A thread - women ICs (Individual Contributor) in tech

Most of my tweets are about technical info but today I'd like to talk about something else that's also close to my heart. Thanks to @KathleenDollard whose tweet really prompted me to finally write this. 1/ https://twitter.com/KathleenDollard/status/1293550525586092033

I've seen effort on diversity for a long time at Microsoft now, especially related to having more women in tech. While I appreciate the greater emphasis on more women in tech in general, I wish there was more focus on the IC track specifically. 2/

If you look around most women took the management route eventually in their careers. Most of the women mentors I've seen are managers. 3/

I've witnessed even women who specifically work on diversity for women do not recognize the importance of having women who are simply passionate about technology and deeply technical (or aspired to be) but have no interest in being managers in tech. 4/

I was recommended (by a highly reputable woman) to be on a "Women in Tech" podcast and the woman who was in charge of it rejected me because (these were her exact words) "I searched for you online and not much came up". 5/

In the end of our chat she said "well, maybe I'll check with you again in a couple of years". I told her that was unnecessary because I had no plans to become a high level manager. 6/

Obviously we need great managers in tech. But not all of us are interested to be managers. Somehow that message comes a lot more natural for men and not for women because women are viewed as "more social, great at working with other people". 7/

I firmly believe women are absolutely as capable at working with machines as men are. I definitely don't consider myself anti-social but I'm pretty awkward at meeting new people and have virtually no ability for small talk. 8/

If you are a young woman who recently started your first job as a software engineer, and see that all or most of the senior women around you are managers, what would you think about that situation? 9/

Early on in my career I wondered if I would want to become a manager but I quickly figured out that was not where my passion was. 10/

While I really enjoy working with great people, I want to make working on technology hands-on (ie, as an architect/engineer) the focus of my career - I just work with great people along the way :) 11/

So instead of just thinking this stuff to myself, I'm taking an initiative - I'm at the beginning stage of building a community for women who want to stay as IC engineers for the foreseeable future and think they'd like to be part of such a community. 12/

I'm starting this with some women ICs in the divison I'm in and will see how it goes. This aims to both help and share - we'll help each other with problems we have and share our passion about tech. 13/