Empowering women in tech to thrive in their first five years
56% of women in tech leave the industry in the first ten years
The women who leave are no different from the women who stay. They come from similar backgrounds with similar personal traits and experience. It doesn't come down to motherhood, education, or enthusiasm for the field. Studies show the difference comes down to the workplace environment: managers and team culture.
We are recruiting more entry-level women to the field than ever before, but traditional retention initiatives are not working. The sharpest decline of women leaving the field comes in the first five years.
We can change the story
Knowing that workplace culture is the biggest driver of whether women leave the industry can be empowering. This means that by identifying characteristics of teams that help early career women thrive and equipping managers and teams to make changes, we can improve retention.
Through reading women in tech stories, we can recognize aspects of our own story and realize we are not alone and create change in our organizations.
Read the stories
“At my first job, I was constantly freaking out. I had panic attacks on the regular. I was crying for the first 6-12 months. Everything was always broken. I never felt like I could ask for help and lots of people were not interested in helping anyway. There was a lack of psychological safety, a competitive atmosphere, and gatekeeping. People who had been there a long time were positioning themselves for leadership positions and protective of their knowledge.”
“My first couple of months I was dealing with a lot of imposter syndrome. I would cry in the bathroom convinced I would get fired. Thankfully I had a nurturing manager who recognized that I was suffering from imposter syndrome and that I had a lot of potential and was doing a good job and that I was a very valuable asset to the team. He really looked out for me.”
“Having a good manager is everything. Most people don’t individualize their management style based on the engineers they have. A lot of people fall through the cracks. I know so many people who have either left or are unhappy.”
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