Seven Answers From A Developer Focused on Bringing More Women To The New York Times

Seven Answers From A Developer Focused on Bringing More Women To The New York Times At PowerToFly were interviewing women who can tell us, first-hand, what its like to work at organizations focused on hiring for mora diversity. Even if an organization hasnt reached its goals, were eager to learn what theyre trying to do to get there. Thats why we sat down with Erica Greene, the community development team manager at The New York Times.Erica told us how she became a backend developer, what the women in tech task force at The New York Times is doing to attract mora female engineers, and why she feels working with more women will be better for the media company.1. What do you do for The New York Times? What stack do you code in?Im a backend developer although I can do fullstack. Im more passionate about data and architectural issues. Ive been at The New York Times for three years and just took on a new role as manager of the community development team. We manage the comment stack. Curren tly all of the comments are moderated by hand and we are looking into a way that we could possibly automate this process.2. Tell us about the new comment moderation platform The New York Times just announced.Were collaborating with the Google Jigsaw group to experiment with using machine learning to scale comment moderation on our site. We made an announcement about that project yesterday and Bassey, the head of our comment moderation team, wrote a little quiz to give readers an idea of how hard the moderation problem is. Many of our readers are notlage aware of how much work we put in to keep conversation on our site substantive and civil. Were hoping the quiz raises awareness about how hard the comment moderation problem can be and how committed we are to solving it well. Deploying and scaling that system is the bulk of what were working on for the rest of the year. Were going to be rolling the new moderation platform out one desk at a time. We need to gather confidence in the pre dictive models before we turn on automatic moderation.3. What is it like working as a woman engineer in The New York Times newsroom?At The New York Times, tech is a piece of the puzzle. There is a culture beyond tech. The Times is an old storied company with amazing traditions and folklore and structures. As an engineer here you get to work with people with lots of different backgrounds. Its not a brogramming culture??there are no pics of Star Trek on the wall, conference rooms are not named after robots. The culture beyond tech is actually a positive. Our games team does things like crossword puzzles. You get to be a part of the Pulitzer ceremony where the entire company comes down to congratulate the winners. The positive thing for women engineers is that you can have broad interests beyond tech on the development teams and that can be a really good thing.4. What are the most exciting and/or rewarding parts of being a developer at The New York Times?At The New York Times every day you are able to work with people who are at the top of their craft??journalists, producers, designers etc. As a developer you share experiences and learn from them. I know that The New York Times newsroom deserves the best tools and as a developer I find it very fulfilling to be able to create the tools for such an amazing brand.5. Where did you start your career as a developer?I started to learn to program in 9th grade. My high school offered 2.5 years of computer science classes. My mom actually recommended that I study computer science. My mother was a chemical engineer and then switched to research. When her three kids were little she was working at Bell Labs and she was able to move to research. She switched from being a chemical engineer because working in computer science was a better lifestyle fit for her family so she learned how to program in her adult life. My mom found coding so interesting because there was so much problem solving. I thought computer science would be u seful to know and so I took the classes in high school. I thought I would eventually go into something else. I became a math major in college. I went into a PhD program after college and studied natural language processing for 2.5 years. I loved the material but I was not interested in the full PhD program. I left that program and took a job at Etsy in data engineering. After Etsy, I moved on to my role at The Times.6. You are working on digital diversity initiatives for the Times. Can you tell us more about that?I am a member of the women in tech task force that was created to encourage gender diversity at The Times. We have created a mentorship program where you have one on one mentor to mentee pairs. Its been wonderful and we have gotten very good feedback. We have been doing more trips to womens colleges to talk about The New York Times. We are also working on a code of conduct and I am helping to draft it.7. How important do you think having a diverse (male/female mix) is for a development team? If very important, why?Having diverse teams gives you better products. We have a diverse audience so our team should reflect that. Diverse