This International Women in Engineering Day (IWED), we want to bring awareness and recognition to the outstanding contributions of female engineers.
As this year’s theme is #EngineeringHeroes, these STEM experts and engineers report their insights into what sparked their initial interest in the field, challenges they’ve faced, and where the future opportunities lie for the next generation of female engineers. The best way to have an understanding of what they face is by listening to what women engineers report:
Charlene Marini, Chief Product and Marketing Officer at Pelion:
“I grew up in a supportive family environment where engineering and computers were central to discussions and activities. Pursuing a career in engineering was a natural path. Through childhood, I was not always an eager participant in the latest project. I sometimes went off track (turning a computer board soldering project into a jewelry-making project in one instance). But over time, I found the problem solving and challenging nature of engineering to be highly motivating. Tackling a problem and producing a tangible working product as a result, be it code or a machine or other, was, and is, extremely rewarding.
Being a female engineer is not without its challenges. I have appreciated the supportive and vibrant environment of colleagues and mentors. Technologists care about progress and impact; we all have that in common and it creates a like-minded community ready to tackle anything.
The next generation of female engineers has an amazing opportunity to enable purpose driven technological innovation with impactful outcomes for individual and societal wellbeing. Combining engineering skills with core scientific disciplines is shifting focus from areas like communications and semiconductors to solutions that can combat climate change, transformational medical diagnosis and therapy, and enable increased natural resource efficiency.”
Bee Hayes-Thakore, Senior Director of Marketing and Partnerships at Kigen:
“I was drawn to engineering with a particular fascination with all things aeronautical, spending my idle hours around the airfields that were close to my grandmother’s home in India. My curiosity led to many warranties becoming void, which helped me appreciate that engineering was a great way to find solutions to problems through our understanding of physics and the natural world. This was in the days of hand-writing BASIC and LOGO command programs and having to wait in line to test and verify them on scarce early school computers. I’m glad that these experiences have enabled me to apply my engineering skills across aerospace, robotics and computing.
Today technology is woven into the fabric of our lives and engineers’ work has life-changing ramifications on our collective future. The advent of machine learning, the ability to harness data, technology that shapes efficient and greener smart cities are all areas for the next generation of female engineers: I say ‘Dare mighty things!’. Let’s also not forget the many examples that have been highlighted recently showing that more female engineers result in better user-focused and bias-corrected products across all sectors.”
Areeba Yusaf, Software Engineer at Cervest:
“The more women and people from different backgrounds that enter a career in STEM, the more our field will benefit. If I could give someone considering going into engineering one piece of advice, it’d be: don’t let anyone hold you back because of your gender - your ideas and input are important and valuable!
I'm currently helping build the world's first AI-powered Climate Intelligence platform. What I love most about my job is the creativity: I need lots of it to solve problems and build our products. Our team is truly multidisciplinary, spanning climate science, data science and advanced computing. Together, we’re helping make the world better manage the risks of climate change. The diversity of our team makes our work easier, and more fun, too. That’s why we’re celebrating this year’s International Women in Engineering Day.”
V Brennan, Regional Lead Engineering EMEA at Slack:
“The benefits of flexible working have become clear for all industries in the past year. Yet research conducted by our consortium, Future Forum, found that there has been a disproportionate burden on working mothers as they often have to juggle work with caregiving. As a mother first and engineering leader second, flexibility is key to my performance, both personally and professionally. Therefore, the message is clear: business leaders need to do more to give employees autonomy over their time and promote a healthy work-life balance.
For me, flexible working has eradicated a three-hour commute and allowed me to take my children to school and exercise daily—I get to take care of them and myself. Embracing hybrid working and tools that enable asynchronous work levels the playing field for everyone, shifting the focus from time ‘present’ to quality and outcomes. I’ve always worked remotely at Slack, which meant that sometimes I couldn’t participate in important, in-person initiatives. Now in a remote-first world, I can be involved in major projects without sacrificing family time or work-life balance. This International Women in Engineering Day, leaders must encourage and implement a flexible culture where all employees can thrive. Championing flexibility will create an empowering and inclusive environment built for the new world of hybrid work.”
Elizabeth Irzarry, Engineering Manager, Glovo:
“This year’s International Women in Engineering Day, and its theme of engineering heroes serves to both highlight the achievements of women in the space and encourage the next generation of female talent.
At Glovo, we’re creating a culture that is diverse and ultimately accessible for everyone. This includes championing our female engineers. By doing this we hope to encourage more women to join our growing tech hubs in Spain and Poland and be a core part of scaling our engineering teams worldwide.
Without more female role models, young women continue to view a career in STEM as one dominated by men, so this International Women in Engineering Day let’s continue to break down the status quo and empower more women to start their engineering career.”
Xiaojue Fu, Senior Data Engineer in Data & Business Intelligence, Airwallex:
“Being a woman in engineering can be challenging - there is still a view among some people that our technical skills aren't as good. But this is not the case, and young women shouldn’t be discouraged from pursuing a career in STEM. I’ve learnt that by diving into my responsibilities and demonstrating my capabilities as an engineer shows others around me I am more than qualified.
Personally, I would love to see more women in engineering. You work on truly interesting and innovative projects. My advice to young women is, if you want to pursue a career in engineering, act on it! Don't be afraid of testing the barriers. Be confident in your own skills - challenging stereotypes in a male-dominated sector is something we must continue to encourage and bring more talented women into the field.
At Airwallex, we’re surrounded by an extremely motivated, talented young team. This year’s theme of ‘engineering heroes’ resonates well with me. I am constantly inspired and energised by the people, and it is these people that are the true heroes and who drive me to always want to do my best.”
