The Importance of Diversity in DevOps Culture and Women in DevOps

Careers in computer technology have traditionally been dominated by men, but this is changing. Diversity in information technology is becoming more important, and Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) skills are not gender, colour, ethnicity, or location specific. The more diverse the industry's applicant pool, the better for the profession and the organisations who recruit SREs. Creating chances for everybody in a DevOps culture, in my opinion, is the future of the space, and we can all benefit from a more diverse team dynamic.

How More Women Can Help DevOps Culture Succeed

Transparency, cooperation, communication, and shared accountability are all hallmarks of a DevOps culture. Women are prone to this attitude by nature. Unfortunately, women have experienced impediments to entering technical positions for many years. That is changing, but there is still work to be done.

There are several benefits to diversity for a company, particularly the inclusion of additional female voices, including:

• Diverse thoughts and experiences are driving creativity.
• demonstrating a company's dedication to generating opportunity for all
• Increasing the talent pool, particularly in a profession where demand exceeds supply.
• Helping with staff engagement and retention as a result of increased representation

The Status of Women in Technology

More women are entering technical fields as a consequence of initiatives to promote young girls to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). Those sensitive young brains are also seeing women in technical leadership positions.

Indeed, the National Science Foundation (NSF) issued a report indicating that more women are pursuing STEM degrees. They are swiftly catching up to men in terms of the number of bachelor's degrees awarded in science and engineering.

However, the number of women pursuing computer science degrees is stable, but not at the same rate as males. In 2019, 17,786 women received computer science degrees, while 67,288 males did. According to the NSF survey, just 38% of female computer science degree holders work in the area.

This data is also supported by industry surveys. In the State of DevOps Report 2020, a survey of DevOps experts, just 16% of 2,400 respondents identified as female (That was slightly up from 2019, where 15 percent of respondents identified as women).

Only 7.9 percent of respondents in the Stack Overflow Annual Developer Survey from the United States, India, and the United Kingdom identified as female. According to the same study, DevOps experts are 28 times more likely to be male than female. According to the poll, it is the most diverse function of IT positions. For SREs, the contrast is slightly lower (22 times).

How can we all work together to close the gap?

Bridging the Gender Gap

There are several fantastic organisations and groups attempting to narrow this gap. It's a three-pronged strategy of education, advocacy, and action.

Women in DevOps a global effort to elevate the voices and increase possibilities for women and minorities in the profession, is one example. This organisation has made significant progress in normalising women in the profession. It has collaborated with companies such as Sony, Deliveroo, Expedia, Facebook, and Deloitte.

The National Center for Women and Information Technology is another. With the concept that inclusiveness produces better communities and futures, the organisation targets K-12, higher education, and businesses. Microsoft, Bank of America, Google, Intel, and Merck are among its partners.

Employers are also emphasising diversity programmes and promising to hire more women in technical areas. American Express, E*Trade, Microsoft, Eventbrite, AutoNation, and PwC are a few examples.

These groups are advancing the discourse around diversity. They are walking the walk, not simply talking the talk. There are champions for underrepresented groups.

What about Pay Equity?

Pay discrepancy is another part of addressing the gender gap. Equality at work also implies that women are paid the same as men with equivalent experience. The gap is closing throughout the whole digital sector. According to a ChartHop analysis, males in technology will earn 22% more than women in 2020. However, this was a decrease from 30% in 2018. This disparity is somewhat bigger than the national average across all industries in the United States, which is 18%.

In the case of SREs, women earn around £3,500 less than males. As a recruiter in the sector, I don't feel there should be different pay ranges for men and women. To attain real justice, businesses must base remuneration only on experience.

Why I Believe Diversity Is Important in DevOps

Thought, background, and experience uniformity seldom leads to creativity and originality. There are no distinct viewpoints if a team is a sea of sameness. That combination may be detrimental to any business or department. It concerns me especially for DevOps, which feeds on the balance of diversity (i.e., development and operations).

The statistics on the impact of diversity speaks for itself, demonstrating that it is beneficial to companies. Diversity benefits businesses in a variety of ways and may lead to increased income (companies with above-average diversity scores have 19 percent higher revenues due to innovation.)

According to a McKinsey analysis on diversity, organisations that embrace gender diversity on leadership teams are 21% more likely to achieve above-average profitability and beat competitors on value creation by 27%.

According to a Pew Research study (2015), people who identify as women are better at negotiating concessions, being ethical, and mentoring—all of which are desirable attributes in a DevOps culture.

Aside from the research, I know from personal experience that diversity allows businesses to grow and be more nimble.

Female DevOps Leaders Are Charting a New Path for Others

A few female DevOps engineers I'd like to mention have remarkable tales and are fantastic examples of breaking through boundaries.

Jessica Kalinowski works as the associate director of reliability engineering at Chewy, a pet supply and care e-commerce website. To be in charge of reliability on such a high-traffic, sophisticated site as this takes exceptional leadership and experience.

Transposit, a DevOps orchestration platform, is led by Tina Huang and Divanny Lamas. Huang and Lamas are brilliant technical brains establishing a new route where diversity is non-negotiable.

Karen Windus of OneLogin and Javeria Khan of Snowflake are two more trailblazing women in DevOps. Both have outstanding DevOps backgrounds and are truly changing the game.

The DevOps Future: Why Women Will Only Help the Culture

Increasing the amount of women in DevOps will only benefit the culture of the space. More businesses will aim for diversity, realising that it makes teams stronger and more effective. Women exemplify DevOps principles, and the DevOps culture matches well with diverse participants. They bring to the sector traits and talents that will drive DevOps efficiency and success even farther.

So the question is, “What are your plans for increasing diversity in DevOps recruiting?”

To discuss how Aston Robinson can be of service in your DevOps Recruitment please get in touch today.