teams make you better and more profitable. Besides that it is the right thing to do. Women need great opportunities in techSelfishly I enjoy working with women. One of the frustrations of being a women developer is that its hard to meet more women in tech. Its hard to meet women friends at work unless we bring in more women engineers.And once we bring in women engineers we need to work hard to retain them. I feel that the geek culture stereotype for engineering is very toxic and puts women off from Computer Science. Its not like that at The New York Times. We have a very interesting place to work. Pop culture shows like the Big Bang Theory and movies like Silicon Valley promote this geek culture and that is not attractive to women. You can have a very different experience as a woman developer at The New York Times. Its a wonder ful place for women in tech. One of the biggest challenges in almost all industries today is achieving gender parity. Gender diversity provides huge benefits in the workplace. pWhile some industries have made significant advancements in gender diversity, some industries lag further behind... and the construction industry is well-known for being in the latter category. If someone says, construction workers, youll likely picture a group of men in yellow hard hats analyzing an architects plans or laying bricks on top of a scaffold. And men at work signs only help to reinforce this image.pThis stereotype is rooted in reality. When was the last time you actually spotted a woman on a construction site? Or hired a female plumber or carpenter? Your answer is most likely never. In fact, the Bureau of Labor Statisticsreports that only 3.4% of the total of 8.3 million construction employees are women.pBut the construction industry has a lot more to offer than steel-toed boots and hard hats, and it needs women to help advance the industry in this era of rapid change. Here are 5 reasons why women joining the workforce or looking to make a pivot should consider a career in construction.h21. Fuel Innovation/h2pNot only is diversity the socially and morally right thing to do, but it is also actually an excellent business strategy. pResearch presented in the Harvard geschftsleben Reviewshows that diverse teams develop more innovative ideas. This is further supported by a study conducted by Gallupon the performance of gender-diverse teams versus single-gender teams, which found that the difference in backgrounds and perspectives led to better business performance and problem-solving. h22. Capitalize on Demand/h2pThe construction industry is currently experiencing a labor shortage. The industry itself is booming and projected to be one of the fastest-growing industries, with total spending projected to exceed $1.45 trillion in 2023/a. However, most construction companies are unable to meet the rising demand. pAccording to the Associated General Contractors of America/a, more than 80% of contractors are experiencing difficulties filling hourly craft positions that represent the bulk of the construction workforce.pAnd demand isnt limited to individual contributor roles. Given the industry boom, there are a number of open stable and high-paying roles (any project managers out there?) waiting for the right candidateh23. Leadership Opportunities/h2pAccording to the Bureau of Labor Statistics/a, women compose only 7.7% of the total 1 million managerial positions in construction.br/pBut given the highly collaborative nature of construction work, more women in leadership roles would help drive neuschpfung and enhance productivity.Furthermore, as a woman in construction in a leadership position, youd have the unique opportunity to drive change for the industry and make it a more attractive option for other women.h24. Hig h-Income Potential/h2pSalaries for many skilled positions in construction are on the rise, making a construction career a prime choice for women looking for a high-paying job,pThe 2018 Construction Craft Salary Surveyconducted by the National Center for Construction Education and Research revealed that salaries for many skilled craft areas are increasing. Project managers and project supervisors topped the list at $92,523 and $88,355, respectively. The next set of highest-paying jobs include those of combo welders ($71,067), instrumentation technicians ($70,080), pipe welders ($69,222), power line workers ($68,262) and industrial electricians ($67,269). Of the 32 categories of workers in the survey, 19 positions earned an average salary of $60,000 or higher.h25. Sense of accomplishment/h2p The construction industry can give employees a unique sense of achievement. Yes, the job is stressful and the work can be demanding, but nothing beats the feeling of being able to build something from the ground up. pHow many professionals in other industries can point at a school, a hospital, or a skyscraper and say I helped build that?pThe construction industry has a long way to go in combating gender bias and supporting women in the workforce, but given the current demand for workers, theres no better time to pick up a sledgehammer (figurative or literal) and smash the gender stereotypes plaguing the construction industry.