We have celebrated Chief Technology Officers, Infosec & Cybersecurity executives, Product Design leaders, Architects – and now we are celebrating engineering leadership in 2020!
Here are 60 technical women to watch – the next FORTUNE 100 CTOs!
1 – Amy Hurlbut – Salesforce Senior Vice President of Software Engineering
Amy Hurlbut is Senior Vice President of Software Engineering at Salesforce, where she’s worked for over seven years. Prior to Salesforce, Amy worked at Echelon for 23 years, where she was most recently Vice President of Software Engineering. She began her career as a Hardware Engineer. Follow her at @amyhurlbut.
2 – Amy Truong – Patreon Vice President of Engineering
Amy Truong is Vice President of Engineering at Patreon. Prior to Patreon, she worked at Planet, where she was most recently Senior Director of Product Engineering. Prior to Planet, she was at Twitter, Rackspace and IBM in engineering management. Follow her at @amyt.
3 – Analyn Sales Nouri – Ticketmaster Vice President of Engineering
Analyn Sales Nouri is Vice President of Engineering at Ticketmaster, where she has worked for 19 years. Prior to Ticketmaster, she was a serial entrepreneur, co-founding Echo-Sigma Emergency Systems and Fluent Home. She began her career as a Software Developer at iXL. Follow her at @analynnouri.
4 – Annabel Liu – Curated Vice President of Engineering and Co-Founder
Annabel Liu is Vice President of Engineering at Curated. Prior to co-founding Curated, Annabel worked at LinkedIn for over seven years, where she was most recently Vice President of Engineering. Before LinkedIn, Annabel spent nine years at Ariba.
5 – Annie Kao – Simpson Strong-Tie Vice President of Engineering
Annie Kao is Vice President of Engineering at Simpson Strong-Tie, where she has worked for over 13 years and she started her career as Branch Engineer. She serves on the board of directors at Structural Engineers Association of Southern California. Follow her at @annietrankao.
6 – Arquay Harris – Slack Senior Director of Engineering
Arquay Harris is Senior Director of Engineering at Slack. Prior to joining Slack, she was a Web Development Manager at Google, where she led a large team of information architects, developers and designers. Before Google, she worked at CBS Interactive as Director of Engineering.
7 – Ashley Ha Dudgeon – Salesforce Vice President of Software Engineering
Ashley Ha Dudgeon is Vice President of Software Engineering at Salesforce, She began her career as a software developer after graduating from UC Berkeley with a degree in computer science. She finds inspiration and empathy in her background as a refugee and is a proud mom to two young boys.
8 – Bela Labovitch – athenahealth Vice President of Engineering
Bela Labovitch is Vice President of Engineering at athenahealth. Prior to athenahealth, she worked at inVentiv Health, LogixHealth, MedMinder Systems, and Newsilike Media Group in engineering leadership. Follow her at @bmedminder.
9 – Cailin Nelson – MongoDB Executive Vice President of Cloud Engineering
Cailin Nelson is Executive Vice President of Cloud Engineering at MongoDB. Prior to MongoDB, she was at Turntable.FM as Vice President of Engineering. Cailin has held engineering roles at Kiva, Zicasso, SquareTrade and Applied Financial Technology.
10 – Caitlin Smallwood – Netflix Vice President of Data Science and Engineering
Caitlin Smallwood is Vice President of Data Science and Engineering at Netflix. working on predictive decision models, algorithm / machine learning research, and experimentation science. Prior to joining Netflix in 2010, Caitlin worked at Intuit, Yahoo!, and several consulting firms.
11 – Cathleen Wang – Udemy Senior Director of Engineering
Cathleen Wang is Senior Director of Engineering at Udemy, Prior to Udemy, she was at Simply Hired for four years as Director of Engineering. Prior to Simply Hired, she worked in engineering at Nest Labs, One Kings Lane, Netscape and more. Follow her at @cathleenwang.
12 – Cathy Edwards – Google Vice President of Engineering
Cathy Edwards is Vice President of Engineering at Google. Before she joined Google, Cathy was a serial entrepreneur. She was CTO and co-founder at Chomp (acquired by Apple) and CEO and co-founder of Undecidable Labs (acquired by Google). Follow her at @cathye.
