Women, technology and career: 3 interviews about working in iGaming industry
Сelebrating International Day of Women and Girls in Science, let’s give the floor to women working in the iGaming industry. We’ve asked representatives of Rootz and Gamingtec to share their stories on how they overcome their challenges and became successful in their career paths.
More and more women have decided to make their futures in tech but the gaming industry is still a male-dominated world that can be daunting at times. How do young ladies choose their career, and what defining moments are they particularly proud of? Read ahead to hear more from these inspiring women.
As a child, every girl has a dream of what she wants to be when she grows up. Most commonly, childhood dreams remain dreams, but there comes a time to choose a future career and to start to work on it. A moment when the girl understands what she wants to be is a crucial one. It may come due to some life events, important words they had heard, or some role models they would like to follow.
Our first speaker, Melanie Hainzer, Chief Marketing Officer at Rootz, told us that in her childhood she wanted to become a farmer: “My grandparents had a farm with dairy cows, cattle, and deer. It was my favorite part of the day to get up at 5 am, help to milk the cows, and then walk them to their meadow, coming back home and then have a very well deserved breakfast.
As I got older, I did a lot of things before I ended up in gaming — from working for the government organizing events for parent education, writing applications for EU-funded community developments, managing a cinema to selling properties, cutting radio shows, and even working in a bank. As you can see, my interests were varied and I was always drawn to a career where you must be a bit of an all-rounder, where passion and skill are widely celebrated, which brought me into iGaming and Marketing.”
Media Buyer at Gamingtec, recalls that as a teenager, she dreamed of being a cinema actress. “Later I became convinced that a person can have several educations, and be able to do a lot and know a lot. There are no limitations to not to continue studying and work on your self-effectiveness. I also believe that a person can try to work in different industries until he/she finds something of his/her own. Thus, from a quality control engineer (gas & oil industry), I came up to the IT industry and tried to bump out my skills and knowledge.”
Talking about her children’s dreams and career path, Inna, Media Buyer at Gamingtec, recalls that her first idea of a career was far from the tech industry as she was dreaming of becoming a dentist.
“Perhaps because I was afraid of these doctors in my childhood, I wished to become the one that children would not be afraid of. Then, as an adult, I was interested in marketing. That is why I studied marketing at the university.
Eventually, I chose my current profession because it gives me a new challenge and new experience every day. The profession of a media buyer is a link between the traffic source and the client, and the main rule is constantly looking for new ways and approaches to attract customers. Indeed, in this area, the main thing is to be the first, only then you will achieve the best results. This is what makes me feel good about my work.”
Having built a strong career, it is a good idea to look back and reflect on a piece of advice one wishes somebody gave them at the very beginning. These insights can be useful for ladies that are just starting to build their future. We asked our guests to think about important and supportive words for them.
All of the speakers agreed that it is extremely important to try yourself in different areas and to not be afraid to give up doing something if it doesn’t completely satisfy you. There are no decisions that cannot be changed, and there are so many interesting things to do that a girl can always find her future career according to her interests, talents and ambitions.
Let’s listen to women that have achieved great results despite all difficulties and challenges.
“I wish I would have known the power of networking much earlier on. You have probably already heard the saying “it’s not important what you know — it’s important who you know” which is very often true. After all, people are the best resource to navigate career moves and strengthen your knowledge base. Another piece of advice is trying to be a problem solver and not someone that only points out problems. If you notice something that needs improvement, think about how to fix it instead of just pointing it out.” Melanie
“Think about the solution, not about the problem itself! Identify your mistakes quickly, and here is the challenge, you don’t know if you are making mistakes or not. You always need to go on. Then you need to have the courage to correct it. So, please fail often. Fail fast. Fail fast to succeed.” Jennet
“Never stop learning new things and don’t be afraid to make mistakes. After all, real professionals always learn something new, including from their own mistakes, because otherwise, it is impossible to become better and achieve new heights.” Inna.
According to UNESCO statistics, today, women and girls are 25 percent less likely than men to know how to leverage digital technology for basic purposes, 4 times less likely to know how to program computers, and 13 times less likely to file for a technology patent.
Our speakers offered their points of view on how our world could be different if more women worked in Tech.
“Surely our world would be balanced better, more equal and more diversified as women’s approach to the tech products development would be better represented. Men and women sometimes have different visions of how to satisfy the tech products demand, and women would be able to create part of the demand on the market which would never pass through a man’s brain. So being short, I believe that there must be “natural” women’s presence in Tech, and the most important thing is that there must not be obstacles for women to be a part of the Tech world.” Jennet
“If we had more diverse voices it would mean products or services would work for everyone and I also believe that it would change the way women are treated in society. There are so many examples to have a better world with more women in tech — for sure there would have been better safety measures in place with ride-sharing services to avoid sexual harassments or we would get better designed cars that focus on simple woman friendly aspects like storage space or different body size assumptions, health apps wouldn’t forget that we have our periods, medical trials would be less biased with the consideration of the impact of sex and gender…” Melanie.
Read more interviews with women working in the IT industry:
