More than a century after Edith Clarke was hired as the first woman engineer, the engineering field remains fortified by a tough, albeit cracked, glass ceiling. Six New York-based recruitment and engineering leaders are actively working to shatter gender-related barriers, paving pathways where women are hired, supported and promoted at their companies.
Despite making up nearly half the U.S. workforce and more than half of American college students, women are historically underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and math careers. Women account for only 15 percent of engineers nationwide, and that number is even lower for women of color, who represent just 5 percent of women in STEM.
At these New York companies, however, teams look very different from the national picture. Zocdoc, for example, just recruited its third consecutive engineering intern class with more than 50 percent gender diversity. At Rhino, women make up 46.2 percent of engineers — more than tripling the national average — and occupy all levels including senior and management roles.
“As a woman in engineering at Zocdoc, you are seldom the only woman in the room,” said Meaghan Fenton, Zocdoc’s technical recruiting manager.
Built In NYC checked in with recruitment and engineering leaders at GrubHub, Zocdoc, Rhino, Transfix, VTS and Firework to discuss their intentional planning and sustained efforts to recruit and retain women engineers.
COMMON EQUITY INITIATIVES WE FOUND
- Inclusive recruitment tools
- Employee resource groups that provide safe spaces
- Women-led mentorship programs
- Transparent compensation and promotion criteria
- Flexible, family-friendly benefits
GrubHub, the online food delivery marketplace, is intentional about using tools to recruit and interview candidates from different genders. Once hired, women engineers at Grubhub are supported through opportunities such as ERGs, a career accelerator program and great benefits including a returnship program for people who took years off from the workforce to care for their families.
Describe your recruiting efforts to get more women into engineering roles at your company.
At Grubhub, we use a variety of tools and resources, such as Fairygodboss and Untapped, to ensure we are reaching gender diverse candidates. We are continually updating our interview process to support our diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, including making sure our interview pools are diverse for all tech roles. We recently implemented Datapeople to focus on creating inclusive job descriptions, and we attend conferences such as Lesbians Who Tech & Allies and the Grace Hopper Program to meet and build relationships with female engineers.
What makes your company an attractive place to work for women in engineering?
Work-life balance is important to us and we support that with our hybrid remote/in-office environment and our new half-day Friday schedule. We have excellent health benefits including paid maternity leave and unlimited paid time off for exempt employees. We also established a returnship program that helps experienced professionals re-enter the workforce after spending at least two years off caring for their families. We have seen tremendous success in converting these returnships to full-time employees upon completion of this program.
Once you hire women in engineering positions, how does your company support them? What other policies are in place to ensure an equitable and safe work environment for employees?
We have several employee resource groups including Women of Grubhub. The Women of Grubhub group is dedicated to supporting an inclusive community at Grubhub by providing opportunities and connections that support, enrich and advance women at Grubhub to reach their full potential.
We also have a career accelerator program called Women in Tech, a three-day immersive program that covers a variety of topics including strategic mindset, using data for decision making and overcoming career challenges. This program creates a cohort and serves as a continuous support system for the women who go through this program throughout their careers at Grubhub.
Recruitment leaders at Zocdoc, a digital platform for booking healthcare appointments, prioritize building a team as diverse as the patients they serve. At Zocdoc, women engineers are encouraged through initiatives including ERGs, mentorship programs and strong benefits such as flexible schedules and generous PTO.
Describe your recruiting efforts to get more women into engineering roles at your company.
As a company focused on giving power to the patient, we must build diverse teams that are representative of the American public. To do so requires a multi-pronged strategy that allows us to engage with talent. We do this by making investments in recruitment tools, through process and candidate experience improvements as well as events and branding opportunities. Additionally, we’ve onboarded two diversity technical sourcers who’ve been helpful thought partners in building the most diverse pipelines possible. Finally, Zocdoc has a mentorship and coaching culture, so we have leaned heavily on emerging talent.
The results have been incredibly positive. In 2021, we hired two engineering cohorts with more than 50 percent gender diversity, and 2022 is our third consecutive engineering intern class with more than 50 percent gender diversity. Since deploying these initiatives, we’ve also seen improvements across our engineering roles that range in specialty and seniority, including but not limited to mobile, data science, data and software engineering. We know our work does not stop here and we’ll continue our focus on discovering new ways to find, hire and retain women in engineering at all levels.
