Women of Makers — Alice Lieutier
In the lead up to our International Women’s Day event on March 8th, we’re releasing a series of blog posts on the women who make Makers.
Alice joined Makers as a technical coach in 2018. She was previously CTO at SheCanCode and has held various software development roles at high profile tech companies including Facebook.
What’s your career background?
When I moved to London my boyfriend at the time was working for a Silicon Valley company and introduced me to a network of developers from top Californian companies. It made me realise that these roles were in my reach so I began to apply for jobs while continuing to learn new tech. Having secured a role at a startup I later went on to work for Facebook after winning a hackathon event they held. I gained confidence over the three years that I worked there but, like most people, I still battled with imposter syndrome from time to time.
After Facebook I became CTO at SheCanCode, a start-up that connected women to opportunities in tech. It was a great experience and I loved working in a company run by women.
When did you start considering a career in technology?
I liked Maths from a young age. My dad’s a mathematician and developer and from very early in life got me excited about problem solving and logic games.
It wasn’t until much later however, after I finished my studies, that I realised problem solving in the form of coding, could become a career. I did an internship in a web agency in Buenos Aires and really enjoyed it so when I moved back to France I began working at a tech company that a friend worked at and I never looked back.
What resources or coding organisations would you recommend to get into coding? Are there any that are can specifically support women?
I like freeCodeCamp to learn about web development, and exercism for programming languages. I think it’s more important to find a community of practice than resources though. We often underestimate how much we learn from spending time with other developers. Whatever you want to learn, the resources are out there, but only by spending time with a community will you be able to discern which skills and concepts are important.
What do you feel are the biggest challenges for women in tech?
The lack of role models. It’s tough that there’s not a lot of well known female programmers out there. It makes it difficult to see what you could become. Men’s voices are more prominent in the industry, even in blogs you read. If men are the ones that are represented then their ideas are taken as truth. This is the thing that’s blocking us. Women need to bringing our voices out there.
What’s your proudest career moment?
It’s not much of a moment, but more of a slow realisation, over the last few years, that I’ve acquired more of a growth mindset and self-awareness. In turn, this has led me to do my job with a lot more confidence, to the point where I feel happy with my work, and empowered to make the changes I need to. This sounds cheesy, but recently I’ve felt more accomplished internally, and that, more than any external recognition is what makes me proud.
How have organisations you’ve worked done well in supporting their female colleagues?
At Facebook we had unconscious bias management training which was about recognising and accepting that we all have biases. Starting from the point where you accept we all have them and understanding how they affect decision making is a useful starting point to open conversation. It makes it a lot easier to talk about it when someone’s made a mistake. Bias is a common thing that exists.
The second thing was safe spaces for women. It’s hard to be heard sometimes when people don’t share the same experiences as you so it’s important to have a place where you can gather with other women and share what’s happened to you in your career. It always makes sense to create a social bond, especially for people in a minority. It’s sometimes a controversial measure but I believe it’s essential, being able to share stories and have no one gaslight you.
How could companies improve in supporting women?
Hire more women and if necessary, fire more men. Create a culture where it’s ok to be a woman and invest in them by providing support and training. It’s also important to highlight all of the non-work things that women do. Make a conscious, explicit effort to share these tasks rather than letting women naturally pick them up. There’s a talk called “Being Glue” that talks about this, I could see a lot of my own career in what it talks about.
It’s also on companies to cut the jargon in job ads and recognise what the real important skills are, rather than just a list of words. Maybe men still apply because they want this status of having all these “skills” but those job ads are old school. It’s a shame for companies because they’re missing out on great female talent.
What would your advice be for women looking to start a career in tech?
Find other people in tech. They may be a woman or not but just having that community really helps to understand what the norms are. When you don’t feel good in your job it’s useful to have other people around you as points of reference. The other one is don’t be afraid. It’s tough advice to apply. A lot of women don’t go as far as they would like to, believing jobs are out of their reach. No one gets those jobs without going for them. It’s fine to fail, it’s fine to make mistakes, I would really encourage women put themselves out there.
