Being the only female engineer at a startup doesn’t have to be shitty… edit: meh.

Edit: this has been updated on May 12, 2021 to reflect additional experiences in the industry.

Edit2 July 27, 2023. I no longer believe in any of this lol. See the absolute shitshow that was my last full time employer.

There are a lot of unfortunate stories online about being the only female/POC/queer/minority member of a technical team. I’ve also personally heard a number of stories from friends who have had some really subpar experiences, and it seriously sucks that this seems to be the standard minority experience.

I wanted to share my story to show that this is not the only possible experience, and definitely not an inevitable one.

Yes the default sucks, but that is NOT an excuse for a toxic environment. If you value diversity and inclusion, there is a lot your team can do to foster a great working environment for the only female[1] engineer on your team. Whether you’re an engineering leader, manager, or IC, here’s a wide range of tactics I’ve seen that have been great for helping me feel at ease despite being the only female[2] in the room.

I have been incredibly lucky[3] in that the teams I’ve worked with have been open to experimenting to find what works. I would not expect all of these tactics to work for everyone, but I do feel like they’re good guideposts on what could help your one female engineer feel a bit more comfortable.

Acknowledge that it just kinda sucks (by default)

It doesn’t suck because people are being sucky.

It sucks because there’s a general feeling of otherness, a sinking sensation of not belonging, an itch at the back of your mind that keeps reminding you incessantly that you’re the only one in the room.

It sucks because there’s a conscious/sub-conscious dread that you’re representing your entire gender/ethnicity/sexual orientation, and that if you make any mistakes you’re failing as a ‘good example’. That you’d make it harder for the next person who follows. That you’re responsible for the success of an entire population.

It sucks because there might have been many other strangers before you who’ve questioned whether he/she/they belonged, strangers who have intentionally or unintentionally committed micro aggressions against him/her/they.

Yes, these insecurities could exist because your engineer has imposter syndrome, or perfectionism, and these were not problems your organization created. But it is our collective responsibility to correct these issues

Emotional Quotient (EQ) 101 tells us that invalidating someone’s feelings is bad. Don’t do it. Feelings are feelings. I firmly believe that we can work on controlling our reactions to our feelings, but feelings that currently exist are difficult to control and should not be dismissed.

If your engineer doesn’t feel bad, great! But based on my experience and many long talks with friends who fall into one minority or another, this terrible feeling is very common. It’s bad enough these feelings exist. Don’t add to the pool of negative feelings by insisting they shouldn’t feel this way because “nobody’s being an asshole!”. That doesn’t work.

This one seems pretty easy[4] to do and costs literally nothing. Listen to them. Ask questions without judgement. Be open to the fact that their experience might be different from yours. You might learn something incredibly valuable.

Source for other roles

The only thing worse than being the only female engineer is being the only female at the company, period.

While the preference would be to find another female engineer, it’s an unfortunate truth that sourcing female engineers is hard. It takes an active effort, and even then there’s no guarantee because the odds are not in your favor. A solution to this might be to source females for other roles where it might be easier to find a more diverse pool of candidates. (This applies to other minorities as well)

In my opinion, the more male-tilted the staffing of a role is in the industry at large, the more it will help. Hiring a female designer, product manager, data scientist, or manager would do more to put me at ease than having a female customer support agent or officer manager

This might not work for everybody, but for me it’s a good signal the company doesn’t abide by traditional gender roles, or is at least open to them. It’s entirely possible that a company can be open to non-traditional roles and still not have people in non-traditional gender roles. You’re basically playing a game of chance with hiring, but I do think it speaks volumes when it’s actually able to show (and not just tell) these values.

Yes, having one female engineer does say the company is open minded, but as the female engineer you don’t really see that day to day. The goal is to create lots of external, visceral reminders that being non-traditional is just casual business and not a big deal.

