Empowering Imposters

Talk Outline

Stats on women in tech
What is imposter syndrome?
What can you do about it?
Hopefully some empowering advice

18.2%
19

149

Percent Female Engineers

Number female engineers at Etsy

Total engineers at Etsy

Tracy Chou Data

>12%
89.5%

71.8%

Female CS grads

Male senior developers

Male software developers

Bright Labs Data

Tracy Chou Data

"What the management blogs wittering on about leadership don’t tell you is that being the first is a burden. You carry the responsibility of representing not only yourself but the entire experience of working with that semi-mythical creature, the female techie."

- Ciara Byrne and Jay Cassano

The Loneliness of the Female Coder

How can this lonliness be combated?

Shift gender ratio on dev team
Promote that there is value in doing things a different way
Add women to founding and executive team
Stop saying 'You're a developer?'

#ILookLikeAnEngineer

Everyone feels it at some point in their professional life:

I'm a fraud and everyone is about to find out.

What is Imposter Syndrome?

Feeling like an imposter when you are not
Feel like so because you have 'duped' the people around you
Fear of being 'found out'

"There are an awful lot of people out there who think I'm an expert. How do these people believe all this about me? I'm so much aware of all the things I don't know."

- Dr. Chan, Chief of the World Health Organization

"I have written eleven books, but each time I think, 'uh oh, they're going to find out now. I've run a game on everybody, and they're going to find me out.' "

– Maya Angelou

“The first problem of any kind of even limited success is the unshakable conviction that you are getting away with something, and that any moment now they will discover you. It’s Impostor Syndrome...”

– Neil Gaiman