Women Who Code

Why did you choose to work at Audible?

After working in FinTech for 16 years, I realized that I wanted to work on a product that not only I used, but was used and loved by my friends and family as well. I wanted to build something that I could passionately talk about in casual conversation with just about anyone.

I love the challenges involved in voice first technology, and the community at Audible is amazing. They are my family away from home.

Since I am an avid reader and driven by cutting edge consumer technologies, when a college friend reached out and asked me if I was at all interested in the Audible on Alexa experience, I said “heck yeah!”. I love the challenges involved in voice first technology, and the community at Audible is amazing. They are my family away from home.

Why is belonging important to your engineering organization, and how has it affected your work?

When you love what you do, you spend a lot of your time and energy doing it. If you don’t feel like your opinions or work is valued, it can make work feel like, well frankly, work. We have technically strong and socially-bonded teams at Audible, which can be attributed to our creative monthly team outings and some healthy competition, such as game nights and our team happy hour planning rotation. Creatively themed happy hours that are inclusive to all are serious business here.

The tight-knit dev teams demonstrate amazing resilience. Whether we have exciting new features or less-exciting compliance work, the teams divide and conquer with an all-in mentality.

The tight-knit dev teams demonstrate amazing resilience. Whether we have exciting new features or less-exciting compliance work, the teams divide and conquer with an all-in mentality. Regularly, teammates offer to take each other’s on-call shift so that their teammates can have work-life balance. There is a strong mentorship ethic within teams, at all levels, from office-wide tech talks to afternoon-tea-and-learn sessions to pair programming.

One of Audible’s values is to respect and celebrate the glories of the human spectrum. What’s been the most impactful in making that a reality within your engineering organization?

I work in the Cambridge office and since we are a smaller office, we have the luxury of knowing everyone in the office. This allows us to really dig in to recognize each other for jobs well done. We have a number of mechanisms that we put into place to give ad-hoc thanks to each other such as the Audible ‘Orange Crush’ award, inspired by Disney’s cast member merit award, the Grape Soda (originally featured in the Disney Pixar movie, Up). We have a giant whiteboard where employees can write how someone earned an award, then they can grab a special Orange Crush pin and hand it to the person who deserved to be recognized.

I love working at a company where people like each other enough to spend time together outside of work.

We also have monthly peer awards during our All Hands, awarded for Unsung Hero, as well as five more based on our People Principles: Customer Hero, Activate Caring, Imagine & Invent, Articulate & Move Fast and Draw Inspiration. I love working at a company where people like each other enough to spend time together outside of work. My entire team even came to my house for a BBQ!

We are also missionary agents of change, and volunteer regularly to help our community in the way that we best know how, by mentoring. We volunteer in a STEM program at a Cambridge middle school via a program called NetPals, we mentor Cambridge High School students as interns and we TA at Resilient Coders, a non-profit bootcamp aimed at bringing tech skills to the underrepresented community in Boston.

As a woman in tech, what’s your favorite thing about working at Audible?

One of the things that stuck out the most to me when I first started at Audible was the impressive number of technical women in the office. I remember one spring day when about a dozen women in the office were wearing fun spring dresses. Dresses! In a tech company! I had honestly never seen this in my entire technical career. In a company where there are more women, you can see women feeling comfortable being women, rather than trying to fit in with men.

In a company where there are more women, you can see women feeling comfortable being women, rather than trying to fit in with men.

We also have an amazing group of women in leadership roles who run the Audible Women in Engineering (AWE) group, which is very active and hosts some really exciting events, such as a Confident Club, Mentoring Circles, Take Your Kids to Work Day, Hour of Code, and AWE Remix - a series of talks sharing learnings from conferences and events. We’re all really trying to make Audible one of the best places to work for women in tech.

HackerRank research shows that, while the gender gap is closing in fields like computer science, women are still less likely to be developers than men. Why do you think that is, and how do you think we can address it?

This is one of my favorite topics! I think there are a number of reasons, the first being the technical interview. In fact, I presented on ‘Surviving the Technical Interview’ at GHC in 2017. For some reason, either men are better prepared for the technical interview or technical interview formats are biased towards men.

At Audible, we are trying hard to make sure that every interview loop has a diverse team, to help combat any implicit bias and to make sure that women see that there are other women who work here. Knowing that someone like you works at a company goes a long way when considering accepting an offer.

There’s no question, a technical interview can be scary, especially if you are not prepared. There are a lot of women’s groups on Meetup that hold monthly white-boarding sessions to help get ready for your interview. At Audible, we are trying hard to make sure that every interview loop has a diverse team, to help combat any implicit bias and to make sure that women see that there are other women who work here. Knowing that someone like you works at a company goes a long way when considering accepting an offer. We are also hosting a number of interview prep talks and sessions for local underrepresented minority (URM) communities.

Additionally, women get stuck at the bottom of the ladder and give up when they see their male peers advancing and they are not. For some women this happens when they take time to start families. I’ve been seeing a lot more men take paternity leave, which is great for women! Not only does it help out the mom but it makes ‘parental leave’ something that both men AND women do. This has been great for leveling the playing field. Another reason is that often women are not getting the same level of mentoring, sponsoring and exposure to challenging, highly visible projects.

...in addition to individual development plans and career conversations, we have kicked off an official company-wide mentoring program and we have made significant traction with our male allies program in the management circles.

At Audible, in addition to individual development plans and career conversations, we have kicked off an official company-wide mentoring program and we have made significant traction with our male allies program in the management circles. We have a monthly managers cross-flow meeting and a permanent agenda items is allyship. I love hearing all of the actions that are being taken by my male manager peers! For example, one manager rescheduled a promotion review meeting so that the female managers could attend. Another manager tried an experiment of raising the temperature by 5 degrees in one area of the office because a study illustrated that the difference between men and women’s metabolic rates can result in performance issues. A 5 degree temperature raise can improve performance by 150%, and aren’t we all rated on performance?

I’ve got a lot of great stories, find me and ask me to share!

How does Audible work to empower women within engineering? What sorts of support can a potential hire expect once they join the team?

With our interns, we ensure that they are assigned an Audible Women in Engineering (AWE) mentor. Immediately upon joining, all women engineers are welcomed into our AWE chat room and added to our distribution list so they can get up-to-date information regarding our monthly events. All new hires get a ‘buddy’ to help them with on-boarding and to get acquainted with the office and their colleagues. You’ll never see a new hire sitting alone at lunch, especially on their first few days! Being new is hard, so we work hard to make sure that our new hires feel welcomed!

What’s the most exciting thing you’ve built in your time at Audible? Any projects you’re particularly proud of?

I’m going to have to say “my team”. Since I joined, my team has tripled in size, all while keeping the men:women ratio at about 50:50.

Since I joined, my team has tripled in size, all while keeping the men:women ratio at about 50:50.

I am also so proud of how all of my engineers have developed over the years and grown into bigger roles. One of my SDEs converted to an SDM to help me scale the team and she has been indispensable. The engineers never cease to amaze me with their level of engagement, their passion for the customers and their respect towards each other. I guess making Audible available to customers on Alexa in 5 new countries would be my next most proud achievement.

If you had once piece of advice for women developers looking for their first job, what would it be?

Make sure that your company is vested in your growth as a software engineer as well as being a place that has people with whom you would like to spend time. Ask about mentorship and career development. Ask what growth opportunities exist. If you can have lunch with your team, make sure that you feel comfortable with them and that you feel like they are interested in what you have to say.

Anything else you’d like to share with women developers considering a job at Audible?

When you decide to join Audible, look me up!