Widen and lengthen the recruiting funnel

There are other posts on how to build a funnel that will also reach diverse candidates. What I’ve seen work well in the past is 1) knowing further in advance when you need to hire for a role and 2) recruiting from non-traditional sources.

When there’s more time to look for someone to fill a role, you can look at a broader range of people. Having more time will give recruiters time to look for people in ALL THE PLACES, and also has the added advantage of giving the company a broader choice.

While it might be more efficient to look at the traditional colleges for recruitment, there’s a broad range of other sources that can widen the candidate pool. I’ve met a lot of bootcamp and MOOC graduates who are amazing, and if your company is built to mentor junior engineers[5], you should definitely take advantage.

Diverse socials

I’m a fan of chilling at bars. What I’m not a fan of is ONLY chilling at bars.

Take a cooking class together! Do an escape room! Do a fitness class together! Go to an arcade! Organize a company hot ones!

There’s such a variety of options for things to do that are NOT standing around and drinking. The ONLY reason to keep doing that is an utter lack of will to do something that requires any additional effort. I’m not going to minimize the work it takes to organize these team glue type events[6], there is definitely work and effort involved. But the upside is everyone will have a better time and it’ll give the company more fun stories to recruit with!

It’s also more inclusive to people who don’t drink (for whatever reason) and better for everyone’s livers.

Active communication

This list is admittedly pretty short, and it’s short because that’s what’s worked FOR ME. Believe it or not, female engineers are not all the same, and what will make one female engineer comfortable might make another uncomfortable. The most important thing to remember is to keep an open line of communication and to check back in to see what’s helping and what’s not.

Some things that have worked might stop working. Some things you would’ve never expected to fly might work out exceptionally well. Some things that everyone expects to work might not.

But you’re a startup. You live and breathe a dynamic, fast paced, and difficult environment. I have no doubt that if you put some of that mentality towards making this work, you’ll make it happen.

Conclusion

In summary:

• acknowledge that it kinda sucks
• source for other roles
• widen the funnel
• provide more inclusive socials (not just going out to bars)
• actively communicate

Being the only female engineer at a startup doesn’t have to be shitty… but it does take a lot of effort. On all sides.

In my next post I will talk about everything I did to vet the teams I joined for maximum assurance I was not joining a brosortium.

Edit: this next post is mostly complete but I’m going to hold off posting it because the timing doesn’t seem appropriate.

Thanks to Alice Yuan for the idea! Thanks also to Jamie Wong, Spencer Chang, Nikhil Thota, Nathan Fenner, Matt Schwartz, and Volodymyr Kuleshov for providing feedback on drafts. Last thanks to Matt Day for providing the resources on how to recruit for diversity. Here are some more resources on how to create a more inclusive culture, thanks to Stefan Kollenberg for sharing these!

[1] I say female because that’s the only context I’ve felt “other’d”. I’ve asked friends who are POC/queer if these would in theory work and they agree yes, but I can only speak for my personal experience. I’ve never felt other’d as a POC since I feel my ethnicity (asian) has been generally well represented in the industry.

[2] For context, I have worked full time at two startups, including the startup I am currently at Afresh. As of writing this, I am still the only female engineer on my current team, but we just had a female full stack engineer sign on the start in April!! When I left my last company I was the only female engineer (but this was not related to the reason I left). At this company I was not the first female engineer to join, but the one other female engineer left during my tenure there.

[3] and also very strategic, which I will expand upon in the next post. But there’s definitely a component of luck in this, since companies can and will lie.

[4] this is kind of a lie, this requires good communication. I think communication is critical in any well functioning team, but it’s beyond my expertise to write about.

[5] I think it’s really important to provide mentorship to junior engineers you choose to take on. There’s a lot of benefits to having junior engineers, but codebases and their growth can really suffer if the company can’t provide structure and mentorship. It’s a RESPONSIBILITY and not to be taken lightly.

[6] work that is frequently undervalued, and traditionally done by females.