Technically Wrong: Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech

by Sara Wachter-Boettcher

It might seem obvious why diverse leadership matters: hiring women and people of color for only junior roles, and never promoting them, doesn’t bode well for their ideas being valued, or their perspectives having equal weight. But you might wonder, why do these companies’ stats always emphasize technical positions (which typically means people with titles like “engineer,” “developer,” or “programmer”), when a whole host of others are involved in creating a new digital product or service? Here’s why: in most tech companies, these roles—much more than designers, copywriters, marketers, and others who work on the creative or “soft skills” end of the spectrum—are seen as the masterminds of new technology. They’re paid the best, recruited the hardest, and often have the most power on teams. While you’re likely to find that staff is a bit more diverse outside of technical roles—and in particular, that women are better represented in communications-related jobs—those roles are historically undervalued (which is a whole other problem in tech culture, but I’ll leave that for another day).