Women in Hardware: Microsoft’s Tracey Trewin

The Adafruit and Hackster Women in Hardware Interview Series was launched with hopes of motivating other industry players to act as change agents and take initiative in creating more equal opportunities for women in tech.

To facilitate this movement, we’ve asked some of the most inspiring and pioneering women to share their experiences, stories, and advice to future generations. Today, we hear from Tracey Trewin, General Manager of the Partner Catalyst Team at Microsoft.

Tracey leads a group of talented engineers at development centers around the world who work with startup and enterprise innovation teams, helping them create solutions for some of their biggest technology challenges and then sharing those learnings with the broader developer community.

I started my career as a software developer over 35 years ago. In those days it was pretty hard to find other women developers. It was not unusual for me to be the only woman in the room. That was normal and I got used to it. I definitely stood out!

Over the years the situation has improved but the industry as a whole could benefit by accelerating progress. All the data tells us that just adding a couple of women to an all-male team will improve the overall outcomes for the team. However, we need to do more than just attract more women to enter the tech profession. There was a Forbes article a couple years back that captured the issue fairly well. The most important point in the article was that it is not a pipeline issue but rather a cultural issue that keeps more women from entering and staying in tech. I think that is spot on and it is why as a leader now I think it is super important to build a team with a culture that is inclusive of everyone.

A few months ago I was listening to a show where Charles Blow (New York Times) was speaking about building diverse teams. What he said struck a chord with me, and I’m paraphrasing here “It is not hard to build a diverse team, there are lots of qualified people out there. What is important is to watch the team a leader builds, as it generally says a lot about who that person is and what kind of leader they will be.” I don’t think explicitly about having a balance of men and women. The thing that I think most about is building a team of people with diverse backgrounds and points of view. I find it far more interesting to be around people who think differently than I do. It is how I learn and informs my perspectives to make better decisions as a leader. Good ideas come from all levels of the organization, and I think it is super important for everyone to know that their opinions can have an impact.

Interestingly, Google set out to figure out what the characteristics are of a “smart” team, and it turns out that many of the values and approaches I take when building a team share similar traits. Namely, smart teams are ones where, everyone has a voice and is heard; where people on the team tended to have fairly high EQs, and that simply including one women on the team improved that overall performance of the team.

Even though I do think we have a long way to go, I am optimistic. I look at my kids and I see a group of young people joining the workforce that have grown up in a more gender-neutral environment than in previous generations. I encourage the young people on my team to mentor us and help broaden our thinking.

I’m also seeing a tremendous change at Microsoft on this front. I feel like we are building a culture that encourages people to speak up, challenge the status quo, and bring new ideas to the table. I now feel my voice is heard, considered and respected. At the end of the day, I think that is what we all want, to be heard and feel like we are making a positive difference.

Don’t miss the premiere episode of Women in Hardware featuring littleBits’ Ayah Bdeir and Adafruit’s Limor Fried.