MOMS LEARN TECH
We talk a lot about the gender gap in the tech industry. And now--more than ever--moms are finding themselves disproportionately affected by the pandemic. We can fund moms learning experiences, but if we don't provide support for the challenges and workplaces that offer flexible and accomodating environments, we won't really be making progress.
This purpose of this repository is to provide a space to collect resources and recommendations for moms in tech.
CHALLENGES
Many moms are either coming back into the tech field after spending time to raise children or are learning for the first time in order to provide for their children.
Some of the challenges moms face are:
- Time
- Costs
- Imposter Syndrome
- Reintegration into the workforce
- Breaking into a new field
- Resume gaps
Below you'll find a list of resources to help moms at all stages of their tech learning journey.
Table of Contents
- Support Organizations
- Financial Assistance
- Free Coding Resources
- Childcare
- Tech Scholarships
- Conferences
- Employment Resources
- Mom-friendly Companies
- Mentoring Resources
- Modern Icons
Support Organizations
-
Code First Girls Code First: Girls works with companies and with men and women directly, to help increase the number of women in tech (UK)
-
Girls in Tech Girls in Tech: A non-profit organization that offers virtual events and workshops for personal & professional growth, a tech job board, and in-person events for chapters worldwide.
-
Hired A job site that is dedicated to helping women succeed in careers.
-
Mums in Tech Mums in Technology is the UK’s most popular coding school for mums. We offer a unique and flexible way of learning that fits around your lifestyle, your children and your ambitions
-
Ladies Get Paid Ladies Get Paid: An organization working hard for equal pay, with an incredible community that you can find on their slack channel and panel events. They will help you know your worth and learn how to negotiate for it. Use the following template:
-
NothingLess A microsite made by Ladies get Paid and Hired to educate the public on the pay gap. It's a great place to look for stories that will inspire.
-
Simplon.co French patners program for reduce the gender gap #CodeHasNoGender
-
Tech Ladies Tech Ladies: resources, community, and a job board updated weekly that requires sign-up to see. Many remote positions and in the job postings indicates work-life balance and mom-friendly perks.
-
Techtonica A nonprofit that provides free tech training with living and childcare stipends and job placement. (Only in the San Francisco Bay Area as of 6/18/2018.)
-
Career Karma Career Karma is a community of peers, mentors, and coaches that will help you land a dream career in Tech. You never pay a dime. The only cost is to help people behind you. Career Karma is always free for students because after we coach you to prepare and get enrolled in a bootcamp in our network, the school pays us a placement fee for helping you.
-
Girls Who Code A nonprofit dedicated to teaching programming and offering support to girls and women. Has programs for 3rd-5th grade girls, 6th-12th grade girls and women in college
-
Women Who Code A nonprofit dedicated to teaching programming and technical skills to women, and encouraging proportional representation of women in leadership roles within companies
-
Virtual Coffee A welcoming tech community that allows room for growth and mentorship at all levels, and creates meaningful opportunities for learning, leadership, and contribution for everyone. Holds zoom sessions twice a week, monthly challenges, member events, and more.
Financial Assistance
- Anitab.org recognizes the accomplishments of women in computing, and the organizations that recognize their value, through a variety of awards.
- Techtonica A nonprofit that provides free tech training with living and childcare stipends and job placement. (Only in the San Francisco Bay Area as of 6/18/2018.)
Free Coding Resources
- Django Girls An organization that encourages women to learn web development offers a tutorial to learn the Django framework with zero background knowledge. It's availabe in several languages.
- Free Code Camp An organization that has thousands of coding lessons to help you improve your skills for free.
- Rails Girls An organization that offers guides to learn Ruby and Ruby on Rails framework by building projects.
- Techtonica A nonprofit that provides free tech training with living and childcare stipends and job placement. (Only in the San Francisco Bay Area as of 6/18/2018.)
Childcare
Tech Scholarships
- Flatiron School: Women Take Tech This initiative will extend over $100,000 in scholarship funding – cutting tuition for women in half to $750/month for the online program (maximum tuition is 12 months or $9,000).
- Platzi: Single Moms' Scholarship Platzi is an online platform to learn programming. This scolarship is aimed to help Spanish speaking single mothers who want to learn to code but can not afford Platzi's subscription fee.
- Techtonica A nonprofit that provides free tech training with living and childcare stipends and job placement. (Only in the San Francisco Bay Area as of 6/18/2018.)
Bootcamps
- Laboratoria Laboratoria offers a 6 months bootcamp for women in which you can learn UX design or web development. You only have to pay for the bootcamp once you finish it and get a job working as a UX designer or web developer. This bootcamp is presencial and has different locations in Latin America:
- Guadalajara, Mexico
- CDMX, Mexico
- Lima, Peru
- Santiago, Chile
- Sao Paulo, Brasil
Conferences
Scholarships and Tickets
- Grace Hopper Celebration scholarship AnitaB.org finds sponsors to award hundreds of student and faculty scholarships to attend the Grace Hopper Celebration. This once in a lifetime chance, allows academics to connect with other women in computing, hear stories from peers and experts in computing, and get quality career advice specific to their needs needs.
