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The conundrum about “what counts as working in tech” is a new consideration. For many years, before “tech” became the moniker for all things, I worked in I/S, or Information Systems. I/S was a function within an organization, known for keeping systems running, storing data, and putting machines on desks. I/S wasn’t sexy back then. Most of us working in I/S were relegated to basements, sitting at modular desks near the computer rooms with air flow raised access flooring. We were the geeks hidden away in the recesses of buildings. We were code smashers, cabling jedis, machine architects, operations managers, and server jockeys. While we were essential to the business, we were not as important, say, as your commercial sales organization or your shiny spin doctor corporate leaders.
Enter the Internet.
As the internet took flight, so did those stereotypes of the awkward condescending I/S people. Then suddenly, the social capital of being an architect of web technology and building apps became shiny and desired. With the evolution of web applications to mobile applications and the explosion of serving data and services via smart phones and tablets, everyone became…wait for the trumpets…TECH. Now TECH is ubiquitous in all sectors and verticals. If you are not working in a tech department or role, you are selling tech products, using tech to deliver services, supporting tech solutions or dependent upon tech to work. To not have tech fluency, expertise, or access to tech is to live Flintstonian.
When Indiana Women IN Tech Week became an idea, I knew I would be asked to define Tech. Who gets to be recognized or celebrated Linda? Can anyone be tech? I’m going to answer these questions differently by sharing what tech looks like and what counts as tech. So here goes!
The Trenches of Tech
It’s probably easier to think about trenches of tech as more technical in nature. This means
you work in an IT department smashing code, designing and populating data repositories,
developing tech products, implementing cybersecurity solutions, supporting infrastructure,
staging machines, working in a SOC, SAP development and bug checking, building cloud
platforms, leading IT process, machine learning, data science work and LLMing, QA-ing,
DevOps-ing, serving as IT support for systems and hardware, web design and development.
I cannot name all the jobs in IT as these days there are so many. But if you work in the
trenches of tech, you are responsible for building, designing and delivering tech services
and products. In tech companies, there are still trenches of tech. I think of trenches of tech
as foundational roles. Without technical expertise in the truest sense of the word,
TECHNOLOGISTS, there are no apps for phones, no platforms for operations and no tech
services to sell.
For a woman, working in the trenches of tech, you may have been the only woman for a
very long time. You may still be the only woman on your team. For many years, the trenches
of tech were dominated by men, and still are. For a woman to work in the space, it can and
has been challenging because for most of us, we are the onlies. For Black, Latina and
Indigenous women, for a certainty we were and are still onlies in the trenches.
Tech-adjacent Roles
Boy, this is a controversial one. I consider tech-adjacent roles as those tech jobs/roles that require tech knowledge and some expertise, but the role does NOT require you to be a python ninja or be a Kubernetes expert. While personally I consider an IT project manager or scrum master to be a technical role, not all project managers are tech trench dwellers. As an example, if you are a PMO leader, you support the IT organization in the prioritization of
projects, opex/capex, and processes. But PMO leaders may have never smashed a line of code or worked in a technical role. Other tech-adjacent roles are product managers.
Especially when it comes to Agile, a product manager or owner is tasked with understanding
the BUSINESS needs and translating those requirements to the using tech to do your job!
What about Tech Sales? Again, controversy. Opinion? I’ll give you the lawyerly answer: It
depends. Many tech sales leaders must understand how the tech platforms work, what it will
take to deliver systems and the best solution for the customer problem. This requires some
degree of technical acumen. If you are a tech salesperson and your job is to sell ServiceNow or Azure solutions, are you tech? Heck yes. Are you trenches of tech? Maybe you came from the trenches, but you don’t have to smash code or build cloud solutions to
sell cloud solutions.
Bottom line: Tech-adjacent roles require a significant understanding of how technologies
work so they can help design and deliver solutions. However, these roles may not require
someone to have a technician background. Are their roles tech? Absolutely.
For a woman in a tech-adjacent role, it can still be a lonely place. Many tech-adjacent roles
are held by men who’ve worked in the trenches of tech who, due to career progression
strategies, have taken on leadership roles in the tech-adjacent ecosystem. No shade to our
male colleagues, but data doesn’t lie about the representation of men in tech.
