Women are coding our clean energy future

According to the latest research, women represent only 25% of the workforce in the US energy industry. Female software engineers are an even rarer breed, representing just 14% of the broader tech industry. While there’s sadly not enough data to reflect the percentage of women operating at the intersection of energy and software, there is a clear mandate from the International Energy Agency that more gender diversity is critical to unlocking an inclusive, transformative, resilient clean energy transition worldwide.

From the design of our hiring pipeline and interview process to our day-to-day meetings and product-roadmapping strategy, we consistently work to foster a diverse and inclusive culture.

Here at Arcadia, we take that mandate to heart and have some of the best female software engineers bringing a sorely needed perspective to the centuries-old utility industry.

Supporting diversity is in our DNA

With 13 women on our 40-person engineering team, our 32.5% female representation rate exceeds both the software and energy sector benchmarks. Our engineering leadership team is approaching an industry best, at 37.5% female representation. And while this team is by far the most diverse engineering team I’ve ever worked on (a sentiment echoed by most, if not all, of our team), we know that we can and must continuously improve.

From the design of our hiring pipeline and interview process to our day-to-day meetings and product-roadmapping strategy, we consistently work to foster a diverse and inclusive culture. We anchor on our core company mission: a prerequisite to be hired on the team is that you believe in the need for the rapid transition to a 100% clean energy future. To do so equitably and justly requires centering a diverse set of voices and experiences. In practice, this shared value takes form in different ways, including:

• Rotating meeting hosts and note-takers to ensure any one teammate isn’t disproportionately stuck doing office “housekeeping”
• Participating in company-wide Diversity, Equity, Belonging and Inclusion initiatives
• Establishing inclusion as a one of the core competencies in our engineering growth framework
• Committing to offering Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) and underrepresented students paid, full-time 10-week internship opportunities

We #ChooseToChallenge

An exciting next step for us in this journey is to create an engineering blog as a space to elevate the varied voices on our team. Given that March is Women’s History Month and that this year’s International Women’s Day theme is “Choose to challenge,” we are highlighting several of the women working every day to challenge and disrupt the centuries-old utility industry. Over the coming weeks, keep an eye out for posts on:

• Build Together: Lauren Rodriguez will discuss the engineering team value that resonates with her most — “We don’t feign surprise” — and how embracing that value translates to a team culture that uplifts and supports the growth of each individual.
• Build for All: Rachel Partridge and Alexandra Beautyman will reflect on their work spinning up a cross-functional accessibility working group, focused on making our products and services more accessible to all people, including the one in four internet users in the US with a disability or impairment.
• Build with Urgency & Simplicity: Lindsey Maddox will share how her squad moves quickly and elegantly to absorb changing market forces (like new community solar regulations) and get more Americans access to 100% clean energy.

Beyond these initial posts, we’ll be posting regular tech-focused content, showcasing both the amazing engineers on our team and the complex, technical challenges we’ve solved through our platform. If there’s anything in particular you’d like to read about, let us know here.