We prioritize cultivating a workplace that is a safe space where ideas are shared, heard and elevated, and where opinions are never dismissed or patronized.”
What makes your company an attractive place to work for women in engineering?
It starts with our mission — to give power to the patient — which drives the work we do every day. Women in engineering at Zocdoc build technology that impacts the lives of millions of patients. We strive to build teams as diverse as the patients we aspire to serve, and to build a product that is inclusive and accessible to all.
As we continue to grow, we do so with a focus on ensuring that our engineering culture remains highly collaborative, supportive, transparent and inclusive. We prioritize cultivating a workplace that is a safe space where ideas are shared, heard and elevated, and where opinions are never dismissed or patronized. We have women in engineering positions at all levels, ranging from intern to director, and across major disciplines. The women in tech at Zocdoc support, motivate and encourage one another formally through ERG meetings, sponsored events, panels and mentorships, and informally in many other ways. As a woman in engineering at Zocdoc, you are seldom the only woman in the room.
Once you hire women in engineering positions, how does your company support them?
At Zocdoc, we take pride in delivering a workplace experience with caring as our mission. We believe community matters, which is why we have seven company-sponsored employee resource groups. Our Women in Technology ERG is a cornerstone for women in engineering; it’s a place to connect, inspire and advocate for the advancement of women technologists. From monthly forums to connecting female engineers with mentors and more, the WIT ERG directs members to Zocdoc resources for learning and development. Resources can be found internally through hosted panel discussions, career grids, one-on-ones and executive office hours, and externally through personal LinkedIn Learning accounts, reimbursable reading lists and department-funded conference attendance.
We also believe in offering a strong benefits package to support all of our employees at every stage of life. Beyond the basics — 401(k), free healthcare options, et cetera — we’ve been continually adding benefits around health and wellness and evaluating new options on an ongoing basis. Additionally, we enjoy flexible schedules and are encouraged to take time off, including vacation, holidays and our newly instituted sabbatical leave.
Rhino, a security deposit insurance platform, utilizes diversity analytics tools and gender decoders to make the recruitment and hiring process more inclusive for women. In engineering roles, women are supported through ERGs, competitive benefits, management courses, DEI initiatives and more.
Describe your recruiting efforts to get more women into engineering roles at your company.
The Rhino team takes an intentional approach to sourcing, networking and investing in diversity analytics platforms and talent partners, along with creating a welcoming work environment to make this a great place for women in engineering and tech to flourish. We have a close talent team alignment with our diversity, inclusion and development director and exceptionally transparent diversity data reporting. We utilize an amazing diversity analytics tool called Dandi and give our hiring managers actionable data insights during our kick off calls to make sure we can be fully aware of our organizations opportunities. Leaning into tools to ensure our job postings are as open and friendly as possible, we leverage a gender decoder for all job ads and descriptions.
Our team hired a lot of junior developers in the last 24 months as we scaled and have continued to invest in upskilling and promoting some of these women engineers to senior engineers. We also provide skip level promotions for high performers at Rhino and value hard work and performance. We have an array of women leaders spread across our technology organization making it an inspiring place to work within engineering, product, analytics and our service delivery.
We have an array of women leaders spread across our technology organization making it an inspiring place to work.”
What makes your company an attractive place to work for women in engineering?
Rhino is committed to creating an inclusive and diverse work environment and providing our women with the right tools and resources to develop personally and professionally. We currently have a very diverse workforce, with women hired at all levels including engineering management and senior engineers. Women represent 54 percent of the Rhino team, with women comprising 46.2 percent of engineers.
We provide an autonomous, fully remote work environment with the option to work in person, if desired. Rhino’s benefits are competitive, including industry competitive compensation, 16 weeks of universal parental leave, unlimited PTO and stipends for professional development and meals. We recently kicked off our first ERG (Rhinettes) and had a women leaders in tech panel, as well as an external fireside chat program to create a unique and safe space to chat through challenges and opportunities. Sixty percent of our DEIB council is made up of a group of diverse women, with a focus on launching ERGs and enriching cultural and educational programming alongside our director of diversity, inclusion and development throughout the year.
