Tuesday, August 08, 2017

To the awesome women engineers and their allies at Google (& elsewhere) ...


To the women engineers, developers, techies and their allies:

I just want to say that as the world watches the repercussions of the memo that was leaked last week, we stand with you in solidarity as women engineers from around the world who are well aware of what you might be going through - because, we know what it's like to be in your shoes every single day.

We know that you work supremely hard, that you are brilliant in all that you do (not just programming/coding) and that you will weather this current upheaval with grace, compassion, deep thought and conviction in your strengths and abilities as engineers and thought leaders.  No one has any doubts in that regard.

Except a small fraction of society that is deluded, terrified, uncomfortable and mentally/emotionally sequestered.

There are many, both women and men, that create challenging environments for all of us in our different roles and responsibilities.  Some are overt, others are not.

So, let's get back to being engineers - debug this, identify some of the root causes, pick one to target, innovate on it and build the next "hack the culture" tool to transform our workplaces for the better.  No one can do it better than us.

Please continue your great work, focus on the technology and your scientific and engineering strengths.  The rest is just a distraction that you can watch on TV, if you have time :).

May the code be with you.