The women in data redefining career paths in tech

The technology industry still prefers a clean narrative. Study engineering. Join a fast-growth company. Climb steadily up the ranks.

But when I speak to women working across enterprise technology, their careers tell a different story. They are rarely linear. More often, they are shaped by sideways moves, career breaks, and moments of self-doubt that can’t be neatly summarized on LinkedIn.

The ‘ideal’ linear career path is one that has historically favored men. Despite years of focus on diversity, the gender imbalance in tech remains stark — a sobering 50% of women are still leaving the data and technology sector just as they should be entering senior leadership roles, according to Women in Data.

For my colleagues — Siobhan Ryan (Regional Sales Director for UK & Ireland), Dominique Hall (Senior Director of EMEA Marketing), Radhika Kapur (Area VP, Partners and Technology Group EMEA), and Louise Potts (Customer Success Manager), careers in tech were not built from one single blueprint. They were built through experience — hard-won, adaptive and shaped as much by resilience as by ambition.

A non-linear path into tech

When Siobhan Ryan attended a Women in Data Network lunch for senior leaders across the UK public sector, one admission kept resurfacing. 

She told me, 

One of the things that we all agreed to — which sometimes we’re nearly ashamed to say — is most of us actually got into tech by accident.

Siobhan’s own path began in Ireland in the 1990s. She joined Dell in an inside sales role that felt practical rather than strategic, and later she moved to the US, joining Oracle and shifting from hardware into software, from databases into ERP field sales. 

She was often the only woman in the room. She says, 

 I guarantee I had to work twice as hard. 

 And she did. She won Rookie of the Year. She closed major deals and built credibility through grit and determination.

But what stayed with her wasn’t just the success, it was the awareness that entry into tech rarely looks neat — and that the industry still struggles to reconcile that reality with its expectations.

The penalty for stepping away

Siobhan’s most non-linear chapter came later, when she took a career break to move back to Ireland from the US to focus on a growing family. She says of trying to re-enter the workforce, 

It was really deflating. The amount of tax that is put on women for taking a career break.

Despite a decade at Oracle, she felt employers focused on the gap rather than the experience around it. 

Frankly, a guy with three or four years of tech sales experience would be ranked higher than me with 12, because I had had this break.

She refused to accept a downgrade. An MBA helped her rebuild confidence and narrative. She recalls realizing,

Hang on a second — my skills are actually still relevant.

That determination to define your own trajectory echoes across other career paths at Confluent. Dominique Hall describes herself as someone who has spent so long in enterprise technology that, 

If you cut me in half, it would say tech marketing.

Her move to Confluent felt familiar because of the buyers — CIOs, CTOs, the enterprise ecosystem she had grown up in professionally. But familiarity hasn’t erased the dynamics of being in the minority, despite progress being made. She reflects, 

I actually cannot remember the last time I was the only woman. But it’s fair to say that when I’m in a room, women are often still in the minority.

Learning how to hold the room

What strikes me most in speaking to these women is not simply resilience, but strategy. Dominique is deliberate about how she contributes in meetings, choosing not to compete for airtime by interrupting or getting louder. 

I want to have a strong voice. But that doesn’t mean being the loudest voice. You don’t have to speak the most often to be heard, to make your point. Keep it fact-based. Timing is key. Tone is key.

Louise Potts’ career reflects a different kind of lateral movement. Tech was never the plan.

I never intended to work in tech, at all.

After studying sciences and maths at A-level and completing a psychology degree, she moved into event management. A role at a software company came up and it was local. The people seemed nice, so she joined, intending to stay two years. She stayed nearly nineteen.

Starting in marketing, Louise worked closely with pre-sales teams supporting financial services clients. Five years in, she wanted something new. She asked about a secondment abroad. Instead, she was encouraged to explore pre-sales.

A one-year secondment followed and she never went back.

I started right at the bottom.

From there, she built technical credibility step by step, eventually moving into management.

Redefining what technical looks like

Conversations around inclusion often center on coding and engineering but Siobhan believes that frame is already outdated.

Generative AI, she argues, is expanding the disciplines that matter in technology. Philosophy, law, sustainability — areas historically viewed as peripheral — are becoming central as automation reshapes technical work.

Even her own daughter once teased her, 

You’re not really a woman in tech, because you’re in sales. 

Siobhan laughs now but the comment reflects a wider misconception.

Tech careers are not confined to engineering. They include the people who translate, contextualize, sell and implement technology in the real world. Without them, innovation doesn’t land.

And yet, the talent pipeline tells a stubborn story. The number of women progressing through STEM education and into technical roles remains persistently low. As a hiring manager, Siobhan is blunt — 

If I’m not getting the candidates in the pool, how am I going to hire from the pool? Representation does not fix itself.

The reality behind the rhetoric

Across these conversations, one theme is constant — careers in tech are shaped as much by advocacy as by capability.

Radhika Kapur believes that support structures in the industry often stop short of what women actually need to progress.

Many women I know have had incredible mentors who have guided them through their careers. But without a sponsor actively championing their advancement, they remain stuck — circling the same mid-level roles despite being more than qualified for the next step.

It is a distinction that matters. Mentorship offers advice. Sponsorship creates access. Radhika adds, 

Without systemic change, mentorship becomes a way to pay lip service to diversity efforts while the real levers of power remain unchanged. The reality is, advice alone won’t break barriers, advocacy will. We need to shift the conversation from mentorship to sponsorship if we want to slow the troubling trend of women leaving tech before they even have the chance to reach the boardroom.

Siobhan fought to return after a career break. Dominique learned that authority does not require dominance. Louise moved sideways and built expertise incrementally. Radhika recruited the right people to advocate for her in the spaces she wasn’t allowed in… yet.

None of their careers fit a textbook model. If technology wants to attract and retain the talent it needs — particularly as AI reshapes roles and responsibilities — it must recognise the value in diversity. Diversity in skill sets. Diversity in experience. Diversity in career paths.

There has never been just one way into and upwards through tech. And these women are the living data to prove it!