Once you hire women in engineering positions, how does your company support them?
We have a director of diversity, inclusion and development, who actively helps create events and learning sessions to help their growth. I started out in Rhino as a senior engineer and was given the opportunity to get into the management track. Throughout the journey, I was supported by my manager and peers and took engineering management courses (Life Labs) to learn the tools to succeed in my new position.
Rhino also provides free career coaching with our partner Bravely, which supports employees at all levels with how to navigate challenges and opportunities in the workplace. We have an informed and equitable performance management and calibration process that ensures the reduction of bias throughout our biannual review lifecycle. Investing in the appropriate tools and partners, as mentioned above, are critical for us to create an environment that provides psychological safety and growth.
Transfix, an AI-driven marketplace for the trucking industry, is led by a woman, CEO and President Lily Shen. Still, the company knows that fostering greater representation of women in engineering requires commitments from employees at all levels. Transfix supports women through a range of programs including mandatory unconscious bias training for new hires, transparent salary bands to allow for compensation equity and group discussions on hot-button women’s rights issues.
Describe your recruiting efforts to get more women into engineering roles at your company.
We recognize that putting action around the importance of gender representation starts from the top and requires commitments across the entire candidate and employee lifecycle. We target new job boards and communities that attract women who are passionate about their work, making a real impact and advancing their careers. This year, we’re attending two events with Women Impact Tech. Additionally, when doing outreach, we keep our diversity objectives top of mind.
We implemented mandatory training for all new hires around unconscious bias and candidate experience. This way, we are better prepared to deliver on what we promise: diverse interview panels that reflect our employee makeup, objective assessment criteria, transparency into our interview process upfront, tech interview options to ensure you can perform at your best (e.g., take home vs. live coding), clear salary bands to ensure compensation equity and a culture of conversation around these topics — even if that means discomfort.
We recognize that putting action around the importance of gender representation starts from the top and requires commitments across the entire candidate and employee lifecycle.”
What makes your company an attractive place to work for women in engineering?
Our authentic culture is most impactful in attracting women, so everything we do to make our company an attractive place for women is exactly what we believe keeps our environment safe, equitable and supportive. The goal is to give you a window into who we truly are so that there are no surprises when you get here.
Specifically, having women in key leadership roles has been an attractive quality to the women who have joined our teams. Women are statistically empathetic leaders and Lily Shen, our CEO, is no exception. Lily leads with her head and her heart. We also have women in leadership across our organization — at the C-Suite, VP, director, manager and squad levels — with women making up one-third of our product squad leadership. We are truly disrupting an industry ripe for digitization and change, so it’s easy to consistently showcase all of their accomplishments from all of the social media rooftops.
Finally, we offer wonderful health and wellness benefits to all employees, which is particularly attractive to women who still tend to bear more of the burden of balancing work and home. Family comes first, always.
Once you hire women in engineering positions, how does your company support them?
Challenges women deal with in the workplace (e.g., more subjective assessments or microaggressions) are called out in real time. We have clear career ladders with objective markers and offer proactive career development, including promotions and salaries, which helps mitigate imbalance by proactively raising our employees up. We strive for excellence but also recognize that life is hard and family comes first. We emphasize the importance of creating psychologically safe spaces where individuals can express themselves fully without being penalized.
We are not afraid to take a stance on women’s rights. Our Women@Transfix ERG recently held a safe space conversation around reproductive rights in the wake of the Supreme Court decision.
Finally, we acknowledge where we have more work to do and we are committed to doing that work. We regularly survey our employees. We value diverse voices in our conversations, take all of our employee feedback and their contributions seriously and are passionate about the meaning behind our work. One thing we do know is that great talent recognizes great culture.
VTS, a commercial real estate leasing and asset management platform, employs mandatory company-wide training on fair hiring practices and offers ERGs, mentorship programs, learning stipends and more. According to a recent internal survey, VTS women engineers appreciated the company’s team culture, transparent career ladder and impactful, purpose-driven work.
