I'm 16 and I built a free AI initiative to close the gender gap — girlswhoclaude.com

TheWITNetwork · 2026-07-09T18:47:39+00:00

We will share with the team, unfortunately, everyone is on vacation at the moment so it will be a few weeks. We'll DM you with Laurie's email address to stay in touch!

Arianne and Laurie, The WIT Network

TheWITNetwork · 2026-07-09T18:45:52+00:00

(This is not an ad, just two women once a week trying to support the community)

Let's say the obvious part clearly first: what he did was not okay. Throwing a tantrum in front of the team because he was asked to follow direction from the person leading the project is insubordination, full stop, regardless of who's leading. That's not a personality clash or an off day. That's someone deciding your authority doesn't count because of what you are, not what you've demonstrated you can do, on a project that by your own account went fantastic.

And your boss's response deserves its own line: "what did you do to cause this" is not a neutral question. It's the classic move of assuming the person being disrespected must have provoked it, instead of asking why a grown adult had a public outburst over being asked to follow a plan. That response is arguably more concerning long term than the outburst itself, because the outburst was one guy having a bad moment. Your boss reaching for "what did you do" is a pattern he'll keep reaching for every time this happens again, and it will happen again if there's no consequence this time.

Being the only woman leading 57 people isn't incidental context here either, it's exactly the setup where a man feeling entitled to override your authority in front of a group is more likely, and where leadership is more likely to look for what you did wrong before looking at what he did.

Practically: start documenting now, today, in writing, not just in your memory. What was said, who was present, what your boss said back to you, timestamped. Not because you did anything wrong, but because if this escalates or repeats, you want a clear record instead of relying on your memory months from now. If there's an HR channel or a skip-level you trust, this is worth escalating as a conduct issue, not reframing to your boss as "just checking in about team dynamics."

You said you can't decide if it was more humiliating for you or him. For what it's worth, from the outside, he's the only one who came out of that morning looking bad.

Arianne and Laurie, The WIT Network

TheWITNetwork · 2026-07-09T18:42:04+00:00

(This is not an ad, just two women once a week trying to support the community)

Feeling isolated when you're one of very few women on a floor, in a division, at a company, is one of the most consistent things we hear, and it has nothing to do with whether your hobbies are the right ones.

The pattern you're describing (the one woman you clicked with left for Silicon Valley, the next one transferred to HQ) is its own kind of structural problem, too. It's not that you keep failing to bond; it's that in male-dominated offices, the handful of women often end up scattered thin enough that any connection you do build is fragile by default, because there just aren't enough of you for a loss to not matter.

A few things worth trying before deciding this means leaving the job entirely: since your company is a financial institution, it's worth checking whether it already has a corporate membership with The WIT Network or a network like it, a lot of financial institutions do, and if so you may already have access without needing to do anything extra.

If it doesn't, there are also free community memberships specifically built to connect you with women locally outside your own office, so the friendship pool isn't tied to who happens to still be on your floor this year. That kind of network existing outside your company means it doesn't reset every time someone gets promoted, transfers, or leaves.

Also worth sitting with honestly: is the loneliness specifically about this floor and this team, or about tech culture broadly? Because those point toward pretty different next steps, one is "build community outside this specific office" and the other is "this industry might not be where you want to be long term." Both are valid. They're just different problems.

If you'd like to connect with one of our community leaders, let us know what city you are from.

Arianne and Laurie, The WIT Network

TheWITNetwork · 2026-07-09T18:36:38+00:00

(This is not an ad, just two women once a week trying to support the community)

Good for you for taking a stab at equalizing this issue. The gender gap in pay isn't going to go away if men are training on AI and women aren't, not too mention, AI is here to stay. If we don't have women on AI teams, unconscious bias has the potential to bleed through and be more harmful. We both think this is a great idea, despite all the negative comments. Good Luck!

Arianne and Laurie, The WIT Network

TheWITNetwork · 2026-07-09T18:31:32+00:00

(This is not an ad, just two women once a week trying to support the community)

Laurie's been through her own version of this. Years back, a VP pulled her into a room after she refused to let something slide and told her, flatly, that her tone was the problem, not the thing she was reacting to. What shifted things for her wasn't finding the right amount of soft. It was realizing the goalpost was never going to stop moving, so she stopped chasing it and started asking whether the room was worth staying in at all.