13 – Claire Delaunay – Nvidia Vice President of Engineering
Claire Delaunay is Vice President of Engineering at Nvidia. Prior to Nvidia, she was Vice President of Engineering and co-founder at Otto (acquired by Uber). Prior to Otto, Claire worked at Google and founded Botiful. Follow her at @lullabeee.
14 – Dawn Baker – Fitbit Vice President of Engineering
Dawn Baker is Vice President of Engineering at Fitbit (acquired by Google). Prior to Fitbit, Dawn worked at LinkedIn, where she was most recently Senior Manager of Site Reliability. She has held various leadership roles at Advantaged Technology Group, Arc90 and OpSource.
15 – Elaine Teoh – Flexport Vice President of Engineering
Elaine Teoh is Vice President of Engineering at Flexport. Prior to Flexport, she was Vice President of Engineering at Periscope Data and Lookout. Prior to Lookout, she was at OpenTable for five years, most recently as Senior Director of Engineering.
16 – Elizabeth Bierman – Comcast Vice President of Engineering
Elizabeth Bierman is Vice President of Engineering at Comcast. Prior to Comcast, she worked at Honeywell for over seven years, most recently as Senior Technical Manager. Follow her at @ekbierman.
17 – Erica Joy Baker – GitHub Director of Engineering
Erica Joy Baker is Director of Engineering at GitHub. Prior to GitHub / Microsoft, she worked at Patreon where she was a Senior Engineering Manager. Prior to Patreon, she was at Slack as a Senior Build and Release Engineer. Prior to Slack, Erica spent almost a decade at Google, most recently as Site Reliability Engineer. She is a founding advisor at Project Include. Follow her at @EricaJoy.
18 – Erica Lockheimer – LinkedIn Vice President of Engineering
Erica Lockheimer is Vice President of Engineering at LinkedIn, where she leads the teams responsible for LinkedIn Learning. Prior to LinkedIn, Erica worked at Good Technology for nine years. She was the first in her family to attend university and almost dropped out. She went on to graduate from SJSU with a degree in Computing Engineering. Follow her at @EricaLockheimer.
19 – Heidi Williams – Grammarly Head of Engineering
Heidi Williams is Head of Engineering at Grammarly. Prior to Grammarly, Heidi was CTO and co-founder at tEQuitable. Prior to that, she was Box’s Vice President of Engineering for four years, and spent over a decade at Adobe in engineering management. Follow her at @heidivt73.
20 – Isaura Gaeta – Intel Vice President of Security Research
Isaura Gaeta is Vice President of Security Research at Intel. She has been at Intel for over 25 years. She serves on the board of directors at The Hispanic Foundation of Silicon Valley, and chairs the Nominating and Governance committee. Follow her at @isauragaeta.
21 – Jan Chong – Tally Vice President of Engineering
Jan Chong is Vice President of Engineering at Tally. Prior to Tally, Jan was Twitter’s Senior Director of Engineering. Prior to Twitter, she was at OnLive, where she spent four years in engineering management. Follow her at @lessachu.
22 – Jessica Popp – Twilio Vice President of Engineering
Jessica Popp is Vice President of Engineering at Twilio. Prior to Twilio, Jessica worked as Senior Director of Engineering at SendGrid and DDN Storage. Before that, Jessica spent five years at Intel, most recently as Senior Director of Engineering. She began her career as a Software Engineer for Circuit City.
23 – Jill Wetzler – Pilot Head of Engineering
Jill Wetzler is Head of Engineering at Pilot. Prior to joining Pilot, Jill was Lyft’s Director of Engineering Leadership Development. Prior to Lyft, she worked at Twitter and Salesforce in engineering management. She speaks at conferences on building inclusive teams. Follow her at @JillWetzler.
24 – Joy Su – Twitter Vice President of Engineering
Joy Su is Vice President of Engineering at Twitter, where she’s worked at for over seven years. Prior to Twitter, Joy was at Topix for eight years, most recently as Senior Director of Engineering. She began her career as a Software Engineer at Patkai Networks. Follow her at @joyousx.
