A Woman Of Google
August 12, 2013
The typical IT worker is stereotypically male and rightly so, because there are more males in IT. Wired, however, takes a look into the feminine side of the IT industry by focusing on Google’s Melody Meckfessel in “This Is the Woman At The Heart Of Everything Google Builds.” Meckfessel has worked at startup companies since her twenties and complied with the mentality of the IT world so she would not stand out as a female, but when she started to work at Google later in life she decided it was time to assert herself. As an engineer, she is responsible for the team that makes Google’s programming tools and her experience not only benefits Google’s work but also its diversity.
Meckfessel’s tools are not used outside Google and the search engine giant wants to keep them a secret. When Meckfessel joined the Google team she took the tools to a whole new level.
Chandler Carruth, a Google engineer said this about his co-worker:
“Carruth says she brought a “product perspective” to Google’s developer tools, insisting that, although they were only used inside the company, they should be treated like like products used by the world at large. ‘She bootstrapped a new charter for the team,” he says. “We had to think of these as products used by other Google engineers — and she brought that attitude. We had to think of them as cohesive things, to give them a nice presentation. That had not been the focus before.’”
Code is not restricted to the male end of the spectrum and Meckfessel bespeaks of how anyone, male or female, can be a prime addition to Google. Considering that Marissa Mayer went to Yahoo, it is great to know that the female end is still well represented at Google.
Whitney Grace, August 12, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
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