If you think frontend teams aren't diverse enough, I will strongly suggest never looking at any backend/infra teams

I wanna point out that this is *not* a competition in anyway. It's about how wide that gap is even within tech.
Only when I started going to infra conferences did it it hit me how much I'd gotten used to having a decent number of women/enby folk around me. I used to take it for granted. You don't get that with infra confs. They're a literal sea of men.
I moved from frontend to more backend focussed stuff so early on bc I was v lucky to realise early on that it's my happy place. I'm so much more excited by the domain and problem space overall. Sometimes I can't help questioning that decision however.
Every time I mention that my current eng team is ~50% women, people audibly gasp and it makes me realise how lucky I am. This is very much not the norm and it does make me scared about the longer term future of my career.
I am not going to (and I shouldn't!!) hold myself back bc of other people. I love this space and I'm gonna continue to explore it. I can't help wondering, however, at what cost to me, in the long term.
All I wanna point out that's it's really hard to be excited about working in a domain where you've a handful of role models to look upto who look like you. It's a vicious self-perpetuating cycle.
It makes me really sad sometimes. I'd have known zero women in this domain if were not for Twitter. I am constantly on the look out for more bc damn, this can be an incredibly lonely space to aspire to have a career in sometimes.
I also wonder how many people are put off bc of how wide the gap is on these type of teams across the org chat. How many amazing engineers are we losing who'd be great at these things bc they don't think they can make it?
I say this as someone who knows women/enby folk in double digits in these domains including staff+. I don't think that's the norm at all. I've had to spend the last couple of years painstakingly seeking out similar minded folks. It requires a ton of effort.
I'm also going to call out that the majority of them are white women. I love them with all my heart, but I can literally count on one hand the number of woc I know who managed to "make it". It breaks my heart sometimes.
I don't really have a point here. I am mostly venting bc it makes me really sad to think of these things when I try to imagine where I want to be in my career in the next 10-15 years. I don't really have a set path to follow bc so few have managed to walk through it before me.
I wanna end on a positive note, so: if you're a fellow woman/minority who aspires to make it big and be the best in this domain full of men: I want you to know you're not alone and we got this despite the odds.

Especially to early career women who wanna experiment and dabble in different domains, my door is always open. I'm happy to help you in any way I csn by sharing my experience moving from frontend and/or providing direction. Let's leave this space better than we found it.
