Power women in tech - leading from the front

On the International Women’s Day, we caught up with the women brigade in the technology space leading from the front. These change makers who are paving the way for the rest of the community to rise spoke their minds out. What they advised will make you want to keep all your inhibitions aside and plunge yourselves into the race. If we had to tell you in a nutshell, it’s survival of the fittest, whether you are a woman or a man, doesn’t matter! Read on:

“Women have innovated, built successful companies, lead large companies and were champions of social, political awareness. Within our company too, women are contributing equally in building the technology and delivering on par with their men counterparts. They are managing development teams like seller platform & website, handling program management for large cross team projects, defining product for some niche areas, designing the UI for various Snapdeal portals and apps, ensuring the quality of the products, supporting databases and the entire release management of projects,” says Vasanthi Ramesh - the AVP for Customer Promise & Returns at Snapdeal.

She feels proud when she says she is in a company which has a strong diversity and inclusivity programme called Advitya that helps women get mentorship, leadership skill training, guidance for handling work during maternity, health and counselling programs.

“As a woman, I don’t believe a woman needs any different set of traits than a man to succeed. My advice to other women who are struggling to make it big in the technology space is – Never listen to people who say you can't. If you have the right passion, just know your goal and focus on your next step, success will follow,” she adds.

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Another woman of power - Deepthi Singh, who is Senior Director for Multimedia Research Group here says, “In my career, I have seen subtle forms of what was possibly unconscious bias”. The awareness of the problem has caused some of the biggest companies like Google and Microsoft to spring into action. I am happy to at Snapdeal, diversity is a way of life and we are nurturing a culture that respects it. I believe, companies should educate men and women about different ways in which biases happen at work place consciously and unconsciously. It would help if this can be supported by data on recruitment, raises and promotions available within the company thereby, alleviating the problem to some extent," she says.

She adds, “Women need to see more examples to look up to than we currently do in the technology industry. In the early 2000s when I joined the industry, there was only one other woman coder in a company of around 200 people. A welcome change is, the gender ratio is much healthier at the entry level now. However, even today many women do not stay for the long haul and, it takes time to be able to set an example. In my opinion, encouraging and enabling women to stay for the long haul will certainly help”.

Charu Malik who is the Head of Decision Sciences, meanwhile, cites some awesome facts about women in the tech space.

“Women hold a mere 30% off all jobs across the tech industry. However, women’s growth in the field is a staggering rate of 238% faster than men, showcasing the wide road being paved for future women pursuing tech related careers,” she says.

"Technology is at the heart of every operation in our company. .We are leveraging technology even internally, for example our appraisal process, leave applications, etc. Striving to continuously improve women’s representation in their career development, the company regularly conducts trainings to sensitize workforce towards gender issues. Having talented women in key decision-making roles also helps understand the customer base better. Women are an important part of any workforce diversity effort and can equally do the job just as effectively as men. I don’t believe a woman needs any different set of traits than a man to succeed, one is hired for the industry experience and skills they have not their gender,” she says.

Then there's Jyoti Thakur, Manager of Design Usability at Snapdeal who says - “Women must be encouraged to dream high and big in technology careers, and organizations must support them with the right culture and environment, and infrastructure of learning and development to achieve these goals. Snapdeal offers rigorous training to help women expand their network, connect with senior leadership, and hone their skills for advancing to the next level. The company also hosts technology meet-ups and hackathons on a regular basis to maintain high performance standards and drive great work, we recognize the role that training plays.”

Jyoti also touches on the importance of self reflection. “For women that aspire to play leadership roles, I think sometimes we create self- made barriers. But I believe that the biggest barrier might be self-belief. Overcoming inhibition, and believing that one can lead, is usually the first and biggest step to actually doing it,” she sums it up for us.