1. More women in
engineering
Something that ACTUALLY WORKED.
Kellan Elliott-McCrea
@kellan
Etsy, CTO
Monday, October 8, 12

2. ?
Monday, October 8, 12

3. A quick history
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4. Jan 2011
47 engineers: 44 men, 3 women.
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5. Dec 2011
85 engineers: 81 men, 4 women.
a 35% decline in gender diversity
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6. Something wasn’t
working.
a 35% decline in gender diversity
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7. ?
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8. Why?
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9. https://www.etsy.com/listing/90013032/vintage-doll-arms-bag-hook-jewelry
Monday, October 8, 12

10. Why?
80% of our customers are
women.
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11. Why?
50% of our staff are women.
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12. Why?
I love being an
engineer.
Monday, October 8, 12

13. Why?
Cognitive diversity
* Nosh at Kellogg.
* Malone at Sloane.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/liquidmoonlightcom/6611619613/
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14. Why?
Better recruiting
opportunities.
41% of Harvard’s CompSci class of 2013 are women.
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15. ?
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16. Just saying internally
wasn’t enough.
There was no reason for an outside observer to
believe us.
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17. Switching costs are
high.
Great engineers aren’t looking for a job.
Great women engineers aren’t looking for a job, and
there is a decent chance your company sucks.
Monday, October 8, 12

18. Lowering standards is
counter-productive.
Leads to a long term downward spiral.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/33909700@N02/3159698458
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19. Most technical
interviews suck.
Biased against a diverse range of folks including:
introverts, and left handed people.
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20. “Quick, prove to me
how smart you are.”
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21. “Quick, prove to me
how smart you are.”
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22. What we learned.
* just saying it internally isn’t credible
* switching cost make hiring great women engineers
especially hard
* lowering your standards is actively harmful
* most technical interviews suck, and undermine
your diversity goals
Monday, October 8, 12

23. The thing that ACTUALLY
WORKED.
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27. Monday, October 8, 12

28. Etsy Hacker Grants
What we offered
• Etsy sponsored the summer
session of Hacker School
• Expected 40 students, aimed for
20+ women
• Offered 10, $5,000 needs-based
scholarships for women to attend
• Class is free, but NYC isn’t
• Classes take place at Etsy offices
Monday, October 8, 12

29. “We’re asking everyone in the Etsy
community, and everyone who reads this
post, to help us spread the word to women
they know who love hacking. If you know a
woman who has made an awesome
personal website, a great iPhone app, or
anything of the sort, please encourage her
to apply.” - Marc Hedlund, Etsy VP of
Engineering
Monday, October 8, 12

30. Monday, October 8, 12

31. Hacker School Applicants
Before and after the Hacker Grants program
661 women
7 women
140 men 182 men
Spring 2012 (before grants) Summer 2012 (with grants)
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32. The batch
Who showed up?
• Spring (before grants)
• 7 women applied, 3 accepted,
only 1 attended
• Summer (with grants)
• 661 women applied, 24
accepted, 23 attended
Monday, October 8, 12

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37. "The people here are phenomenal. I never realized
the impact of being the only female in the room
until I wasn’t. Every person here is smart,
interesting, funny, supportive, capable, and very
different from one another. The skill sets vary from
designer, web developer, pastry chef, functional
programmer, physics postdoc, astrophysicist,
financial analyst, CS student, hardware engineer,
etc, etc. I’m inspired by all of them."
- Martha Kelly , Etsy Engineer. Start date Oct 3,
2012
bit.ly/in-the-room
Monday, October 8, 12

38. “This is how it should be.
batch[3]‘s balanced gender ratio
didn’t seem like a huge deal at
the time. It just felt normal,
really.” - David Peter
CompSci major @ RIT
http://davidpeter.me/stories/
hacker-school
Monday, October 8, 12

39. After the Summer
* we hired 8 hacker school candidates. 5 women,
and 3 men.
* we've renewed the grant for the Fall
* we have 20 women on our 110 person engineering
team
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40. Very senior
candidates.
“I saw Etsy's work on Hacker School, I
saw what you're doing with the B-Corp
certification, and I want to be a part of
that.”
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41. So that worked.
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42. The grants felt like a
"real invitation".
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43. We’re seen to be
actually working at it.
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44. More data, better
hiring.
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45. More data, better
risks.
The one thing we changed about our
hiring standard.
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46. What we learned.
* just saying it internally isn’t credible
* switching cost make hiring great women engineers
especially hard
* lowering your standards is actively harmful
* most technical interviews suck, and undermine
your diversity goals
Monday, October 8, 12

47. Design parameters for
a solution
* serious, but inviting
* balanced
* optimize for “let’s build together”
* optimize for data gathering
* normalized within your own organization
* very public.
* teams with 0 or 2+ women.
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48. Thank you!
Monday, October 8, 12