One woman’s story of working at Microsoft: how the right team matters (a lot)

Michael Cottuli

Donna Malayeri, a Programs Manager working with the Azure team at Microsoft, just put out a fascinating article that goes over the frustrations of being a woman in the tech industry. She goes over how unconscious biases against her personality had been apparent while she was moving forward in her career, and offers some advice on how you can work towards your career goals, and not get stuck in a job you hate.

The piece is an excellent read for any women in the workforce, and even for those who may need help identifying the bias that exists within all of us. Malayeri does an excellent job of outlining the underlying gender-related issues in the work force, and ties it well into a larger conversation about picking the right team for the job when you need to come together for a large project.

Nearly as compelling as the piece itself is the inevitable backlash that some commenters online had offered up in response to the piece. Going on the Twitter thread I linked above, or even the comments of the article itself, you can see countless men trying to tell Malayeri that she hadn’t experienced any sort of bias or discrimination. I’d recommend picking out some of these comments, as well as the author’s responses to them, because they do a really good job of illustrating the piece’s point.