25 – Kate Bergeron – Apple Vice President of Hardware Engineering
Kate Bergeron is Vice President, Hardware Engineering at Apple. Kate has almost 20 years of industry experience in high volume consumer electronics and manufacturing domestically and abroad. She has extensive experience in the commercial world and bringing products to market.
26 – Kathy de Paolo – Disney Vice President of Engineering
Kathy de Paolo is Vice President of Engineering at The Walt Disney Company. Prior to Disney, she worked at Qualcomm for 22 years, most recently as Director of Engineering. She began her career as a Firmware Engineer.
27 – Lakecia Gunter – Microsoft Vice President
Lakecia Gunter is Vice President and General Manager at Microsoft, leading IOT Global and Strategic Engagement. Prior to Microsoft, she was at Intel for over 12 years, most recently as Vice President of Programmable Solutions and General Manager of FPGA Ecosystem Development and Operations. Follow here at @lakeciagunter.
28 – Laura Thomson – Fastly Vice President of Engineering
Laura Thomson is Vice President of Fastly. Prior to Fastly, she worked at Mozilla for over 12 years, most recently as Senior Director of Engineering. She served on the board at Internet Security Research Group for four years, and published books on PHP and MySQL web development. Follow her at @lxt.
29 – Lei Yang – Quora Vice President and Head of Engineering
Lei Yang is Vice President and Head of Engineering at Quora. Prior to Quora, Lei worked at Google for over seven years, most recently as Staff Software Engineer. She started her career as a Research Intern at NEC Laboratories America.
30 – Leslie Carr – Quip Senior Director of Engineering
Leslie Carr is Senior Director of Engineering at Quip (acquired by Salesforce). Prior to Quip, she worked at Clover Health, most recently as Engineering Manager. Leslie began her career as a Network Engineer at Twitter, Craigslist and Google. Follow her at @lesliegeek.
31 – Li Lin – Marvell Vice President of Engineering
Li Lin is Vice President of Engineering at Marvell. She joined Marvell in 2005 and now leads a team of 900+ globally to develop wireless transceiver systems for mobile, connectivity and IoT applications.
32 – Lisa O’Malley – PayPal Vice President of Product and Engineering
Lisa O’Malley is Vice President of Product and Engineering for Large Enterprise Solutions at PayPal, where she’s been for over 12 years. Prior to PayPal, she worked at Creative Labs for seven years, most recently as Director of Product Marketing.
33 – Maria Zhang – LinkedIn Vice President of Engineering
Maria Zhang is Vice President of Engineering at LinkedIn. Prior to LinkedIn, Maria was Chief Technology Officer at Tinder. Prior to Tinder, she worked at Yahoo! where she was Vice President of Engineering. She was founding CEO at Alike (acquired by Yahoo!) and has worked at Microsoft, Zillow, NetIQ and Sirana. Follow her at @mariarenhui.
34 – Marian Croak – Google Vice President of Engineering
Marian Croak is Vice President of Engineering at Google. Prior to Google, she was Senior Vice President of Research and Development at ATT Labs. It was at Bell AT&T Labs where she collaborated with colleagues to invent Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP). She holds over 200 patents in VoIP technology.
35 – Michelle Grover – Twilio Chief Information Officer
Michelle Grover is Chief Information Officer at Twilio. Before Twilio, she was Vice President of Software Development at SAP Concur, where she led a global team of mobile and platform engineers who focus on TripIt. Follow her at @jcmish.
36 – Milena Talavera – Slack Senior Director of Engineering
Milena Talavera is Senior Director of Engineering at Slack. Prior to Slack, she worked at Talkdesk as Director of Engineering. Prior to Talkdesk, Milena was at Twelvefold Media for six years, most recently as Vice President of Engineering. She began her career as a Software Engineer for the US Government.
37 – Monica Bajaj – Workday Senior Director of Engineering
Monica Bajaj is Senior Director of Engineering at Workday. Prior to Workday, she worked as Director of Engineering at Ultimate Software and Perforce Software. She is on the board of Women in Localization, as a Chief Compliance Officer for GDPR and security initiatives. Follow her at @mbajaj9.
