Goodbye Zoe

You were full of life, joy, and love. We talked about changing the world, but the light you brought to it already had. We will miss you.

The Women (I know) in Tech

Over the last few months there's been a lot of public discussion / accusation / explanation around why there are few women working at technology startups.

Silicon Alley Insider pointed out the lack of women applying to "maker" (engineers, product managers, and designers) positions at small tech companies. TechCrunch asked everyone to stop blamming men (I agree with their argument), but then also published a fairly upsetting post by a guest blogger explaining that women would rather have children than run startups.

All of this discussion around the "mythical" woman in tech confounds me. I know a number of smart, ambitious women in technology. So I wonder, why doesn't tech press doesn't notice them as well?

My opinion is that women in tech (at least the ones I know) focus on Getting Things Done more than talking about Getting Things Done, and therefore don't build as strong of a public reputation as our male counterparts... but that's just one explanation ;)

Anyways, to dispel the myth and prove that we do exist, I thought I'd shine the spotlight on the awesome women engineers, product managers, and designers (aka: "makers") that I've worked with. Not all of them are in startups, but they are all fantastic.

Here we go... 
(Bold indicates they are at a startup, or were early enough at their company that it was a startup when they joined.)
(Also note, these are only the Engineers, Product Managers, and Designers I know... I should likely add women in other fields. But this list is in response to SAI's article which specifically spoke of women "makers", and other fields are generally more gender-balanced). 

1. Amanda Peyton (Co-Founder, MessageParty)
2. Amy Chang (Director of Product Management, Google)
3. Amy Wu (Product Manager, Google)
4. Andrea Sharfin (Product Manager, Flixster)
5. Ashley Granata (Co-founder, Fashism)
6. Avni Shah (Product Manager, Google)
7. Beth Liebert (Product Manager, Google; Product Manager, Ideo)
8. Bhanu Narasimhan (Product Manager, Google)
9. Bindu Reddy (Co-founder, MyLikes, Product Manager, Google)
10. Brooke Moreland (Co-founder, Fashism)
11. Daisy Stanton (Software Engineer, Google)
12. Elaine Montgomery (Head of User Experience Client Access, Deutsche Bank; UX Designer & Manager, Google) 
13. Ellen Beldner (Principle Designer, LinkedIn; Director of User Experience, ChoiceVendor; Designer, Google) 
14. Hannah Tang (Software Engineer, Google)
15. Hayley Barna (Co-founder, Birchbox) 
16. Heike Schmitz (Former Engineering Manager at Google)
17. Hilary Mason (Scientist, Bit.ly; Co-Founder, HackNY.org)
18. Irene Au (Head of User Experience, Google; VP of User Experience, Yahoo) 
19. Jen Fitzpatrick (VP of Engineering, Google)
20. Jenna Bilotta (Senior UX Designer, Google)
21. Jessica Cheng (Co-founder, Color; Software Engineer, Google)
22. Johanna Wright (Director of Product Management on Search at Google) 
23. Julie Jalalpour (CRM Project Manager, Twitter) 
24. Julie Parent (Software Engineer, Google)
25. Katie Jacobs Stanton (VP, Twitter; Product Manager, Google)
26. Kerah Cottrell (Web Designer; Senior UI Designer, Google)
27. Kristina Holst (Engineering Manager, Facebook; Software Engineer, Google)
28. Laura Granka (User Experience Researcher, Google)
29. Leslie Yeh Johnson (Product Manager, Google)
30. Lori Park (Software Engineer & Product Manager, Google) 
31. Lucy Zhang (Co-founder, Beluga; Software Engineer, Google) 
32. Mari Sheibley (Lead Visual Designer, foursquare) 
33. Marisa Bauer (Software Engineer, Google)
34. Marissa Evans (Founder, Go Try It On)
35. Marissa Mayer (VP of Location & Local Services, Google; VP of Search Product and User Experience, Google) 
36. Maryam Kamvar Garrett (Senior Software Engineer, Google)
37. Maureen Heymans (Senior Staff Software Engineer, Google) 
38. Mina Radhakrishnan (Product Manager, ModCloth; Product Manager, Google) 
39. Minnie Ingersoll (Product Manager, Google)
40. Mira Dontcheva (Research Scientist, Adobe) 
41. Mizuki McGrath (Engineering Director, Search & Ads)
42. Natala Menezes (Senior Product Manager, Amazon)
43. Neha Narula (PhD Candidate MIT, Software Engineer, Google)
44. Niniane Wang (CTO, Minted; Engineering Manager, Google; Engineering Manager, Microsoft) 
45. Nori Heikkinen (Software Engineer, Google)
46. Radha Chandika (Software Engineer, Google) 
47. Renee Levie Budak (Founder, The Testing Team; Director of Product Management and Quality Assurance, MyLawsuit.com) 
48. Rose Yao (Product Manager, Facebook; Senior Product Manager, Google) 
49. Roseanne Marie DeHaven Wincek (Cofounder, ImTheMusic) 
50. Ruchira S. Datta (Software Engineer, Google)
51. Sha-Mayn Teh (Staff Software Engineer/Engineering Manager, Google)
52. Sheridan Kates (Product Manager, Google)
53. Sheryl Sandberg (COO, Facebook; VP, Global Online Sales & Operations, Google)
54. Shimrit Ben-Yair (Product Manager, Google; Software Engineer, Actimize & Nice Systems)
55. Shirin Oskooi (Director of Product Management at DriverSide, Product Manager, Google)
56. Siobhan Quinn (myself - Product Manager, foursquare; Product Manager & Software Engineer @ Google)
57. Soraya Darabi (Co-founder, Foodspotting)
58. Steph Hannon (Product Manager, Google; Software Engineer, Cisco)
59. Susan Wojcicki (VP of Product, Adwords & AdSense at Google) 
60. Tammy Camp (CEO at ComCorp, Inc)
61. Tessa MacDuff (Senior Software Engineer, Google) 
62. Tina Chen (Designer, Google) 
63. Tina Huang (Software Engineer, Twitter; Software Engineer, Google) 
64. Yael Shacham Shazeer (Senior Product Manager, Google)

 ... and these are only the women I know directly. There's tons more of amazing tech women building great, impactful products. I hope this little post helps them get the recognition they deserve!

And if you know any great female Product Managers, Engineers, or Designers, please add them in the comments. Would love this list to grow!