This Women’s History Month, Meet Some of Our Women in Engineering

In honor of Women’s History Month, some of our women in engineering sat down to talk about how they got started in the field, what their career paths have looked like, and why they’re proud to be part of Progress.

Observed throughout the month of March every year, Women’s History Month is a celebration of the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women.

Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day, celebrated on March 8, also serves as a call to action—to raise awareness about the challenges women still face all over the world, advocate for women’s equality, and donate to women-focused charities and causes.

This year, the campaign theme for International Women’s Day was #BreakTheBias—an acknowledgment of the implicit and explicit bias that keeps women from moving forward, in any industry and in any location around the globe.

In IT and STEM fields, there is a significant, persistent gap between men and women: Nearly 40% of women in tech say that they see gender bias as an obstacle to getting a promotion, and women occupy fewer than 20% of leadership positions in the tech industry.

Additionally, just 15% of engineering jobs are occupied by women, making it the STEM field in which women are most underrepresented.

While gender gaps in STEM are widely recognized, simply knowing that disparities and bias exist isn’t enough. Action needs to be taken to accelerate equality, in STEM and in every other industry.

This International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, we wanted to celebrate women in STEM by spotlighting some of the women who make up our engineering teams—and maybe inspire other women and girls who want a similar career.

While International Women’s Day may have come and gone, there is always a reason—and a need—to celebrate the accomplishments of women, and to continue the conversation around the importance of having women in STEM.

Watch our interviews with some of our women in engineering below:

Yoana Ivanova, Manager, Software Engineering:

“I’m really ambitious and competitive, so I started getting more senior positions, and at some point, I felt that something was missing. I wanted to deeply understand every aspect of building a product. I decided to switch the track and become a software engineer.”

Katalina Dimitrova, Product Manager:

“Ask more questions, especially my favorite: Why? Don’t be afraid to seem like you don’t stuff or think that any question is stupid. And why should you ask more questions like ‘why’? The answer is that we’re learning faster, we have a mission to know what we’re doing and why we’re doing it, and sometimes the person we ask also learns from us or learns by themselves because of our questions.”

Neli Todorova, Technical Support Engineer:

“I’m happy that there are many women around me who I’m getting inspired from. I really love reading blog posts explaining their career paths and how they started with programming and became senior managers or directors.”

We’re celebrating the many women who have contributed to the fields of science, technology, engineering and math—at Progress and beyond. There is no shortage of inspiration in the stories of women who have blazed a trail in STEM, and we’re proud to play a part in some women’s stories going forward.