Happy International Women’s Day! March 8th celebrates the social, economic, cultural, and political achievement of women. As part of our celebration today, we (Autumn and Elise) are reflecting on the state of women at Formidable.
As technology workers, we are lucky to be some of the most privileged employees around, receiving benefits like fully-paid health, 401(k) matching, and even perks like gym memberships and in-office massages. We recognize that we are incredibly fortunate to have such great benefits, and are thankful that Formidable has taken its benefits to the next level to make the work environment as women- and family-friendly as possible. We want to take a moment to review those benefits since they are part of why we enjoy working here so much:
- A working-mom friendly environment: we are both working moms and understand the balancing act moms play every day. To support these schedules, Formidable is part-time friendly and always allows flexible schedules plus work from home.
- Generous parental leave: Formidable offers 16 weeks of fully paid maternity leave and 8 week paternity/adoptive parental leave.
- Non male-normative extracurricular activities: while we love drinking beer and playing ping pong as much as everyone else, those activities are indicative of a male-centered tech culture. We actively pursue other kinds of social activities for all employees regardless of gender (for example, tomorrow’s happy hour is at a nail salon).
- Culture of giving back: Formidable matches nonprofit donations up to $1000 per employee.
As part of this post, we also wanted to reflect on our employee statistics as a means of accountability and transparency.
- 27% of our staff is comprised of women.
- 17% of our software development staff is women.
While we’re proud of our stats, we recognize that not only is there room for improvement, but Formidable has an obligation to work towards gender parity. The company’s goal in 2017 is to bring our development staff from an average of 17% female up to 25%.
Seattle is pretty rad for women in software development, and we’re glad to be located here. I (Elise) would be remiss if I didn’t give a shout out to another Seattle organization and my last company, the amazing women-focused coding program, Ada Developers Academy. As one of the cofounders of the program, it has been amazing to see the reach that the program has achieved in 5 short years - Adies are everywhere in Seattle, and I’m hoping we get one on board at Formidable ASAP, too. There are enthusiastic, wicked-smart women coming through coding academies at ever-increasing numbers and Formidable is committed to shining a light on their potential.
Want to be part of Formidable’s commitment to gender parity and changing the face of the modern web? Check out our careers page. Don’t see a job posting that fits your talents? Send us an email and tell us about yourself, your skills, and how you could help Formidable. We look forward to hearing from you!
Love,
Autumn, Director of Operations (autumn.sakai@formidable.com)
Elise, Director of Business Development (elise.worthy@formidable.com)
