In honor of our SciGen Spotlight Eleni Briola, we hosted a special interview with her so we could learn more about what it’s like to be a Greek woman working in the tech industry.
Tell us about yourself! What is your role at SciGen and how did you get here?
I graduated with a Bachelor’s degree from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Democritus University of Thrace in Xanthi, Greece, and hold an MEng in Electrical and Computer Engineering and an MSc in Algorithms and Privacy from the same university. I am currently a doctoral candidate in Machine Learning and have been a Teaching Assistant at the university for the last three and a half years.
I joined SciGen in 2020, as a software engineer. It was my first formal job at a company. Before that, I was focused on my university studies and doing educational programs as well. During those years I participated in research projects related to my studies, one of which was Horizon Europe 2020, an initiative related to tourism in Greece.
What drew you to a career in STEM and how has your journey been so far?
I was interested in computers from a really young age. I got my first computer at age four, way before it was common to have home computers. It was a Windows 98, imagine. Starting then I would mostly draw with Paint, play with the shapes in Microsoft Word, things that kids do. After that, in middle school I made my first website. I wrote the code myself, in HTML and CSS, line by line. That, I would say, was my first major coding project. From there, it was clear that I had a calling to the subject and was meant to pursue it further.
In high school I started to explore the hardware side of things–I would take the big computer system unit, open it up, clean it, move the discs. I would format my home computer, my relatives’ and friends’ computers. So starting in high school was when my passion for coding became obvious. I also really liked math, as well, and ultimately choosing to study computer science was an easy choice.
Eleni and her sister sitting at a laptop in 1999
Wow! So it was obvious from the beginning that this was something you were meant to do.
Definitely. Even with other games and stuff, I was always dismantling my toys, curious about how they worked. It was logical that I would end up an engineer. Regarding as my journey so far, it’s been great. I’ve participated in a lot of projects through my Master’s and PhD research, at SciGen I have learned a lot and participated in various conferences, as well. In all areas of my work, electrical engineering, computer science, and machine learning, it’s been really nice so far.
What are some of the unique challenges or opportunities that women encounter in the tech industry?
I’m lucky in the sense that both at university and here at SciGen, I’ve worked with people who look for merit and promote gender diversity on their teams. However, when I got to university, in my department there were 180 men and 20 women who had been admitted that year. So it’s still a male-dominated space; electrical engineering and computer science is still assumed to be a very masculine occupation here in Greece.
While I was a student, there was one incident that happened while I was working a summer job, unrelated to tech–I was a server at a beach bar. One day, a part of the sound system broke. There was an issue between the speakers and the connected computer. I went to go find the issue because I know about computers and circuits, and people were saying, “there’s no way a woman’s going to be able to fix this, we should call someone else.” Here in Greece that is still a widespread assumption, that if you’re a woman, you aren’t familiar with tech or engineering, unfortunately.
Slowly, the landscape is changing, but there is a ways to go. Especially some older professors who I had, they are a bit regressive in their views towards women in the field. I will say that, in the last few years where I’ve been teaching at the university, there is a better balance between male and female students in the newer classes. More and more women are getting in and choosing to pursue tech, compared to 10 years ago when I began my studies. There are still more men than women, but the imbalance isn’t as drastic as it used to be. Now, it’s closer to 35% women, 65% men, 40/60, something like that.
Do you think that’s because the environment has changed to be more accepting towards women, or just that more women are interested in the field? Or both?
I think both, there’s both more interest from female students and people’s perceptions are slowly changing. It’s no longer as taboo for a woman to be interested in computers. In Greece the public mindset is shifting gradually. As time passes, with the younger generations especially, I think the situation is improving.
What can tech companies do to make their female employees feel more supported?
Three things. The first is salary-related–there should be parity between men and women. If a woman has the same qualifications, skillset and years of experience as a man, she should be compensated an equal amount.
Second, gender shouldn’t be a consideration when deciding who gets chosen for leadership positions. In STEM especially, you can see that most of the time men are usually selected for positions of leadership, and women get passed over. It may be that a woman at a company is more capable and has more to offer, why wouldn’t she be able to assume a position of greater responsibility?
Lastly, in the hiring process, especially in the first round where people just look at resumes, I think it would be good for there to be no visible names or photographs, so that it’s not clear what the gender of an applicant is and they are judged solely on their achievements. The way things are now, someone might pass over your resume just because they don’t like your face, and there’s no equal opportunity there. Or, to see that you’re a woman and say, I want a man for the position–that’s really bad. Opportunities should be given based on someone’s qualifications, not on gender or sexual orientation or race, or anything like that.
I remember at university a few times I was prompted to put my sexual orientation on some paperwork–why should I have to declare that? It’s not anyone’s business and it’s not relevant.
What advice would you give to a woman considering a career in the tech industry?
Go for it. If you have an inclination toward a certain career, and you have passion, it’s good to dare to pursue it. People who have passion develop their skills more quickly, and they’re willing to put more time and effort into studying their subject. That helps you move up the ladder more quickly compared to people who choose STEM randomly or out of obligation.
So, you’d give the same advice to a woman as to a man?
Yes–do whatever calls you, whatever is an expression of you.
What’s your favorite part of your job?
The best part of my job is when you’ve been searching for days to find a solution to a problem–for example, the code just isn’t working for some reason, and it’s not doing what you want and you’ve been searching for days to figure out the answer, you look at it again and again, you tweak it, you tweak it again, still doesn’t work–when all of a sudden, you finally find and fix the error, and the code works the way you want it to: that is pure joy. The experience of making something from scratch and knowing that it works the way it should is really satisfying. As we’ve been working on [redacted], it’s been nice to have been there since day one, to watch it evolve, and see how it’s developed into a product. It’s gratifying to have been there before we had written even a single line of code, and now we’ve ended up with a product that works and will be sold to customers.
Any final notes for your audience?
Only to reiterate what I said earlier to women: don’t be scared of pursuing tech if it’s what you’re passionate about. Fortunately the landscape is shifting and there isn’t as much of an emphasis on gender as there used to be. It would be good for things to keep progressing and have there be no more prejudice towards us or anyone else.