Describe your recruiting efforts to get more women into engineering roles at your company.
At VTS this year, we have continued to place a focus on building toward a more inclusive and equitable hiring practice and delivering on our DEI goals. Our internal initiatives start by looking at our interview process, which means analyzing data and feedback to identify where we can do better and then acting upon that information.
From there, we rolled out an organization-wide interviewer training program and a hiring-manager specific training, which are mandatory to ensure we’re upholding our commitment to fair hiring practices before, during and after the interviews. Our interviews are values driven, which means we hire people who also care about our core values, including “appreciating the difference”, and who take an interest in collaborating in an inclusive work environment.
Our talent acquisition team partners with hiring managers to fix the gender equality pipeline, especially in engineering, by deploying strategies such as an updated approach to the Rooney Rule and baking DEI strategies into sourcing processes. We also have placed importance on external partnerships with organizations that align with our values, and we found successes in many partnerships that support women at every stage of their lives and careers.
What makes your company an attractive place to work for women in engineering?
We recently conducted internal interviews to find out why women in engineering chose to join VTS and what continues to motivate them at our company. The number one reason is team culture, with career growth, scope of the role and coaching and mentoring opportunities also being top reasons.
First off, 100 percent of the women in engineering who we surveyed felt like VTS has a structured, clear career ladder rubric and that expectations are clear on what you need to do to get to the next level. It’s important for us to have leadership that defines and supports career growth and understands that progression goes hand in hand with being given opportunities to take on new challenges and showcase your potential.
Additionally, a key theme in our recent survey suggests that making a direct impact on the end user and building quality products that enable customers to do their work better are attractive factors for women in engineering.
Once you hire women in engineering positions, how does your company support them?
Another key theme in our recent survey was a strong sense of meaning at work, especially when it comes to interactions with colleagues, having a blameless culture and being part of a team that is truly willing to help each other grow. We built company-wide programming, such as employee resource groups, at VTS to create safe spaces for women, as well as mentorship programs and generous learning stipends to continue building the skills and interests that help women grow and succeed at this company and beyond.
Firework, a digital platform for e-commerce, publishers and advertisers, diversified its hiring team to ensure women candidates meet with women engineers as part of the interview process. The engineering team is integrated with the business side of the company, allowing women engineers to collaborate with women from other departments informally, as well as formally through an ERG and mentorship program.
Describe your recruiting efforts to get more women into engineering roles at your company.
Firework was a global company from day one and continues to strive for diversity hiring, especially of women and minority groups, in engineering. This year, we are proud to launch the “Don’t Hold Back” initiative with specific and measurable metrics related to diversity, equity and inclusion in which hiring managers, leaders and the talent team are accountable together. This includes increasing the number of women in engineering roles and starts with making intentional efforts to review, measure and improve the entire full-cycle engineering candidate experience. This ensures that we are taking actionable steps to incorporate diverse candidates, including women candidates, into the talent pool.
Other actions include joining and searching through niche networks or channels and continuously measuring our process to ensure women engineering candidates are part of every open opportunity (with further plans down the line to set metrics on this). We also diversified our hiring team so that women candidates get to meet women engineers on the team as part of the interview process, even if the domain skill sets or teams are different.
For women in engineering, this allows them to interact, learn from one another, build relationships with women in other departments and grow into well-rounded leaders who have visibility in the business.”
What makes your company an attractive place to work for women in engineering?
The engineering team is integrated into the business. What this means is we structure cross-functional teams around products and initiatives. This reduces the feeling of engineers being a siloed department who only hang out with other engineers. For women in engineering, this allows them to interact, learn from one another, build relationships with women in other departments and grow into well-rounded leaders who have visibility in the business.
Once you hire women in engineering positions, how does your company support them?
We are committed to ensuring that every person, especially women in engineering, get the same exposure and opportunities as others. This means providing various support initiatives. The first ERG we launched was the Women at Work ERG, and we have seen tremendous participation from women engineers.
We are close to an equal split of women and men people managers in the mid-management level, and all the women in engineering management positions were promoted from within. We also have women-led technical leads on core projects. Finally, we launched a mentorship program through which women engineers are paired with mentors from other functions.
