[thinkaboutit113]

Throwaway for obvious reasons.

I too, am a female engineer at one of the well known companies in the Bay Area.

As a background, I have a masters degree in CS and am in my 5th year of working as an engineer.

Here's the problems that I faced:

1. Not taking my opinions seriously - I experimented with this one! My manager would endlessly argue over every small opinion I had but the same opinion that my colleague would have, would get noticed and sometimes even praised. Even on silly things. I can't get into project details but for a new project, I suggested that we try out the desktop version of Git to make transition from p4 easier. My manager was absolutely against it and asked me to setup a p4 project for the same and make it work with p4. A coworker(10 years my senior) suggested we use the same desktop version of git and we switched, no questions asked. I figured he changed his mind since both of us said it. This happened 4 times before I once, actually told my opinion to my colleague to convey to my manager and my manager complied with no questions asked. This is how I get my opinions across now. I do understand that I don't have 10 years of experience but I can be right sometimes. And no, the same did not happen to the new guy on the team. I noticed it only when my male colleague pointed it out to me and sympathized with me on being micromanaged. 2. Growth - I cared less about growth as far as I had a decent salary to live with. I am someone who likes to work for the challenges I can solve and not for the minor salary increases or bonuses. May sound stupid but each person is different. This was fine until I realized that I wasn't given more responsibilities because they were given only to senior engineers. Being promoted to different levels means a salary increase is a must(company rules). I definitely wanted more responsibilities. Each year it was a different story as to why I wasn't promoted and the hardest part? Being told that I work like a senior engineer and if I do more work, I'll get the promotion next year. 3. Being classified as the 'diversity quota' - I have as much qualifications as much as the next guy, if not more. I work on side projects during the weekends and am picking up machine learning out of interest on how to incorporate it in my daily work. Being the only girl on the team, people wanting to hire me to increase their diversity numbers but not plan on assigning me good work, being treated as the female-employee-at-work to boost the company's image alone, sucks. Imposter syndrome is real and these opinions contribute to it more.

I took up engineering to solve hard problems. It is sad that the culture of a company/valley contributed to me contemplating want to quit engineering to do something where I'll be treated right.

Not all problems women face have to be sexual harassment to get noticed, these workplace biases are hard to navigate. This is especially to people who diss diversity programs, there is the reason it's in place. I've received so much help from women-focused diversity programs and have even helped fix a problem or two along the way.

Finally, on a funny end note, I'm a big hacker news fan and have noticed how passing constructive feedback that can sometimes come across as negative but useful on a system/product/post is fairly common here. This post is hopefully taken in the same manner and not a female-ranting-about-things comment.

[Core0001]

"Being told that I work like a senior engineer and if I do more work, I'll get the promotion next year."

My f'ing God, This. A thousand times this.

10 years I've been working as a junior f'ing programmer doing senior (and above) level work and roles. Every review is glowing. Every manager fights to have me on their team. I jave engineers under me. I mentor all the new hires. I am go to for all questions.

When it comes time for a promotion.. Suddenly I need to do more of something. They can never define what that something is, but i can forget ever being promoted.

I'm so close to saying screw it and quitting. Being talked over, interrupted, not having my ideas taken seriously until a male parrots them, being micromanaged, having my accompliahments dismissed while lesser accomplishments by males are lauded.

If i didnt love this work so much, I wouldve quit 5 years ago. Being a woman in tech sucks balls. I was a LCpl in the Marines and faced less sexism and animosity than i have in the tech field.

I completely belive the findings by these women are real and accurate. Too many other fields have proven the same scenarios exist.

[jlebrech]

I think it's less of a gender issue than it is an exploitative management issue.

Hire diverse people, get good PR. Then milk juniors for more than they are worth, and they think the "diverse" will accept it because they are grateful for the job.

[pottersbasilisk]

Im a male junior dev.I go through that too. Its not a gender thing,but a toxic personality thing. The military teaches teamwork but tech is the opposite. Just look at the hype about 10x and ageism.

The focus on superstars and the fear of being outshined.

[nojvek]

Not a female but I've experienced similar bias. I was in a big 5 Co and a project had a number of Indian outsourced testers. Even though I was a dev who contributed equal to others I was seen as a second class citizen doing mostly simple html/css work.

I just got frustrated one day and switched teams. New team was much better at treating me like a peer. It was a smaller team so there were a ton of opportunities to grab more responsibilities.

May be you should look into a smaller team where you can have more ownership and larger impact.

Now I'm at a startup and I absolutely love it.

[thinkaboutit113]

Thanks for the input! I've thought about it previously but the work I do is cutting edge and have room to learn a lot from colleagues, if I ignore the bias.

But you're right, in the long run I do plan to switch. I'll have to start passively looking out for new opportunities. I do dread having to spend time to prepare for the all day generic white-board interviews while I could be better off spending it on learning new tools or hacking on a side project.

[ramblerman]

> Growth - I cared less about growth as far as I had a decent salary to live with. I am someone who likes to work for the challenges I can solve and not for the minor salary increases or bonuses. May sound stupid

Is that a gender bias? I had this issue myself, being an introvert and generally hating any conflict. I had to train myself to play the game.

I'm not saying that's a good thing, but not sure It's the company putting down one gender. Louder people tend to move up.

[thinkaboutit113]

FWIW I did ask multiple times. Each time there was a 'next-time' excuse. I saw my shy fellow coworkers moving up but maybe they were better negotiators behind the door.

On my part, I did some research. Except the senior management whose salaries are publicly available, the women in the company that I'm close with either receive little to measly bonuses and have had a hard time moving up. Maybe it's because it's a large company or because I'm not someone to forcefully ask a raise just-cause. Either way it's nerve-wrecking to make up excuses for no obvious mistake of mine.

[zigzigzag]

Men get passed over for promotions they deserve all the time too. You're just assuming it's because of your gender but haven't provided any evidence for it.

[istorical]

Did you ever consider changing employers and interviewing for only senior roles?

[ladytron]

Hi,

I'm also a big HN fan and I've been lurking around here for the last 10 years. Start your own firm, go get VC, someone will fund you. If you are at a well known company now someone will fund you.

Otherwise, expect more of the same for the next 20 years. I doubt anything will change. At least if you run your own firm you can work very cleverly, and over time build up $$ from equity in your own projects. Trust me, you will learn much more and faster at your own startup.