from Gergely Orosz | by Gergely Orosz

My wife - transitioned to software engineering via a bootcamp - used to always be the only female in the engineering teams she worked at. For the first time ever she now works on an all-women dev team and she says it is the best part of her job, finally not being the only one.

I’m gonna say it: from what I gather from her and talking with other women engineers, it sucks being the only one. Kept getting hit by biases, (micro)aggressions and having no one to talk it through with. One minority on the team is a step forward, but it’s not yet diversity.

Some of the most diverse engineering teams are at small companies, that have very friendly interview processes. Much of Big Tech is a place that scares anyone miles away with a heavyweight and stressful interview process where eg women rarely see another women on the panel.

People like me (white men) or other majorities in tech, by default lack empathy of what it’s like to be the a minority. I though *I* had it hard in some ways, but then I hear stories about stuff that would never ever ever happen to me (being ignored, sexist remarks etc etc).