I spent 34 years as an engineer in the automotive controls business. The past 12 years of my experience was as an engineering group manager. I had the privilege of working with many technically talented people, and many of the technically talented people I worked with were women.
I had plenty of opportunities to discuss career development with many employees. An issue that frequently arose in my discussions only seemed to come up in my conversations with women. The issue that surprised me was how many women engineers were critical of their technical capability. The first time I became aware of this was when the company I was working for was going through a difficult financial time and was laying off people. One of my colleagues, who was also a good friend of mine, asked me, “What am I going to do if I lose my job?” I was stunned that she asked me the question. I said, “Well, you’ll pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and find another job.” I was stunned because this woman was a technical trailblazer in our company. She started her career in the company when there were very few women in technical roles. She was in a highly technical job, and she was very good at it. She was a few years older than I was, and I always looked up to her as a role model of what an excellent, technical engineer should be. I had such great respect for her that I tried to pattern part of my career based on her example. She didn’t lose her job, and she continued to be a great technical leader with the company until the day she retired. I was fortunate to work with her and learn from her great work.
The company went through another difficult time when they were doing voluntary buyouts and involuntary layoffs. At this time, I had another colleague reach out to me who had been an expert software developer in the company when I first worked with her. Her career advanced, and she eventually moved into a role where she was managing the execution of software builds. It was an extremely important job in the company and a role that required someone with strong technical software skills. This woman said to me that she was worried about losing her job, and that she no longer had the technical skills she needed to develop software again. I encouraged her, and told her that she could go back and do software development again, and that the skills she had in her current role were also valuable and marketable.
Another female employee said to me during the difficult corporate downturn, that she too was nervous about her skills because she was no longer writing code and only doing project management with business partners in Southeast Asia. This was shocking to me. What?? Only doing project management with an emerging market!!! Why didn’t she think this was a marketable technical skill if she lost her job? The company she was currently working for needed the skill. Why didn’t she think other companies would need the same skill?
Many of these women had skills that were comparable or better than the skills their male colleagues had, and yet, for some reason they couldn’t see it. Was it a culture that drove this thinking? I often hear women stating that they have soft skills, and that it’s people skills that women bring to the company. That may be true in some cases, but it’s not just soft skills that women bring. Women bring great technical skills as well. I know that I went to a great engineering school and worked hard to get the same engineering degree that men I worked with got. I know I truly have comparable skills.
Leaders need to encourage women in technical roles. Leaders and peers should stop women when they say things like they only bring soft skills to their work. Planning women’s careers with strong technical development roles can also go a long way for any woman whether she chooses to be a technical leader or a people leader. Human Resources also has a role to ensure that diversity in higher level technical roles exists and that women are part of the development plan to fill those roles.
Can you make a difference where you’re at in your company? Can you encourage a female colleague who may not have the confidence she should to believe she is a strong technical contributor and can take on complex, technical roles? All of us have a role to play in encouraging women in engineering!
Copyright 2019 Beyond the General LLC.
Jeanette Kurnik is CEO of Beyond the General LLC. She has 34 years of automotive controls engineering experience and is an advocate for women in engineering.
Beyond the General 