International Women's Day, Part 3: Join Us in Celebrating Our Women@ Community
Even though Women’s History Month is over, we are really just getting started on our work. We know how important it is to keep our feet on the gas, and continue creating opportunities for visibility and awareness. So, what does that look like? At Harness, we’re building out our pillars of Allyship, Collaboration, and Recognition and Visibility – what specific milestones we want to achieve this year, how we will measure what success looks like, and how much budget and support will be needed to reach our goals.
We’ve got a speakers series planned on a quarterly basis, a women’s development summit planned for later this year, and are collaborating with our Marketing team to ensure we have representation of women at our upcoming conference {unscripted} (Live in San Francisco this September!) as well as a women@ networking event. We’re also working to highlight our current female employees internally, and how to engage allies to ensure everyone is included in the growth journey for females at Harness.
It’s exciting to talk about (and even more exciting to execute), but it also takes a lot of work to move the needle. In the final blog post of the series, we invite you to join in on one of our core values here at Harness – Celebrate Together – to finish getting to know the team who is responsible for all this great work!
Meet Our Women@ Leaders
Introduce yourself! Who are you, what is your day job, and why are you part of the women@harness ERG leadership team?
I'm Karuna and I am part of the Talent Management Team supporting India Engineering as a HR Manager.
I am excited to be part of the women@harness ERG leadership team and I extend my support to the endeavor of having a safe space for our teammates to bring their whole self to work. The opportunity to realize and become aware that we are all in it together, leveraging diversity of thought and experience, and most importantly, having the possibility to create an impact really excites me.
This year’s International Women’s Day theme is #BreakTheBias. What is one way you help bust biases at work/on your teams?
The first step to breaking the bias is becoming self-aware of our patterns and behaviors and the impact it has on our decision making and career. The one way I help bust biases at the workplace is to help people reflect on the way they are thinking by asking questions. The ability to question oneself in multiple ways to ensure one's decisions are not based on any bias is key to developing a fair and enriching workplace.
What is one piece of advice you would like to share with your younger self?
We are all owners of our careers! Willingness to constantly push yourself out of your comfort zone and embracing failure as a learning and stepping stone to success is advice I would give myself.
Introduce yourself! Who are you, what is your day job, and why are you part of the women@harness ERG leadership team?
Hello All! My name is Marie Antons and I am a career changer from the Hospitality industry – I transitioned into tech by sheer coincidence. It all started with the desire to build my own pasta website, which led me to join a 20 week bootcamp. Fast forward two years, I am now the Community Engineer focused on our FOSS (Free and Open Source) offerings here at Harness.
Being a community engineer involves everything from answering questions with our users on any of our social media channels to scheduling deeper troubleshooting 1:1s to get them where they need to be. Outside of work, you can find me cooking a great meal, volunteering and mentoring with my favorite tech community Virtual Coffee, cycling, or on the Island of Bermuda Sailing and exploring.
I joined the women@harness ERG leadership team so that I can support and connect with women at Harness, as well as be an inspiration to women looking to get into tech. My experience in the two years I have been in tech is that it is very male-dominated. This will only change if we advocate and bring visibility to the women here and who are trying to get a career in tech.
This year’s International Women’s Day theme is #BreakTheBias. What is one way you help bust biases at work/on your teams?
Assessing one's unconscious biases and investing time in bettering these biases will go a long way. Within Harness, I am trying to build and maintain a diverse and inclusive community for our users via our forum and Slack. When I head to tech conferences, I focus on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion sessions to educate myself and set myself up to build a better Harness Community for our customers.
How can men help make women feel more welcome in tech?
We can help women feel more welcomed in tech by investing in their goals and aspirations more. We need to really invest in their career paths, what drives them, and how to motivate them. Helping the women on our teams know that there is a safe space to voice opinions and concerns will also be crucial to helping women feel more welcomed in tech. This all boils down to one of Harness’ core values, which is Remember the Human. Our diverse backgrounds bring a lot to tech and to Harness. We should embrace our unique perspectives.
Introduce yourself! Who are you, what is your day job, and why are you part of the women@harness ERG leadership team?
Hi! My name is Sophie Manum, I’m a Technical Customer Success Manager based in the Bay Area, focusing on making sure our customers are successful in the investments they’ve made in Harness. I’m excited to join the women@harness ERG leadership team to support, connect, and bring visibility to the women at Harness. There is still a lot of work to be done to narrow the gender gap in tech. We need to continue to build allyship, promote women, and create spaces where they can thrive. I’m hoping that our programs for the women@harness ERG will move the needle in these areas.
This year’s International Women’s Day theme is #BreakTheBias. What is one way you help bust biases at work/on your teams?
I work with many different customers of Harness, in varying industries. While most of the customers’ employees I work with are men, there are a few women. My goal is to give extra support and recognition to the women I work with, by ensuring that they have a voice in our meetings and are not being talked over by their male colleagues. I would also like to open up the opportunity for them to be featured on our Women of DevOps podcast at Harness.
What is one piece of advice you would like to share with your younger self?
Don’t be afraid to ask for help :)
Conclusion
Dear readers, we wonder what your companies are doing to help move the needle. Let us know what has worked, what hasn’t, or reach out to the team to see if we can collaborate on an event together. Elevating the conversation and including more people in the narrative is important to make a change in the industry, and we’re here for it!
Or, if you want to get even more involved with the work we’re doing, you’re in luck, because we are hiring across all departments and geos! As they say, timing is everything. Interested, but not quite yet? Join our Harness Talent Community on LinkedIn to stay connected and in the know!