a light-hearted talk, but it gives you food for thought. It’s supposed to make you question things you do and maybe don’t offer a pizza party honour women at your workplace while your dev team has decided to trim the fat by letting go their only female developer. It’s to help you make the right decisions that will lead to an actual diverse workplace. I’m not here to point fingers, but to make you find your own questions. We are in DevOps, and committed to troubleshooting and finding the root cause of issues - in this case, we’re investigating why women don’t feel happy in our industry.