Recap: Women in Tech in Boston

“Let your freak flag fly!” – Christina Luconi, Rapid7’s CPO. This resonated throughout the event with advice on being yourself, making things work for you, and getting yourself out there. 

Boston techies left with a slew of tips after the Women in Tech Panel at the NERD Center with Tech in Motion Boston.

Tech in Motion Boston wanted to celebrate Women in Tech, which is why they brought together a panel of five female tech leaders in the Boston area to discuss the latest trends surrounding women in technology. Moderated by Boston.com’s Business Content Producer, Laura Crimaldi, the panel consisted of:

• Susan Buck, Co-Founder of the Women’s Coding Collective
• Dana Artz, Executive Director at Intelligent.ly
• Annette Arabasz, Chapter Leader at Girl Develop It: Boston and Creative Technologist at Mad*Pow
• Swati Vakharia, Senior Director of Technology and Development at ESPN
• Christina Luconi, Chief People Officer at Rapid7

Despite particularly heavy traffic, about 150 Boston Techies made it out to the Microsoft NERD Center to network and hear inspiring stories from the panel. After brief introductions, the panel discussed mentors, the state of women in tech today, and career advice.

The panel unanimously agreed that today's leaders need to plant seeds for the youth to learn, and that having mentors is a key factor in being successful. Everyone needs someone backing them up and that includes being your own cheerleader. Christina said “If you don’t believe in yourself, no one else will” and the entire panel agreed.

As far as the state of women in tech, although they had a great year, 2013 just wasn’t quite THE year. “We have traction, but our numbers [in the tech world] are still super low, it’s going to take time for that to catch up,” said Susan Buck of The WCC. One day, the panel hopes that there won’t be a need for panels like this one, and that female technologists can all just be. Annette hopes that one day “It won’t have to be ‘Girl Develop It,’ it can just be ‘Develop It’  and when that happens, we’ll know that women have made it.”

The ladies were full of career advice as well. Some key take away points were:

Be comfortable asking questions and don’t be afraid of asking for more money.

• “I once accidentally asked for 20% more than what I meant and got it, made me realize how much I was undercutting myself.” - Susan

Network, network, network, it will only help, never hinder.

• “Just do it, meet a lot of people!” – Dana Artz

If you don’t have a LinkedIn profile, you need to get one.

• “People think that employers aren’t looking on social media these days, but they are, we will Google search you, and one of the first things employers DO is look at your LinkedIn.” – Swati

Be open to showcasing your work online so more than just a profile shows up in searches.

• “Go on stackoverflow, github, and have a blog, it not only showcases what you can do, it shows that you’re an interesting person.” – Annette

Be proactive, constantly learn, and constantly do.

• “Go make things happen,” “Companies love awesome people and need to be savvy about who will fit with their company, but you also need to decide if the company is a good fit for you.” – Christina

The evening wrapped up with an audience Q&A session, with active members asking relevant and thoughtful questions. As always, there was socializing and networking where new friendships and business relationships were made.