Hanging out with women engineers at Google

One of the problems girls face when considering a career in computing is the lack of female role models. It’s hard to aspire to be what you can’t see.

To help redress this, the CS on Air team in partnership with Women Techmakers have started an informal series of hangouts with women engineers across Google.

Each tells the story of how they discovered their passion for computing, and gives advice for others considering pursuing it as a career. We learn about the kind of projects they’ve worked on and why they’ve personally found computing to be such an exciting field of study and work.

So far we’ve recorded three of these short conversations, featuring engineers from across Europe:

• Beryl Nelson, Software Engineering Manager in Krakow, Poland came late to computer science, as an extension of her Masters degree in genetic biochemistry. She’s since had a long programming career, spanning India, Japan and Poland, while also raising a family.

• Mandy Waite, Developer Advocate in London, UK studied radio and TV mechanics and transitioned to computing early in her career, creating software for printing imagery. At Google she works with startups, supporting them in using Google’s cloud platform and API’s.

• Ania Marszalek, Software Engineer in Zurich, Switzerland discovered her love of programming at high school. She now makes software tools that monitor the performance of Google Maps, allowing the team to pinpoint any areas that need improving and fix them fast.

Over the coming months we plan to continue the series and extend it to other regions, so it can be a resource for teachers, career counselors, and women everywhere considering a career in computing.  Check out the CS on Air listings to see upcoming episodes.

Posted by Alison Cutler, Pre-University Education Outreach