- Dataquest.io Diversity Scholarship A scholarship for summer 2019 that will help women and minorities get started in studying Data Science.
Conferences with Childcare
-
Grace Hopper Celebration AnitaB.org provides child care services for children ages 0-13 at no charge to conference attendees.You must register your children with Corporate Kids Events, our child care provider.
-
KubeCon + CloudNativeCon provides complimentary 8am-5pm childcare at both EU and US locations. Registration required (see the "attend" page on the event for details).
-
All HasGeek Conferences have professionally run childcare facilities at the conference, free of charge. Event registration and confirmation required.
-
RubyConf During all conference days, they provide free onsite childcare from a licensed local provider. Attendees can use this as much or as little as they’d like but the conference does appreciate as much advance information as possible so that they can try to ensure they have enough childcare staff and appropriate activities and gear. When you register, please answer yes (or maybe) to the question about childcare and you will be contacted for information before the conference. They also provide a dedicated Lactation Room (with a lock and mini-fridge). If you would like to use this, please note that at registration.
Employment Resources
- Fairy God Boss Fairygodboss helps women get hard-to-ask questions answered. They help you get the inside scoop on pay, corporate culture, benefits and work flexibility. They offer company ratings, job listings, discussion boards and career advice.
Mom-friendly Companies
Flexible work schedule
-
FireHydrant FireHydrant is a remote-first company based out of NYC, NY. The culture is incredible, offers a flexible work schedule, and is very understanding of parental duties. Maintaining a work-life balance and one's mental health is emphasized by the company from the top, down. (bonus: entry-level friendly)
-
Kenna Security Kenna Security offers an amazing culture for moms and all parents alike. The work schedule is very flexible and includes allowing employees to work from home when needed. A lot of the employees(engineers and upper-level management) are parents and they understand and encourage work-life balance to its fullest.
-
The Mom Project The Mom Project connects moms and companies who understand that moms need a flexible work schedule for a healthy work/life balance. You supply a profile and then you are contacted when a potential fit is found.
Childcare available
Paid returnships
- Facebook Facebook offers a 16-week paid immersive return-to-work program created for people who have been out of the workforce for at least 2 years. While there are plenty of technical engineering and research positions, there are also business operations, supply chain, and program management positions available. These positions range from internships to full-time and they all offer mentorship.
Paid maternity leave
- Marsh & McLennan The Arizona branch of Marsh & McLennan offers 8 weeks of fully paid parental leave to be taken in increments as small as half-days or as large as the entire 8 weeks within the first year starting after a birth or adoption. The tech jobs at the Arizona offices are currently in digital marketing.
Breastfeeding policies
No Benefit Waiting Period
Mentoring Resources
- Coding Coach Coding Coach is a free, open-source platform that aims to connect you with mentors from all over the world to help you sharpen your programming skills.
- YearOne A developer community that helps developers from non-traditional backgrounds (like self-taught developers and bootcamp grads) in the early years of their career. The platform provides support in the form of interview preparation, resume review, mentorship and a host of other resources.
Modern icons
-
Holly Brockwell : Holly Brockwell founded technology news site Gadgette in May. It’s a gadget and technology news site that’s focused on women, an audience that many tech sites struggle to write for.
-
Avid Larizadeh Duggan : Along with Tom Hulme, Larizadeh Duggan is one of Google Ventures’ two remaining partners in Europe. She’s also the only female general partner at the fund. Larizadeh Duggan led Google Ventures’ investment into Yieldify, a two-year-old e-commerce startup that helps online retailers convince people to buy products online.
-
Claire Valoti : Claire Valoti was recently poached from her role as joint head of agency relations at Facebook to head up Snapchat’s European operation from London. She works as Snapchat’s general manager of UK sales, overseeing the company’s first office outside the US. The company has made a series of hires for its European team from rival digital media and tech businesses over the past year.
-
Julie Larson-Green : Last summer, Microsoft announced that they were promoting previous Windows Chief and 20-year Microsoft veteran Julie Larson-Green to oversee the entire company's hardware engineering.
This meant that Larson-Green was responsible for overseeing all devices, games, music, video and other entertainment as well as the 'Operating Systems Engineering Group' which includes the Xbox OS.
Despite a predictably sexist backlash to her appointment, Larson-Green brought a wealth of experience from her time overseeing the developers of Windows 7 and 8 to bear in the hardware division. Insider sources report that at one point, she had between 1,200 and 1,400 program managers, researchers, content managers and other members of the Windows team reporting to her.
- Juliana Rotich : The executive director of Ushahidi, a not-for-profit company that develops free open-source software, Juliana Rotich has pioneered new web tools for crowdsourcing crisis information. Originally from Kenya, she studied IT at university and became a well known blogger. Her software firm first came to prominence during the Kenyan presidential election crisis in 2007, using web, mobile and geolocation data to provide report updates.