Etsy is transforming the boy's club of tech
It's no secret that the male-female ratio in tech is about as skewed as a Star Trek convention. According to one study, only 12% of the bachelor's degrees in CS or CE were awarded to women in 2007. For Etsy, that sounded like a challenge.
In April of last year, Etsy announced a scholarship and sponsorship program for women in tech. The company hosted the summer 2012 session of Hacker School and also provided ten Etsy Hacker Grants of $5000 to women who needed financial support. The program proved a massive success - 650 women applied and 23 attended - and Etsy renewed the program in the fall, with larger grants and class size.
Internally, the program has seen some success as well - Etsy currently has twenty women on its 110-person engineering team - an 18% increase from the previous year. As CTO Kellan Elliott-McCrea explained at First Round Capital's Annual CTO Summit, "Simply saying that you value diversity internally isn't enough. There's just no reason for an outside observer to believe you if they come and see a scarcity of women in the organization."
That's just the tip of the cultural iceberg at Etsy - in the past, we've highlighted their personalized desks and Etsyoga classes.
There are over 35 available positions in their Dumbo HQ - check them out here.
Now go forth (and hear me roar).
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