Tech Leadership Roles
For me, this is easiest: Chief of Staff to the CIO/CTO or CISO, a CIO, CISO, CTO, Chief Digital Officer, Chief AI Officer, CEO of a tech startup. In a tech company, a Chief Innovation Officer may be a technical role. There are also VPs, SVPs, Senior Global IT Leaders, Agile Delivery Leaders, Automation Leaders. Are these tech roles? Absolutely!
When we define tech leadership roles, we consider those leaders who lead tech functions or disciplines. If you are a CHRO or a Chief Legal Officer in a tech company, you are an executive in a tech company. There’s controversy here because a CHRO, Chief Diversity Officer or even a CFO may consider themselves a tech executive in a tech company. By association, this is true. However, what qualifies you as a TECH LEADER is if your function in an organization is to lead the development and delivery of technological solutions.
** BIG THOUGHT! Tech Panels with Tech Leaders. ** Many times, I have seen
panels dedicated to women in tech that feature Chief Diversity Officers or Recruitment leaders or CFOs. We should exercise more strategy in defining women in tech panels.
Is the panel about working in a tech company or within the tech ecosystem? Or is the
panel about working as a technologist? If the intention is to inform female college
students or the tech curious on how they can become a technologist, then you need to
invite female technologists to your panel. If the purpose is to discuss leading in the tech
ecosystem, like a “See Yourself in the Tech Industry” panel, invite a diversity of women;
a CISO, tech saleswoman, an IT recruiter, a Tech company/startup CEO, a professor, or
marketing manager in a tech company. Audience and desired outcomes are critical for a
panel when assembling guests.
Tech-Enabled Roles
You use tools and platforms to support a company or business. If you work in a Call Center for Nordstrom, you are using tech to perform your job. You may use data repositories to find answers to customer inquiries. In fact, your job may depend on robust data repositories and chat bots to provide support to customers. As a recruiter, you are without question dependent upon WorkDay or PeopleSoft or (insert name) to do your job. Recruiters have skills with reporting and jobs software that mere mortals will not have. I feel comfortable saying that almost all roles today are tech-enabled roles.
Tech Education
This is the shortest answer because for me, coming out of higher education, it’s a no brainer. So often we forget about our tech faculty, department chairs and learning leaders at colleges, high schools and academies. How are students building tech proficiency? FROM TECH EDUCATION LEADERS! In my role at Ivy Tech, I worked with
50 faculty statewide who taught in the School of IT. I partnered with instructional designers who built learning systems. They were and are as TECH as a scrum or DevOps team!
Tech Advocacy
This is an easy answer for me. I work with a nonprofit, Reboot Representation, focused on doubling the number of Black, Latina and Native American (BLNA) women earning computing baccalaureate degrees by 2025. My job is to help more BLNA women get into jobs in the tech trenches and stay and thrive in those jobs. There are many organizations whose focus is creating tech talent pipelines or creating access to tech education. Tech advocacy also includes efforts to define apprenticeships and Skills First initiatives. We see and understand that tech is not only ubiquitous to all sectors, but essential to economic mobility and career now and in the future. Are we in the trenches or adjacent? No, but we operate in the tech ecosystem.
Linda, Am I Tech or Not?
In transparency, in my process of defining Indiana Women IN Tech Week, I was
considering all the women who do not get recognized for contributing to innovation and technology within their companies. I was thinking of the women who are cybersecurity analysts, software engineers, CIOs/CTOs/CISOs, data/AI scientists, cloud architects, systems administrators, Agile leaders, project managers, SAP analysts, QA testers, web and mobile app developers, process IT leaders. Most of these women are not seen on panels, invited to blog, or provided opportunities to keynote. In the 2023 New York Times article, “Who’s Who Behind the Dawn of the Modern Artificial Intelligence Movement,” they didn’t recognize any women. Dr. Fei Fei Li, Dr. Timnit Gebru, Dr. Joy Buolamwini, Dr. Daphne Koller and many more women are trailblazers in AI innovation and adoption. But they were not recognized. Why? This is a discussion we must have!
Tagging and labelling who is tech or not is complicated. In cases where the only woman
in a tech company is a COO, it may make sense to give her props for Indiana Women IN
Tech Week for her contributions to the success of the tech company. For Indiana
Women IN Tech, let’s just make sure we do not repeat the mistake of the New York
Times and fail to recognize those women who are in the trenches, blazing trails and
spearheading innovation. Let’s show girls in this state that they can do tech, and enjoy
and thrive in tech. Because when you see us, you can be us.
Connect with Linda on LinkedIn here.
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