Earlier this year, I started receiving random messages on LinkedIn congratulating me for being placed on Sifted’s list of 130-plus female CTOs in Europe. Apparently, this was the first time a list like this had been compiled. In fact, up until then, it did not even occur to me how uncommon it was to be a female CTO. Soon, I shifted from feeling flattered to being outraged. Why are there so few female CTOs in 2022? And what can we do to change that?
An Unconventional Journey To Becoming A CTO
I never thought that I would become a CTO. After graduating with a Master’s in Technology, Innovation and Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, I gravitated toward edtech startups in the U.S. and Europe. I took on roles as an instructional designer and product manager to design and develop software products for learning. After working with software development teams for several years, I decided that I needed a deeper understanding of the technology itself and learned to code.
In 2019, I joined SwipeGuide, an Industry 4.0 startup for work instructions based in Amsterdam, as a software engineer. The company was hit badly by the Covid pandemic in 2020, and it needed to make some difficult decisions. There was a significant turnover, and the former CTO left the company. Instead of recruiting someone for the position outside of the company, our CEO decided to promote me internally.
The first year was like drinking from a fire hose. Of course, I was nervous. But I started to get my hands wet and just tackle the problems one by one, from streamlining processes in the product team, recruiting and hiring to scaling and securing the infrastructure, solidifying data privacy practices and API fair use policies and so much more. I’ve never stopped learning.
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2022/08/31/where-are-all-the-female-ctos/?sh=51e806bd701f
An Unconventional Journey To Becoming A CTO
I never thought that I would become a CTO. After graduating with a Master’s in Technology, Innovation and Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, I gravitated toward edtech startups in the U.S. and Europe. I took on roles as an instructional designer and product manager to design and develop software products for learning. After working with software development teams for several years, I decided that I needed a deeper understanding of the technology itself and learned to code.
In 2019, I joined SwipeGuide, an Industry 4.0 startup for work instructions based in Amsterdam, as a software engineer. The company was hit badly by the Covid pandemic in 2020, and it needed to make some difficult decisions. There was a significant turnover, and the former CTO left the company. Instead of recruiting someone for the position outside of the company, our CEO decided to promote me internally.
The first year was like drinking from a fire hose. Of course, I was nervous. But I started to get my hands wet and just tackle the problems one by one, from streamlining processes in the product team, recruiting and hiring to scaling and securing the infrastructure, solidifying data privacy practices and API fair use policies and so much more. I’ve never stopped learning.
Continue reading: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2022/08/31/where-are-all-the-female-ctos/?sh=51e806bd701f
