Hero Digital is proud to feature Caitlin Mancuso for our Women in Tech series. Caitlin has helped women get into IT roles and seen the IT gender divide decrease during her career. Read her full story below.
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Outside of work, I love to be outdoors—whether it’s golfing, skiing, coaching my son’s soccer team, biking, or hiking with my family. The list goes on. “Family First” and “Live, Laugh, Love” are two of the most important quotes that I live by.
Roughly six years into my finance career, I fell into a job in IT. One job on a client team led to a position in Real Estate Analytics, which led to some project work building out client dashboards that I worked on with a few different IT teams. Working with the IT teams and those specific pieces of the projects really fascinated me and, without knowing it at the time, I had found my long-term career. At this same company, there was an opening in an IT Risk function that my skills mapped to, and it was then that my career in IT began. You never know what road a project is going to lead you down!
There have been more times than I’d like to recall where I was the only female on the call—or the only female in the conference room—and it’s nice to see that is changing. It takes all of us to make that change and get more females in speaking positions at the table.
A memorable moment that helped show me how far females have come occurred with one of my coworkers at a previous company. She is an amazing person. Quick-witted and one of the smartest ladies I know. This situation occurred a number of years ago, but in order to keep her job in IT and start a family, she worked nights and took care of the children during the day.
In hearing her story, I realized how far women in IT have come. What she went through—holding down a job and having a family—helped women like me to have a job, have a family, and not have to work overnight shifts. We have gotten to where we are by the efforts of those who have come before us. Through their trials, we have been able to grow. Working from home has been normalized. Allowing Moms and Dads to be caretakers has been normalized. Dads are more present in their kids’ daily activities, and working moms are able to be role models for their daughters and sons. These changes have helped pave the way for a departure from the gender divide in IT. It’s nice to have a front-row seat and be a part of helping women get into IT roles and see the IT gender divide decrease.
A bit of advice that I’d give to someone trying to get into tech (or already working in tech) is a hard question for me because there’s so much to impart. So many lessons learned. And so many stories to tell. Don’t listen to people who tell you that you can’t do something or be something. Find something you love to do, and if you need to, be the first to do it. If you are, then know that someday, someone will look back and say “Thank You.”
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Thanks for your interest in Hero Digital’s Women in Tech. At Hero, we strive to showcase outstanding female talent at our company, and in doing so, empower others—both within and outside of Hero—to join the growing number of women in technical roles across industries. Connect with us on our careers page to learn more about open positions at Hero Digital.
