In honor of International Women in Engineering Day, this week’s Intuit Tech Heroes Podcasts celebrate the career journeys and passions of three Intuit software engineers who are doing their part to #shapetheworld they want to see, for themselves and future generations of women in tech.
For Software Engineer Kayla Nussbaum, a childhood love for customizing technology—from a MySpace layout to her mother’s flip phone—led to a love of expressing herself through code to solve customer problems here at Intuit. As early as high school, she was inspired to break the glass ceiling and overturn the gender norms of the traditional computer science field.
“It has been a challenge to pursue a male-dominated career as my own, but that idea in itself helped inspire me to push to be 110 percent of what I thought I could be. And the pace of gender bias is changing. I feel like my ideas and thoughts are valued in my job day-to-day, which has been great to see compared to what it was like in college. The industry is continuously growing with female representation, and I’m truly looking forward to the day where we don’t have this as a concern anymore.”
– Kayla Nussbaum, Software Engineer, Intuit
Upon joining Intuit, she was surprised to discover just how much influence she could have as an individual contributor. In her role as a front-end engineer on the Development Experience (DevX) team, she’s inspired to work alongside her teammates to get awesome new features into the hands of customers faster by accelerating developer velocity on the Intuit platform. “People don’t realize that software engineering is so creative,” she says.
For the full interview with Nussbaum, go here: International Women in Engineering Day Celebration.
Intuit Tech Evangelist Lucy Shen and Intuit Software Engineer Kylie Taitano each combine their work as technologists with efforts to build a more inclusive industry. As co-chair of the Pride Employee Network in the Mountain View campus and a supporter of other female technologists her focus is on intersectionality. “We have lots of other parts of our identities that are just as relevant to our experiences and actually cast a wider net and allow us to connect across lots of different boundaries with people of other identities as well,” she says.
“One of my favorite things about working here, if you’ll allow me a moment to shill our company, is the people and the culture. I found myself volunteering here with our Intuit Pride Network whenever I could. It’s about creating a sense of community in your workspace, so that your coworkers are not just your coworkers, and you have a sense of belonging in your company. I wanted a chance to give back to this community and see how my actions can directly impact and improve the situation around me.”
– Lucy Shen, Technology Evangelist, Intuit
As the founder of Code With Her, a nonprofit dedicated to closing the gender and equality gap in tech, Taitano seeks to create an ecosystem in which students can thrive and have fun learning about tech while feeling supported in their journey. “For us, that ecosystem means family, friends, parents, grandparents, and teachers in the education system, as well as the industry folks we bring into students’ lives as mentors.”
“We all bring something to the table, right? I’d like to see a trust that women or those who identify with underrepresented minority groups are still committed members of the team while taking on responsibilities outside of work, whether that’s through starting a family or working in organizing spaces. Because if we truly believe in bringing our whole selves to work, these experiences that we have, through the work that we do outside of work, make us better engineers and teammates.”
– Kylie Taitano, Software Engineer, Intuit
For the full interview with Shen and Taitano, listen here: Bringing Your Whole Self to Work.
