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Moderated by  Laura Hoopes
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Posted on: December 14, 2011
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Posted By: Laura Hoopes

Sheryl Sandberg on Women Needed in Tech Jobs

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Hi friends of women in science,

We talked about Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook, before on this forum when I posted about her talk on TED. Now she has given an interview on CBS about getting more women into tech jobs. She points out that these jobs generally pay over $100,000 and only 13% of those holding them are women. She would particularly like to see more women at the CEO level as she said in the TED video we dealt with earlier.
Here is a quotation from her interview, "The economic trends are super clear. The technical roles are in demand. Even in what is currently a very difficult situation for our country in unemployment. There's a huge shortage of engineers who can build products like Facebook. And women need to have their fair share of those seats."
Another feature of tech jobs is that they frequently have job security. I was on a panel at City of Hope Medical Center yesterday about scientific writing careers. If you freelance, the panelists agreed, there is no job security and no medical insurance and no retirement... you have to generate and plan it all, in addition to putting food on the table and paying the rent. It's a job for people with hustle who don't hesitate to make cold calls (or who can steel themselves to do it if necessary). The exception to this need for self-promotion was a woman working for Amgen who helps scientists prepare abstracts and presentations for medical congresses. She mentioned several other groups at Amgen that hire writers into regular positions, although she and others also use some freelancers.
Back to the article on Sandberg. It went on to quote one of her software engineers, a woman named Jocelyn Goldfein. She says we need to get away from thinking computer engineers are lone nerds who write code in a sub-basement alone. In her experience, code writing is a friendly, collaborative effort, not what is usually portrayed in films and on TV.
Another quotation was from a student in computer engineering, Mo Kudeki, ""I don't think you have to love doing the programming all the time. It's about what you can do to change the world. And that's what girls want to do to change the world. And this will get you there." As we have discussed before, seeing tech jobs as ways to improve the world can be a big help in recruiting women to them. But only if the vision is true. If not, the women will not stay in the field.
How do you think we're doing in getting women interested in CS these days?
cheers,
Laura
Comments
6  Comments  | Post a Comment
Community

Some schools are pushing hard to get women in.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cocktail-party-physics/files/2011/07/pix_plz2.png

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cocktail-party-physics/2011/07/20/is-it-cold-in-here/

After reading this in Sci Am not so sure where the world stands.

From:  Alan Cohen |  January 2, 2012
Community

Oh, well, she's OK. She overdresses in my opinion, but that's management I guess. I think people who say she didn't get it about children are wrong, if that's what you mean. They just didn't really read what she said carefully.
S.

From:  Samantha |  December 31, 2011
Community

Hi Samantha,

Do you have any reaction to Sheryl Sandberg as a spokes woman? I have heard enthusiasm from some and concern from others. Personally, I like her ideas but don't know her and am not, of course, in CS.

cheers,
Laura

From:  Laura Hoopes |  December 31, 2011
Community

I haven't seen increased interest in CS majors by the girls in college here, sadly. They still say it's dominated by horny nerds and way too unfriendly for them.
SRB

From:  Samantha B |  December 31, 2011
Community

Dear Ex CS,

Yes, Harvey Mudd is in the same consortium with Pomona College, where I am. I am really pleased to see how well they have recruited women! And I remember interviewing a woman from the program at CMU on computer-human interaction for AWIS Magazine, and being impressed by her ideas for humanizing computers and making sure they didn't take over things humans really want to do.
cheers,
Laura

From:  Laura Hoopes |  December 31, 2011
Community

Hi Laura,
I think now that people have started to pay attention to the loss of women from CS, things are improving in some places. I heard that Harvey Mudd College, with a woman engineer as president, has recruited a class with more women than men for the first time ever. I know that's not CS per se, but it's an example of the kind of effort that works. I also heard that Carnegie Mellon is becoming more focused on women in CS. Kudos to them! ex CS

From:  ex CS |  December 31, 2011
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