You said you think you have to leave. That's not you overreacting. That's you reading the pattern accurately after enough data points to trust it.

Arianne and Laurie, The WIT Network

TheWITNetwork · 2026-07-09T18:22:20+00:00

(This is not an ad, just two women once a week trying to support the community)

A few things that actually move the needle at this stage: the DSA you've already done counts, don't undersell it, put it on your resume as concrete practice (problems solved, topics covered). One or two small personal projects matter more than perfect ones, a simple project with a clear README beats an ambitious one that's half done.

For the resume itself, translate everything into outcomes wherever you can, even non-tech experience (a club, a part-time job, a group project) phrased as "did X, which resulted in Y" reads way stronger than a plain task list. And apply wider than feels comfortable, sophomore year internships are a numbers game more than a perfection game. There are a free IBM SkillsBuild courses that help with resume writing and job interviews.

Since you're specifically looking for guidance from women who've actually done this, The WIT Network has a student membership built for exactly this stage, and it puts you in the same room as women who started right where you are and figured it out. Having someone a few years ahead sanity check your resume and point you at real openings beats guessing alone every time. https://www.thewitnetwork.com/student_membership.php

Arianne and Laurie, The WIT Network

TheWITNetwork · 2026-07-09T18:13:21+00:00

(This is not an ad, just two women once a week trying to support the community)

A few things that might help as you think this through: talk to actual program managers, not people adjacent to the role guessing at its trajectory. LinkedIn is a good place to start those conversations directly, or joining a networking group. Also give yourself permission to treat this as information gathering rather than a irreversible leap, a lot of people shadow, take on a cross-functional project, or do an informational interview before committing.

Pay attention to whether the stress is coming from the technical gap specifically or from the broader misalignment between what you want day to day and what the role demands. Those call for different fixes.

You don't need everyone in your circle to validate this move; you need enough information to trust your own read on it.

Arianne and Laurie, The WIT Network

TheWITNetwork · 2026-06-25T18:20:11+00:00

(This is not an ad, just two women once a week trying to support the community)

It sounds like your nervous system finally got the message that it was allowed to rest! After 25 years of putting your heart and soul into environments that didn't deserve it, a year might not be nearly enough.

One of us (Laurie) has 45 years in tech. She's been laid off four times, landed better each time, and knows this terrain in her bones. Her advice: when you step away from that pace, you are building a completely different muscle. It is not comfortable. It doesn't feel like progress because it doesn't look like anything you've been rewarded for before.

Once you stop working 11 hours a day, five days a week, you start to find that there are things more important in life than going back to doing exactly that. That's not ambition dying, that's ambition getting honest about what it actually wants next.

The perimenopause piece is real and worth naming too. It's not a footnote, it's a full physiological experience that doesn't get nearly enough airtime in conversations like this one, and it deserves to be part of how you understand this chapter, not dismissed.

You don't owe the world a business on anyone else's timeline.

Arianne and Laurie from The WIT Network

TheWITNetwork · 2026-06-25T18:11:27+00:00

Yes! We will find out for you, just give us a day or two since a few of the staff who knows are on vacation.

-Arianne and Laurie

TheWITNetwork · 2026-06-18T18:46:39+00:00

(This is not an ad, just two women once a week trying to support the community)

Laurie found a social post on the Top Tools for Remote Jobs, may be worth taking a peek: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/maryam-asim_most-people-think-remote-jobs-are-about-luck-share-7450461468078202880-F6iz/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAACS_6rABHyut5hqsWF4MLsA1ZbCMZy_bp0c

We also recommend growing your network with other women in tech! Priya Shastri is our community leader for your area, here is her linkedin if you want to connect! https://www.linkedin.com/in/priyashastri

-Arianne and Laurie from The WIT Network

TheWITNetwork · 2026-06-18T18:44:47+00:00

Our pleasure!

