Embrace equity: Kalibrate celebrates International Women's Day 2023

This year International Women’s Day focuses on embracing equity because equal opportunities aren’t enough. People start from different places, so true inclusion and belonging require equitable action.  Typically, women only make up 26% of the tech workforce, according to Women in Tech (2023). This is an improvement from the figure of 19% in 2019, which shows that some work has been done to improve this, however, there is still a lot to be done.

Kalibrate is proud to say that over 30% of its employees are female, to celebrate IWD and the women at Kalibrate, we interviewed members of our team to hear what embracing equity means to them. 

Preetha Charles, QA Test Engineer

As a woman, I often hear about the prevalence of gender-biased and disparities from those in my circle. Women’s abilities are often judged, with their capabilities categorized as masculine, aggressive, or overly ambitious. However, my experience at Kalibrate can be defined as being at the opposite spectrum of the biased culture. I have been here for three years, and I was the only female team member for almost two years. Was there any kind of awkwardness or prejudice? Never. My team has their own voice, and they are respected for that. I personally never felt that I was not being included or that my opinions didn’t matter. I have always felt comfortable with my team, and I could reach out to them for anything without any fear of being judged. I have always felt my views and opinions are heard and respected. 

While the credit goes to the company culture and my awesome teammates, I would also like to applaud my Director and Manager who have set amazing examples at our workplace and have made sure that there is no bias on the basis of gender or, for that matter, any kind of bias. If anything, they have been super supportive to female teammates to ensure they strike a perfect work-life balance while also getting equal opportunities and visibility.

Rachel Evans, Software Engineer

“Equity in the workplace is extremely important and something I care deeply about. As a woman whose worked in the tech industry for the past 7 years, I have found that women are extremely underrepresented in the industry especially women in leadership positions, which worries me as an ambitious woman who wants to progress in her career. One of the issues that leads to this is that when we think of tech influencers, names like Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk and even Alan Turing come to mind, all of which are men. Even women who have had a large influence in the tech world like Ada Lovelace believed to be the world’s first programmer are forgotten today. So it is extremely important to me that we start seeing more female role models in the tech sphere. However, I do believe perspectives are changing. Here at Kalibrate I feel like I am encouraged to pursue my goals to further my career and am offered equal opportunities in doing so. I believe by sharing my story as a woman at Kalibrate, this will show that the culture at Kalibrate is good for women and hopefully attract more women to apply for roles with us.”