38 – Neha Narkhede – Confluent Technical Co-Founder and Board Director
Neha Narkhede is a technical co-founder and serves as board director at Confluent. Previously, she led the streams infrastructure area at LinkedIn, where she worked for four years. She began her career as a Member of Technical Staff at Oracle. She is a co-creator of Apache Kafka. Follow her at @nehanarkhede.
39 – Ning Li – Facebook Vice President of Engineering and Product
Ning Li is Vice President of Engineering and Product at Facebook, where she has worked for over 11 years. She began her career working at IBM for eight years as a Software Engineer.
40 – Prachi Gupta – Discord Vice President of Engineering
Prachi Gupta is Vice President of Engineering at Discord. Prior to Discord, Prachi was worked at LinkedIn for over a decade, most recently as Director of Engineering. She began her career a Software Engineer at Impetus.
41 – Preeti Somal – Hashicorp Vice President of Engineering
Preeti Somal is Vice President of Engineering at Hashicorp. She has shared lessons learned in HashiCorp’s hypergrowth of remote-first engineering culture. Prior to Hashicorp, she was Vice President at tech giants like Yahoo!, VMware and Oracle. Follow her at @psomal.
42 – Rachana Kumar – Etsy Vice President of Engineering
Rachana Kumar is Vice President of Engineering at Etsy, where she’s worked for six years. Prior to Etsy, Rachana co-founded Shaadi Karma and interned at United Nations Population Fund. Prior to that, she was Lead Software Architect at Brighter India Foundation and Web Development Manager at BET Networks. Follow her at @kumar_rachana.
43 – Rachel Potvin – GitHub Vice President of Engineering
Rachel Potvin is Vice President of Engineering at GitHub. Prior to GitHub, Rachel worked at Google for over 11 years, where she was most recently an engineering leader for Google Cloud. She began her career as a Software Developer for Openface Internet. Follow her at @potvinrachel.
44 – Raji Arasu – Intuit Senior Vice President of Platform
Raji Arasu is Senior Vice President of Platform and Services at Intuit, where she leads development of platforms and core services. Prior to Intuit, she served as Chief Technology Officer for eBay subsidiary StubHub, after holding a variety of leadership roles at eBay. She serves on the board of directors at NIC. Follow her at @rarasu.
45 – Rashmi Channarayapattna – Salesforce Vice President of Engineering
Rashmi Channarayapattna is Vice President of Engineering at Salesforce. She joined Salesforce in 2005 as a Quality Engineer after working in a startup and worked her way up.
46 – Reena Tiwari – American Express Vice President of Engineering
Reena Tiwari is Vice President of Engineering at American Express. Prior to American Express, she worked at Symantec for four years, most recently as Senior Director of Digital Transformation, E-Commerce and SAAS. She began her career as Technical Lead onsultant at Argonaut Group. Follow her at @retiwari.
47 – Sarah Aerni – Salesforce Senior Director of Machine Learning and Engineering
Sarah Aerni is Senior Director of Machine Learning and Engineering at Salesforce. Prior to Salesforce, Sarah spent four years at Pivotal, most recently as Data Science Manager. She is a Program Committee Member at Apache Foundation and MADlib committer. Follow her at @iTweetSarah.
48 – Sharmeelee Bala – Gap Inc. Vice President of Engineering
Sharmeelee Bala is Vice President of Engineering at Gap Inc. Prior to Gap Inc., she was at Walmart Labs for a decade, working her way up from Programmer to Senior Manager. Sharmeelee began her career as a Systems Analyst at TCSS and BCSS.
49 – Sharmila Ravi – Capital One Managing Vice President of Software Engineering
Sharmila Ravi is Managing Vice President of Software Engineering at Capital One. Prior to Capital One, she worked at Comcast Cable for 14 years, most recently as Vice President of Product Development. She began her career as a Senior Software Engineer at Toobias Associates / Compustatics.
