“Despite progress, women are, unfortunately, still underrepresented in traditional STEM (science, engineering, technology, and mathematics) fields, but I’ve never experienced anyone questioning my abilities as a result of my gender."
If anything, Julie believes diversity confers an advantage in technology careers. Her first IT position involved implementing a significant financial system that required expertise from someone with a non-technical accounting background who could offer the knowledge the team lacked. Her coworkers appreciated her experience and her curiosity, and she found that by continuously learning, she was able to grow personally and professionally in the technical roles that followed.
“I.T. people tend to be highly analytical and open to new ideas, and ˿ƵAPP has a culture of teamwork. It’s not about who you are – it’s about whether you have that drive to dig into a project as part of a team, to experiment, and to work out solutions together. It doesn’t matter who comes up with a solution as long as the answer addresses the business need. That’s part of what I love about this job. If I had to sit around performing the same tasks over, and over, again for years and years and years, I’d move on. I need to be challenged.”
Still, it’s not easy to look around and find that you are the only woman in a business meeting. Part of what drew Julie to ˿ƵAPP was the number of women in leadership.