Female Github Employees: 'I've Never Witnessed Sexism Here'

About.me / Julie Ann NorvathJulie Ann Horvath

Four days ago, Github engineer Julie Ann Horvath publicly resigned. The reason: she found the company to be sexist. She also had issues with a fellow employee who allegedly came on to her, as well as the company's co-founder Tom Preston-Werner and his wife, Theresa.

A Valleywag source says Horvath's complaint isn't the first time Preston-Werner and his wife have made a female employee uncomfortable.

But women who are still employed by Github tell The Verge that they haven't experienced any sort of sexism or mismanagement at the company.

"I don't feel isolated or alone," one female developer told The Verge's Adrienne Jeffries. "I have never personally experienced anything like that and I've never witnessed it." The Verge spoke to "several" female GitHub employees, who all said they never felt discrimination there.

That said, the employees also supported Horvath. "I'm focused on making sure that as a woman, I do a better job of being available and supportive and accessible," one told Jeffries. "I want to be someone to talk to. I want to do whatever I can. And we all failed to do that for Julie."

Preston-Werner has been asked to step away from the company while an outside firm investigates Horvath's claims. His co-founder, Chris Wanstrath, was supportive of Horvath in a blog post. "As painful as this experience has been, I am super thankful to Julie for her contributions to GitHub," he wrote. "I would like to personally apologize to Julie. It's certain that there were things we could have done differently."