International Women’s Day 2022: Breaking the Bias in Tech

You’re likely familiar with International Women’s Day (IWD): a day to celebrate women’s achievements, recognize the harms of gender bias and urge everyone to act for women’s equality. But did you know this day was first honored in Denmark in 1911? That’s 111 years ago. It’s been a hot minute, hasn’t it? While we’ve seen progress over this past century — there is so much more work to do. And faster.

This year’s IWD theme is #BreakTheBias, which focuses on breaking down the barriers that keep women from moving ahead and urging people to do the real work of forging inclusive, equitable and diverse environments.

Here at Tanium, “breaking the bias” means actively recruiting females to interview for our open positions, encouraging our employees to refer women candidates, and providing equal opportunities for women to grow, innovate and steer the ship along with their own careers.

One thing that we know is true — representation matters. On this day, we’d like to highlight some of the fabulous women that make Tanium a stronger, smarter company. These women are role models with inspiring careers and journeys to share. The security field is short on talent and many critical roles are unfilled. We hope that you or someone you know can see yourself in an exciting technology career like the ones featured here, and maybe even here at Tanium!

Women at Tanium are helping to #BreakTheBias in Tech

Stephanie Aceves, Security Portfolio Lead

As our Security Portfolio Lead, Stephanie Aceves leads Tanium’s product vision and roadmap for our suite of security products. The daughter of Mexican immigrants, Stephanie jokes that it was her parents’ strict rules that drove her to a career in ethical hacking and cybersecurity. Grateful for the opportunities she’s been afforded, Stephanie pays it forward by awarding an annual scholarship to Latinas pursuing careers in STEM – namely, Latinas that demonstrate the same desire to develop the next generation of leaders. Stephanie has mentored a number of minority professionals and encourages them to be unapologetically themselves in tech, to make space in rooms where they are often underrepresented. At the start of the pandemic, she started the campaign #NotTheOnlyLatinxInSTEM to build community amongst Latinx professionals and combat the narrative that Latin@s are far and few in this field. In this Go-Tanium video, learn more about Stephanie’s journey and her amazing outreach to other women.

Kimberley St. Pierre, Director of Strategic Accounts

A Director of Strategic Accounts in Canada, Kimberley St. Pierre has earned her spotlight in the security arena. In 2021, IT World Canada honored her as of their top 20 women in cybersecurity, as identified by their peers. As a member of the global SheLeadsTech initiative, she’s on a mission to help empower and encourage women to find their place in cybersecurity, whether as young students or career changers. Kimberley cuts to the chase about the need for female representation in tech: you can’t be what you can’t see. In this Architect Tomorrow video, hear more about Kimberley’s story, her outreach work, and how she manages the challenges of working as a female in a male-dominated industry.

Melissa Bischoping, Endpoint Security Research Specialist

As an Endpoint Security Research Specialist, Melissa Bischoping leads critical work analyzing emerging threats, zero-days, and CVEs to help both employees and customers. She also researches emerging threats and writes for our Emerging Issues blog. A mentor helped Melissa find her passion for cybersecurity, and now she’s paying it forward by mentoring the next generation of cyber professionals. Her advice: find the parts of cybersecurity that inspire you and don’t be afraid to ask for mentorship. She also encourages recruiting and hiring for those with non-traditional tech backgrounds (like herself) and career-changers seeking to break into tech as a second career. She’s found that diverse perspectives are invaluable in security design discussions. Learn more about how Melissa gives back to the security community in this Go-Tanium Tech Talk, along with helpful tips for women starting out in this field.

Shannon Rosales Mirani, Senior Human Resources Business Partner

As Senior HR Business Partner for Global Sales, Shannon focuses squarely on building the highly engaged and unstoppable teams that drive Tanium’s culture and success. With 3.5 million unfilled jobs alone in our industry, Shannon sees firsthand the need for greater equity and diversity in cybersecurity. On the “Well, technically…” podcast, Shannon points to the data that shows gender-inclusive organizations outperform those that aren’t and offers this takeaway: look internally at your own company, how you hire, where you hire from, how you retain talent, and then pledge to make a difference. Listen to the interview as Shannon shares more about the skills gap in cybersecurity and how we need to change how we consider hiring for “fit.”

Sajida DiAugustine, Manager of Technical Documentation

As the Manager of Technical Documentation, Sajida DiAugustine manages a team with a broad and deep set of technical deliverables: online how-to and setup guides, in-product help and messages, product onboarding guides, and more. Sajida was hired in 2015 as the company’s first technical writer and has since built and led an incredibly productive team. In a field that is often undervalued, Sajida knows better: customers and users need to become immediately successful. Read more about Sajida’s journey to successfully shape how Tanium operators experience our products, supplying both useful and usable guidance in an incredibly technical domain.

Erika Haydon, Staff User Experience Designer

As a Staff User Experience Designer, Erika leads in a discipline that is critically important but universally misunderstood. While security and IT operations are complex and technical domains, the products that support them don’t have to be. Erika leverages user-centered design approaches to ensure Tanium products are not just useful but also simple, efficient and clear for the people using them. Erika’s advice to those joining Tanium: don’t wait for someone to ask what you think, a good idea can come from anywhere! Read how Erika leans into creativity and collaboration to improve experiences for Tanium operators.

Patti Krizowsky, Senior Quality Assurance Engineer

As a Senior QA Engineer, Patti Krizowsky leads and innovates in the quality assurance space, helping Tanium build out its testing infrastructure and processes from the ground up. Patti works in engineering, lauding a culture she describes as fun, innovative, collaborative and exciting. One of her insights about working at Tanium: across the board, people reach out to help each other. Her current focus is the Tanium Data Service (TDS), which stores a cached view of endpoint information. As part of our Meet a Tanium Engineer series, watch Patti speak to the collaboration involved with this massive QA challenge and the excitement she feels being a part of it.

To learn more about Tanium and explore our range of career opportunities, visit our Tanium Careers page.