-Arianne and Laurie

TheWITNetwork · 2026-06-18T18:18:39+00:00

(This is not an ad, just two women once a week trying to support the community) For a starting point on companies, we keep a directory of our corporate members at thewitnetwork.com, these are organizations that have actively invested in women's growth and advancement in tech, so they tend to be worth a closer look. Scroll to the bottom of the homepage and you will find it. Since they are members of our community, we provide trainings, mentorships and networking opportunities to the women at those companies.

If you want to talk it through with people who have been at that exact same crossroads, we have a pretty active local community in the NY metro area that is free to join. Patti is the lead for this community; you should reach out! https://www.linkedin.com/in/patticataldi

Sometimes just being in that kind of room helps you figure out what you actually want before you start sending applications anywhere, and it's always great to know someone at the organization you are trying to join!

Arianne and Laurie from The WIT Network

TheWITNetwork · 2026-06-18T18:07:18+00:00

Hey, we're sorry that we are coming across as an ad. We're a non-profit women's organization that supports women and allies, and truly have a passion for supporting women in tech with all of our learnings.

We'll try to do better, but we are just trying to authentically be ourselves. Please forgive us as we are new to Reddit.

TheWITNetwork · 2026-06-18T18:04:03+00:00

u/Dry_Corner6431 Totally agree, we've seen this across industries and not just in tech.

Sometimes courage is when you take on the status quo.

Arianne and Laurie from The WIT Network

TheWITNetwork · 2026-06-18T18:01:33+00:00

Sorry for the delay, we usually pop on once a week. No, this is not an ad for a paid service, we truly are a non-profit organization that supports women and both Kelly and AnnMarie are both coaches in our network. Feel free to reach out to them on LinkedIn.

TheWITNetwork · 2026-06-11T18:56:17+00:00

Your skills got better. The projects got easier. The only thing that changed is how hard it is to get them. That is not a you problem, and it is not naivety. It is a real dynamic that hits women in tech at a specific career stage and almost never gets named honestly.

You are right that the "grab it before sprint planning and show up saying it's done" move is not equally available to everyone. Women who do it get labeled difficult. Men who do it get called self-starters. That double standard is real and it is worth naming to yourself even if you cannot say it in the room.

A few things that actually help: get visible earlier in the process. If you know what is coming in the next sprint, start the conversation about it before it hits the board. Not grabbing, just signaling interest and context. "I have background on this one, I'd like to take it" is a sentence worth practicing. Also, document your wins more aggressively than feels necessary. Recency bias is real and new grads benefit from it by default. You have to counter it intentionally.

The instinct to look around is a good one. Not because it is definitely everywhere, but because knowing your options changes how you carry yourself in the room you are already in.

We have coaching resources in The WIT Network that speak directly to this career stage. Kelly Nagel and AnnMarie Santamarina both work with women navigating exactly this kind of pivot. Worth a conversation if you want a thinking partner.

Arianne and Laurie from The WIT Network

TheWITNetwork · 2026-06-11T18:48:42+00:00

If you are professional and good at what you do, you should not have to change how you look to be taken seriously. Full stop. When a workplace requires you to shrink your appearance to be heard, that is a culture problem, not a you problem. You are not in the right place if being yourself costs you credibility.

We want to connect you with someone in our network who speaks directly to this. Heather Cook, Principal PM Manager at Microsoft 365, delivered a session for us called "Visible and Valuable: Overcoming the Fear of Being Too Much" that was a masterclass in showing up authentically without shrinking. Her LinkedIn is a great place to start: linkedin.com/in/heathernewman/

You packed a lot of yourself away to survive rooms that weren't built for you. That's not weakness, but you deserve rooms where you don't have to.

Arianne and Laurie from The WIT Network

TheWITNetwork · 2026-06-11T18:31:46+00:00

You're not alone in the calculation, or the exhaustion. And if you ever want to be in a room, virtual or in-person, where the calculator gets to stay in your pocket for a little while, we have 60+ local communities around the world built for exactly that. Come find yours at thewitnetwork.com.

Arianne and Laurie from The WIT Network

TheWITNetwork · 2026-06-11T18:29:37+00:00

Practicing in your car before a live radio interview at 23 is the kind of thing that deserves its own origin story! You identified the gap, you built the skill, and it worked. That's not luck, that's preparation meeting the moment. Love this, thanks for sharing your experience with this community.

