Diversity: where we are and where we’d like to be

Update (5 Sep 2019): The sentiments of this article remain unchanged, although our team has changed a little over the last year.  Checkout the team page for more about us.

We firmly believe that diverse teams are better teams. To us “better” in this context means a team that is more fun, more rewarding, creates better products together and has a more positive impact on the world we live in. All of that is fundamental to our purpose as a company and a team. However we acknowledge that we are always learning and looking to improve.

Our current reality

Currently our small team is not as diverse as we would like. One area we do excel is that we cover 9 different nationalities (yes, that means pretty much everyone is from a different country). That also covers 7 different native languages, our common linguistic ground is English, of course. This diversity of background and nationality does mean we have to work very deliberately on our communication, that by itself makes our team better.

However, we also acknowledge that our male/female ratio is 7:2 and all the developers/engineers are basically all white and male and our finance & admin folks are white and female.

Therefore, we want to both become more diverse as we grow and build on our existing diverse strengths.

So what are we doing about it?

I believe that the honest answer here is that we are doing what we can. We are a young, small, bootstrapped company that is growing in a very deliberate and considered fashion; which basically means we do not recruit very often! When we do recruit team diversity is one of the many factors we consider. This is not a box ticking exercise, it is because we are always looking to improve our team.

We have a genuinely open and caring culture. We work hard to understand and value each other. All of which helps to allow each of us to bring our whole selves to work and to contribute fully. Our current diversity is one of our strengths as a team, a strength we would like to take even further.

We are constantly learning, both as individuals and as a team. We definitely make mistakes, and that includes mistakes that fit under the diversity and inclusiveness umbrella. Yet we openly acknowledge the positive and negative of where we are and are actively working on continuously improving.