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The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

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Re: The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

#11

Post by test1235 »

rdl wrote: post #7

I guess I've mainly worked in environments where it's "operations manager" and an entire ops team, and where they handle things related to revenue or technology (logistics, travel, facilities, equipment, security, etc.), but I've never really seen the operations role as female. Probably less female than any other department with the possible exception of some parts of engineering. (In my experience, HR is the vastly-…

QA, design and management is where I've noticed a greater proportion of women outside of HR. What is it about those roles which makes them amenable to women but not tech?

Re: The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

#12

Post by spinlock »

ameister14 wrote: post #8

Running an office is hard to do and a good office manager or HR manager is incredibly valuable. I think you'd be foolish not to recognize that as a founder. I'm sorry that they haven't captivated people the way a rogue engineer can, but an ops or HR person isn't likely to start a company from a dorm room, garage or basement that makes its way to a multi billion dollar IPO. As to the office mom thing; I haven't encoun…

I think that's the author's perspective on it (which I don't think is wrong). The way I see this is that lots of geeks are absolute slobs and they leave dirty dishes, food, etc.. on their desks (and their neighbors desks). I regularly see - female - office managers clean up after the slobs by doing their dishes and throwing out their trash. I've never really considered the "mom" aspect of this before. I just view co-workers like that as disgusting and self centered (the bugs they attract into the office impact everyone not just them).

Re: The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

#14

Post by ericabiz »

The situation described at the tradeshow in this article has also happened to me, repeatedly and consistently. The difference? I AM technical. I just also happen to be a woman.

I love the tech industry. I've been in it professionally since 1997, and I've run tech startups as a CEO for the past 13 years. And if there's one thing I can count on, it's the consistent, pervasive assumption that I'm not technical.

I hate going to tech events with my fiance (or for that matter, any man), because people will come up to us, acknowledge me, and then ask him brightly: "So why are you here?"

I once thought it would be funny to time it and see how long another person could go talking to only him and not making eye contact with me, even when he mentioned that he was at the event because of me. Current record? 13 minutes. 13 minutes of not looking at me, saying a word, or acknowledging that I was there.

Every male that I've ever told this story to can't believe it until they go to parties and see it in action. It's so consistent, yet it's unbelievable until you see it.

This is what it's like to be a woman in tech, even when you're a technical one. It's assumed that you're non-technical. But don't take that into account and lead with your credentials--whoops, no, that's "aggressive" and you shouldn't do that. Don't go to tech parties with a guy because you're assumed to be "the girlfriend." Don't go alone because you'll get hit on. But don't NOT go to tech parties, because that's where you'll meet investors and other potential contacts.

Being a woman in tech is like walking through a maze with minefields at every turn and never knowing which one you'll hit. I'm here because I love this industry and I couldn't imagine doing anything else. But I hate that my physical appearance and gender connotes so many (invalid and ridiculous) assumptions.

Re: The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

#15

Post by rdl »

test1235 wrote: post #11
rdl wrote: post #7

I guess I've mainly worked in environments where it's "operations manager" and an entire ops team, and where they handle things related to revenue or technology (logistics, travel, facilities, equipment, security, etc.), but I've never really seen the operations role as female. Probably less female than any other department with the possible exception of some parts of engineering. (In my experience, HR is the vastly-…

QA, design and management is where I've noticed a greater proportion of women outside of HR. What is it about those roles which makes them amenable to women but not tech?

QA seems really split (even in other industries) between non-technical/non-quantitative QA ("we'll react to faults when identified, handle customer communications, etc.) and highly technical, highly quantified QA (the whole TDD crowd, SEI, etc.)

Even in stuff like pharma, you have people who want to do manual physical inspection and handling recalls, vs. people who want to build statistical controls. Somewhere in between there are human-executed procedure development.

Design seems like a clear case of the "designer pipeline" not having big roadblocks to women anywhere from birth to being a competent designer, unlike (until the past 10 years) some more math-based fields. Pure print design and art are fairly gender balanced, so there was a pool of people there when computer design became a thing; it's probably more likely a great generalist designer early in career would learn about computers and become a computer designer, vs. a math programmer becoming a designer.

Manager, no idea.

Re: The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

#16

Post by spiralpolitik »

A good office manager or PA is worth their weight in gold. Especially one that goes the distance to make sure that everything keeps running smoothly and the business moving forward despite any strange issues. After all I'm sure finding lost luggage or locating mandolin strings in the middle of Austin is a job you want to be troubling your engineers with.

Ask yourself this question. Do you really want to be the one that has to call the building manager every time the toilet gets blocked ?

Re: The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

#17

Post by mw67 »

Unfortunately, when it comes to the tech industry at large, it can also mean a constant battle to justify your intelligence, your value, and your very existence.

If your role isn’t technical, you don’t actually understand the product.

We should remember that some great founders like Steve Jobs were also not writing any code and still added lots of value. IMHO understanding the product mostly mean understanding how users interact with it, not understanding how to code it.

Re: The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

#20

Post by gatsby »

Are these really commonly held beliefs?

--You only take a job in business operations if you aren’t smart enough to be an engineer (or designer, or product manager, or…)

--If your role isn’t technical, you don’t actually understand the product.

I don't think many people actually say or believe this. Maybe these were common thoughts in 1999, but as an SF-based ops guy, I've never heard this.

In fact, I would argue that good business operators have it just as good, if not better, than most engineers right now. Startups like Uber, Postmates, Airbnb, Dropbox, etc. are killing it, and they all have really talented (and highly paid) people in sales, ops, marketing, support, etc.

I think most of us are aware that it takes more than engineers to build a company:

http://blog.42floors.com/year-operations-startups/

http://www.cdixon.org/2014/03/15/full-stack-startups/

http://justinkan.com/exec-errands-post-mortem

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