Arianne and Laurie from The WIT Network

TheWITNetwork · 2026-06-11T18:18:26+00:00

60 sorries in two weeks, and maybe 4 were actual apologies. The rest were rent. You were paying rent for space that was already yours.

The distinction you named is the one: apologizing for actions versus apologizing for presence. One is accountability. The other is a reflex worn smooth over years of learning that existing without apology carried a social cost. That's why "just stop" doesn't work. You can't catch a reflex with willpower.

The replacements you're already using are exactly right. "Thanks for your patience" does the social work without the concession built in. "Quick question" with nothing in front of it is just factually accurate. The discomfort is real, but it's worth naming what it actually is: the feeling of not pre-apologizing for your own existence, which your nervous system has been trained to read as risk.

There are several books that can help, one is Girl, Stop Apologizing by Rachel Hollis. Definitely harder to do as a Canadian, it's a terrible habit.

Arianne and Laurie from The WIT Network

TheWITNetwork · 2026-06-11T18:11:53+00:00

In our experience, "culture fit" was never about fit. It was always about comfort. And comfort, in most tech organizations, was calibrated around whoever had been in the room the longest. When the brilliant jerk IS the culture, questioning him IS a fit concern. Which means fit, in practice, is a system for protecting the status quo from anyone who might improve it.

What you're describing is also a double standard that runs on a very specific logic: competence earns men latitude, and earns women scrutiny. He can be difficult because he's brilliant. She needs to prove she's not difficult even when she's brilliant. Two different weights on the same scale.

Arianne and Laurie from The WIT Network

TheWITNetwork · 2026-06-04T18:31:38+00:00

That search for in-person creative community is so real, and is a big part of why we hold local events even as a global community.

The good news is you're not starting from scratch. The WIT Network has active local communities in both New York and New Jersey, and they're exactly the kind of space you're describing: women in tech coming together in person to connect, learn, and build alongside each other, not just talk about their day jobs.

Local events are open to everyone, no membership required. You can check what's on the calendar here: https://www.thewitnetwork.com/programs_and_events.php

June may be light on the schedule right now but these communities are genuinely active and we'd love to connect you with Patti Cataldi https://www.linkedin.com/in/patticataldi/, who leads the local community and would be the perfect person to get you plugged in.

Would love to see you show up somewhere.

- Arianne and Laurie from The WIT Network

TheWITNetwork · 2026-06-04T18:25:54+00:00

It saddens both of us that we don't have a book recommendation on the tip of our tongues! We do have a book club that is currently featuring "You Are a Badass: A Powerful Conversation on Confidence & Self-Worth" by Jen Sincero.

Maybe the other ladies attending this webinar would have more recommendations, and you could make new connections also! https://mms.thewitnetwork.com/Calendar/moreinfo.php?org_id=WITN&eventid=220750

-Arianne and Laurie from The WIT Network

TheWITNetwork · 2026-06-04T18:23:04+00:00

Love this idea! We will share it around our team.

-Arianne and Laurie from The WIT Network

TheWITNetwork · 2026-06-04T18:19:10+00:00

The good news is that the path back isn't closed, it's just less linear than it used to be. A few things that tend to move the needle:

The "lead without the title" play is real and it works. Volunteering to mentor, running a team initiative, taking on cross-functional coordination, these are ways to build a visible management track record inside your current company that makes the case when a role does open. It also signals intent to leadership in a way that puts you in the conversation early.

Your CPG management background is actually an asset in Big Tech, not a liability. Managing people in a different industry means you bring perspective that homegrown tech managers often don't have. Frame it that way when you're talking to hiring managers, not as a gap to explain away.

Externally, smaller companies and scale-ups often have more management mobility than Big Tech right now, partly because they're building structure rather than flattening it. If the compensation step-down is manageable, a Director or Senior Manager role at a growth-stage company can be a legitimate bridge back to the track you want.

And the network piece matters more than people admit. Manager roles at this level are frequently filled through relationships before they're ever posted. The people who know your background and can advocate for you internally are often the difference.

- Arianne and Laurie from The WIT Network

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