It took me 10 years to work my way back to a technical role at the same level as what I had before going on maternity leave. Returning to work shouldn’t be like this.

I am a Systems Development Support engineer by trade, and I’m very good at it. I’m also a mother of two.

Sure, taking seven years off to raise my children left me behind the latest technologies. But despite applying for countless roles in software development and engineering, when I was ready to return to the workforce I couldn’t even get an interview. My experience wasn’t current, and no business had the willingness to train me back up to speed, despite the success I’d had in my technical career before having kids.

To make matters worse, when I applied for junior roles, I was told I was overqualified. In the end, I had no choice but to take an entry level position, right alongside new graduates.

A decade of hard work later, I am back where I started. During this time my husband, who also has a career in technology, continued to climb the corporate ladder and rise to prominent positions.

The technology industry in Aotearoa is desperate to retain women, but after my experience I can see why it’s making slow progress. The system simply isn’t built to flex around the lives of women, and those who take on primary caregiver roles. Few organisations have reviewed how they operate to get the most out of female talent.

My original foray into the tech industry was a coincidence. I’d been accepted to study osteopathy at  university at age 17 but I was technically too young to begin, so I found part time jobs to whittle away the time.

I started selling and building computers. I loved it but was the only female on the team. The boss put them through some “PC” training before I began; they weren’t allowed to swear anymore, too disrespectful around a young woman. In a twist the men certainly didn’t see coming, I swore just as much as them. By the time I left I was leading a team of six technicians, all males. I stayed in tech and ended up with a great technical job in one of New Zealand’s largest organisations. During these years, being a woman never stopped me from achieving my career goals.

I loved my work, but at the same time I knew I wanted to be a stay-at-home mum for my children when they were young. Had I known what the ramifications of this decision would be then, perhaps my thought process would have played out differently.

I took to parenthood similarly to my career, trying to upskill as much as possible. Although I maintained that I would return to tech, I studied early childhood, learning about brain development. I grew and learnt so much during these years, but by the time my youngest started school and I was ready to focus back on my own development, I seemed to be locked out of my old technical career.

Humbled and willing to take anything I could to get back on the ladder, I took a low salary desk job. I eventually became a PBX engineer, happy to be back engineering, but painfully aware I was no longer at the level of seniority I had previously achieved. It wasn’t until I found my role at Kordia and was promoted into their SDS team that I felt I was back-on-track. To be honest, there were points during this time where I pondered giving up totally, but now I’m with an organisation that plays to my strengths.

Comparatively, I’m lucky. There are thousands of women who have similar experiences, many of whom may not have had the continuous support I had from my husband, who was there to carry the domestic load as I worked long hours to regain my foothold.

Here’s the thing: the skills I learnt as a full-time mother and a trained early childhood teacher transferred seamlessly to my return to tech and management once I had the opportunity to apply them. Time management, sensitivity in communication and achieving under immense pressure are all skills I’m certain every stay-at-home mother possesses. It is frustrating that we place little to no value on these skills in a professional environment.

It is important to acknowledge the inherent shortfalls of the tech industry in allowing time, space and discussions around the re-integration of women back into their line of work after having children. The professional complex has somehow not worked out a way to meld these two things together. While we have come a long way regarding gender and diversity in tech, women still only make up roughly a quarter of the sector worldwide. The higher you go up that food chain, the more those numbers dwindle.

If tech and engineering companies are sincere about seeing more women progress in the workforce, they need to appreciate the importance of the skills women can bring and create environments that utilise these strengths, not just feel as though they are filling a quota. We need more clever business leaders with lived experience who comprehend the importance of parental leave and can help implement plans to support their female talent re-enter the workforce. With the pandemic, we proved that businesses canadapt to flexible working – we need to extend that same problem-solving approach to this issue.

Seventeen years since having kids, I’m hopeful that sharing my story might galvanise change for the next generation of working mothers – because being parent shouldn’t have to be at odds with having a career.