I don’t know about you, but sitting in front of 4 women speak about their experiences and advice on how they got into tech is my cup of tea.

Incredible panel included

Check them out on Twitter! And search #gdiIndy for more event pics.

We need more women in tech roles

I don’t know about you, but sitting in front of 4 women speak about their experiences and advice on how they got into tech is my cup of tea. Being able to relate to a panelist is super motivating and makes me think “I can do that too!”.

Also, as we know women are being massively underrepresented in the tech industry and we have got to change that. Girl Develop It is a key player working to make an impact by teaching women how to code. In addition, there are lots of strong and motivated women all around the world working contributing - I’m hopeful.

Girl Develop It Indy hosted an amazing panel on February 23rd, 2018 with 4 women that are rockin’ it in the Indianapolis tech space. Their roles ranged from engineers to VP’s and even a Co-founder of a local eCommerce company.

Each of their journeys into tech was unique and some may say unconventional. They each carved their own personal path to enter tech - showing us that having a traditional Computer Science background isn’t the only way in. With that said, don’t be afraid to clear your own path as you kickstart your journey into tech.

Key takeaways

Kristen Hamerstadt, VP of Marketing at SmarterHQ

Take risks. For most of her career Kristen has just closed her eyes and jumped. She started as a receptionist at Exact Target and now is a VP at SmarterHQ.
Try and move laterally within your company, experiment with different roles and teams. If you do this at least once a year, you’ll eventually be able to have enough experience to move up within the company.
“Apply to jobs even if you don’t exactly meet the role description.” Recruiters know it’s hard to find a perfect match on paper. Once you land that interview, sell your willingness to learn.

Angie Stocklin, COO of OneClick Ventures

Angie has a psychology background, started as school psychologist and then co-founded OneClick Ventures with her husband. I freaked when she said she had a psych background, as a psych major I don’t come across many other women in tech with that background.
Having a psychology background has helped her tons in practicing user empathy when building features at OneClick. This applies for any position, think about that end user. Create a product that is multi-faceted and accessible.