50 – Silvia Ahmed – Veritas Vice President of Engineering
Silvia Ahmed is Vice President of Engineering at Veritas. Prior to Veritas, she worked at Dell EMC as Senior Director of Product Engineering. Fun fact: Silvia earned undergraduate degrees in Psychology and Cybernetic Systems from San Jose State University.
51 – Shay Bahramirad – ComEd Vice President of Engineering and Smart Grid
Shay Bahramirad is Vice President of Engineering and Smart Grid at ComEd, where she has worked for over six years. Prior to ComEd, Shay was Vice President at IEEE Power Energy Society. Prior to IEEE, she was Adjunct Professor at Illinois Institute of Technology for seven years. Follow her at @sh_bahramirad.
52 – Sue McKinney – Anaplan Senior Vice President of Cloud Engineering
Sue McKinney is Senior Vice President of Cloud Engineering at Anaplan. Prior to Anaplan, she was Vice President of Engineering at Cloudera, Veritas, Symantec and Pitney Bowes. Prior to that, Sue was at IBM. Follow her at @sue_mckinney.
53 – Surabhi Gupta – Robinhood Vice President of Product Engineering
Surabhi Gupta is Vice President of Product Engineering at Robinhood. Prior to Robinhood, she was at Airbnb for six years, most recently as Director of Engineering. Prior to Airbnb, Surabhi was at Google, where she was a Staff Software Engineer. Follow her at @surbs.
54 – Tamar Bercovici – Box Vice President of Engineering
Tamar Bercovici is Vice President of Engineering at Box, where she began working as a Senior Software Engineer a decade ago. Prior to Box, Tamar worked at XMPie (acquired by Xerox) for five years, most recently as a Software Application Engineer. Follow her at @tamarbercovici.
55 – Theresa Vu – Xandr Vice President of Engineering
Theresa Vu is Vice President of Engineering at Xandr. She worked at AppNexus for over a decade, joining as a Senior C Developer. She gave a talk on rap and realtime systems where she talks about her passion for music, and shared about her inspiring mother in an interview. Follow her at @gotvu.
56 – Vanitha Kumar – Qualcomm Vice President of Software Engineering
Vanitha Kumar is Vice President of Software Engineering at Qualcomm, where she has worked for over 24 years. She began her career as a Senior Engineer at Cisco. Vanitha serves as a board director at Elementary Institute of Science and Qualcomm Foundation.
57 – Victoria Kirst – Glitch Vice President of Engineering
Victoria Kirst is Vice President of Engineering at Glitch (Fog Creek Software). Prior to Glitch, Victoria worked at Google for over seven years as a Senior Software Engineer. She loves to teach and has lectured at Stanford. Follow her at @bictolia.
58 – Wendy Shepperd – New Relic Group Vice President of Engineering
Wendy Shepperd is Group Vice President of Engineering at New Relic. Prior to New Relic, she was Vice President of Engineering at Liquid Web, AllClear ID, and WP Engine. She began her career as a Content Developer at Texas Education Agency. Follow her at @WendyShepperd.
59 – Yanbing Li – Google Vice President of Engineering
Yanbing Li is Vice President of Engineering at Google. Prior to Google, she was at VMware for over a decade, most recently as Senior Vice President and General Manager, Storage and Availability. Prior to VMware, Yanbing spent six years at Synopsis in engineering management. Follow her at @ybhighheels.
60 – Yoky Matsuoka – Google Vice President of Engineering
Yoky Matsuoka is Vice President of Engineering at Google. Prior to Google, she was CTO of Nest (acquired by Google). Previously, she was an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University and University of Washington, where her research combined neuroscience and robotics. Follow her at @yokymatsuoka.
You can follow these engineering leaders on a Twitter List, Pinterest Board, and the Girl Geek X community on LinkedIn.
We love seeing where women’s careers take them over the years! Technical women leaders of large organizations have demonstrated different pathways to moving up. Sometimes they move up over a decade. Sometimes they are recruited and hired at the top. Some of our favorite technical women are entrepreneurial and spend time outside of the corporate race to the top and instead build their own company or join an early-stage startup.
There are many more women coming up in the corporate and startup ranks.
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