The low participation of women is a well-known shortcoming in the technology sector and should be a major concern to any organization. The leadership work can start with raising awareness and open communication about gender, diversity, and psychological safety issues. One point that can be stressed is to clarify concepts, for example, that when one discusses diversity, it’s about gender, racial, or socioeconomic representation, while inclusion is about everyone feeling good about their work and wanting to stay in the company. There’s no point in having one without the other.
According to a 2024 study by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization), only 35% of graduates in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) careers worldwide are women, and they occupy only a quarter of jobs in science, engineering, and information and communication technology (ICT). In the United States, a report by the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) pointed out that, by 2023, only 27% of computer professionals would be women. In Brazil, the proportion of female STEM graduates was only 26% in 2020.
Due to a series of social conventions that are still in force, women go into the exact sciences in smaller numbers. And those who do go on face several hurdles, such as:
- Discrimination in the job market
- Pay discrepancies
- Slower promotion velocity
- Fewer opportunities in management positions
- Harassment and bullying
- Unfair challenges of reconciling work and personal life
One of the simpler initiatives that companies can adopt to increase the representation of more diverse groups is a practice of, in recruitment interviews for more senior positions, having at least one woman and at least one person from another underrepresented group among both the interviewees and the interviewers.
Even though the stated objective of this type of high-level hiring is to choose the best person for the job, without imposing racial or gender quotas, the simple act of bringing diversity to the selection process can increase the participation, for example, of women in executive positions. At Microsoft, between 2020 and 2023, with the adoption of this procedure, the proportion of executive positions held by women rose from 24% to 29.3%.
It’s a slow change, and it is true that, in many people’s view, not adopting quotas for senior positions may not be enough to change the situation in the short term. However, the most structural change in building a diverse workforce should come from entry-level positions.
Firm management action, however, allows transformation to take place organically, with programs like:
- Mentoring for women (and underrepresented minorities)
- Support so that they can better reconcile their careers with pregnancy and breastfeeding
- Formal training programs to combat bias and prejudice
The simple act of bringing diversity to the selection process can increase the participation, for example, of women in executive positions.
Marcus Fontoura
Marcus Fontoura is a technical fellow and CTO for Azure Core at Microsoft, and author of A Platform Mindset. He works on efforts related to large-scale distributed systems, data centers, and engineering productivity. Fontoura has had several roles as an architect and research scientist in big tech companies, such as Yahoo! and Google, and was most recently the CTO at Stone, a leading Brazilian fintech.
