* >I want inclusivity, not exclusivity.* I'm glad I'm not the only one who wanted to highlight that one. And despite what has been said downthread, I am going

* >I want inclusivity, not exclusivity.* I'm glad I'm not the only one who wanted to highlight that one. And despite what has been said downthread, I am going to state what I honestly believe. TL;DR: any company who isn't trying to attract female engineers is actively shooting themselves in the foot. Before you jump to any conclusions about my statement, please read on because the issue is both subtle and complex. It doesn't fit into a soundbite. From my experience, after nearly 20 years in the industry and a few more in the university before that, the women who stay in technology field tend to be pretty damn good. As far as I am concerned, the very concept of "Women in Tech" being a thing is, in itself, frustrating. And now comes the subtle part. I don't believe that gender has anything to do with skills or abilities. The statements so far are not contradictory; my experience simply highlights a deep-rooted problem. The question is not "why are the women in our field better?"; it should be "what are we as an industry doing to all the rest? Why are we discouraging and scaring away the non-stellar ones?" Now... my observations are not isolated. I have heard and read from several other sources that this is a not an uncommon situation. There is clearly a bias in play. Either it's selection and observation bias, with only the positive samples showing up ... or it's survivor bias. The latter is a scary thought. ----- From the research I've read, in the UK the average retention time for female engineers in tech companies is about 1 year. Judging purely by that metric, at Smarkets we are probably doing something right - or at least we are not doing notably worse than the industry overall. Of all our female engineering hires, no-one has left. I cannot know, but I think that a good part is that we don't treat our female engineers in any special way. They are engineers. Simple as that.