Including more women in the tech industry isn’t a part of filling a quota, but a goal to create a more inclusive strategy at Applover. We know that this drives benefits to the company, the team, and the culture. We all notice how the pandemic influenced women in the job market, but let’s look at some data and actions we take to develop a more inclusive culture at Applover. 

Women in software development during the global pandemic

While women account for around half of the total workforce in the EU, the employment gap is noticeable in parts of the industry. Sometimes they result from preferences, other times from… habits. Recently, there has been a lot of talk about the technology industry, which is more and more open to women, and women are more willing to work in it. However, they are still in the minority, as they only hold 25% of technical positions

According to the “Women in tech report 2021″ by TrustRadius“, 41% of female programmers worldwide believe that remote working has negatively affected them. Because of the prevailing situation, women have a greater burden of taking care of the home. This is not the best sign of the division of household chores, because only 23% of men believe that remote work has had a negative impact on them.

This is hardly surprising considering the fact that many activities and issues of looking after children are still considered typically female tasks in our society. Therefore, helping children to learn remotely while taking care of the home and irregular working hours caused by the pandemic does not make life easier for any woman, including those working in IT. All of this leads us to the results of the study, which shows that 57% of female developers feel more burned out at their job, 43% of them work longer hours, and 42% perform more household chores than their partners.

Junior positions during the pandemic

The pandemic also harmed the number of junior positions. This, however, does not discourage women from changing their careers in tech. Last year, as much as 58% of the respondents replied they would be interested in working in IT, according to the “Women in IT 2020” report by No Fluff Jobs.

And how do women work in the tech sector? Are the stereotypes, according to them, doing well, or are the differences in software engineering only in the statistics? What do the development opportunities look like for women in technology? Let’s dig into the Applover’s perspective.

Fighting stereotypes? Not at Applover

Although Applover was founded by 4 men, inclusivity and solidarity are important to us. We hire more and more women. 3 females are Heads of departments at Applover (Administration, HR, Marketing), 2 females are tech leaders (Back-end and Design). We aim to create a culture and organization where gender diversity is as obvious as breathing. Already we introduced more inclusive language on our website, our job offers, and all internal and external communication. This is something we truly pay attention to. 

Stereotypes can happen everywhere, they help us understand the world, quite like myths. But when you are attentive to them and don’t let them influence your approach to someone or something, magic can happen! It’s something we do at Applover. We don’t let stereotypes influence our approach or vision. No matter if this is a new person, new project, new client, or situation in which we have a kind of déjà vu. Our values, which we clarified last year, help us with it.  

How do our values support us at Applover?

Last year, we distinguished 5 core values at Applover. We interviewed our employees, conducted thorough workshops, and clarified 5 the most important characteristics that were already essential for our board, our team, and the entire organization. We knew about them already, they were with us through the last 5 years but finally, we could describe them. Since then we are encouraging to work and live by them, and we noticed how they help us in specifying our company’s culture. 

Engagement

We feel committed to what we do because we know Applover is us and we create it together. That it’s also partly our company. We want the projects we take part in to be simply done well. Our commitment isn’t only about projects, it also includes the willingness to constantly develop and to do more

That is why, whenever we can, we do more for our clients than just to write code and deliver designs, we advise, we suggest better solutions, we share our experiences. Because we care and actively engage.

We also care for each other. One thing we are proud of is that we didn’t fire or reduce the hours of none of our employees when the global pandemic has started. Although there were some tough moments, a lot of unknowns, fears, and stresses – our people are important to us. We are a company that grows steadily and we aim to keep it that way. We get that there are many unexpected situations in our lives. Therefore we are highly flexible – from working hours, the place you work (at the office, remotely, at home, during the workation – you choose, we will help you make it possible) through the form of contract or the number of hours you want to dedicate to work (part-time hours are possible at Applover).

Influence

We influence what the company looks like. Each of us can change and improve processes. We trust everyone to take responsibility for their actions, challenge the status quo and shape Applover. Our goal is to include everyone who wishes so to change the way we work, improve the processes. Everyone can take initiative. And if you do, magic can happen!

For example, Zuzia, our Back-end Developer proposed to introduce the Personal Growth Framework at Applover. We discussed it and helped her make it happen. Now the whole company uses PGF’s. 

Moreover, leadership paths are open to every specialist at Applover if they want to. We have many great experts that became tech leaders in their teams. Sandra, our Head of Administration started her career at Applover as a Junior Lead Generation Specialist – she wanted to influence more and more areas, she was good at it so she could grow. 

Openness to challenges

Challenge is our middle name. Often you have to enter a completely new project, learn about new technology, face a task that you haven’t performed before. We aren’t afraid to try new approaches and paths, we are eager to enter the unknown, test, learn from the mistakes and introduce new things. We do it every day, it’s how we operate, how we grow and develop. 

Thanks to it, we know that scaling up is difficult, that balancing between the unique atmosphere, structures, and processes is challenging. But we are up for it. We are also open to the personal challenges of our team, we support living according to your values, parenthood, or other life changes you decided about. 

Challenges are various. Let it be studying abroad while working at Applover, having a sick kid at home, or fighting with the neighbor who is doing home repairs always during your work hours and during the most crucial calls (all situations are from our lives ;)). When you are open to this challenge, we will support you.

Support

We support each other, employees, and clients at every moment and in every aspect. Regardless of whether you need to help someone in the project or support the client in the concept of the product – we are ready. We support each other in various situations so all hands on deck are obvious to us when there is someone in need. To support our team we have various benefits.

More and more of our clients are from abroad, not everyone felt comfortable working in English, so we began to co-fund English lessons. Now, many of our employees are improving their language skills, challenging themselves at the projects and supporting each other within the team – by practicing together. 

By support we also mean that we value everyone’s experience, perspective, regardless of gender, race, religion, or sexual orientation. That diversity activism is encouraged at Applover. 

We also have decided to support Kinga Klimczak, Polish Cadet Judo Champion last year. This is a different kind of support, but it was also important for us to give a little from ourselves to a local sportswoman. 

Team Spirit

We are a team, we play to one goal and we have a common vibe. We like each other and we like to spend time together. When you are having dinner in the kitchen, someone will surely join you for a laugh together. This is just who we are.

We organize various types of integration events – from clothes swap and donating some of them to the Ubrania do Oddania, through eating out, Fifa tournaments, chess competitions, and playing board games, to sports activities like a race for a Boss’ cup! Everyone will find something for themselves.

Distance to ourselves and humor are a big part of our work life at Applover. We enjoy a good laugh. Various custom emojis on our Slack can prove it. 😉 To maintain a fine team spirit, we use Donut to help us integrate and get to know each other better despite the remote work. To enhance internal communication and allow everyone to know more about what is going on, we hold meetings for the entire company – Applover’s Corner. Last year, we met every month, in 2022 we meet approximately every 2 weeks to gather for 30 minutes and discuss one specific topic, ask questions, and exchange ideas.

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Applover’s way – operating on real values

Our 5 values help us when we are in doubt, but mostly they give us the direction we want to stay on. Our team is essential. Without them, we wouldn’t be where we are, we know it. We would like to welcome more women at Applover. We believe that our values can support them, allow them to develop and feel at home with the choice they made to join us. Various job positions are open right now. Maybe one of them is just perfect for you?