Nerd Journey: Career Advice for the Technology Professional
John White | Nick Korte
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Ally and Warrior: The Loneliness of Women in Tech with Kellyn Gorman (3/3)
Why do you think women leave careers in technology? Sometimes they are bullied, but sometimes it’s the loneliness. This week in episode 322, Kellyn Gorman shares the story of what moved her to start Women in Tech programs in the technical community, the lessons she learned from the Microsoft community, and what it was like returning to the Oracle community after an absence. You’ll hear about diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and some of the benefits and drawbacks they can create based on the experience of Kellyn and her husband. Even advocates and community warriors need support from others and time to recharge. Kellyn shares how she is able to achieve both to continue supporting the community she loves. Listen closely to learn how can you foster a more inclusive community for women in tech. Original Recording Date: 02-21-2025 Kellyn Gorman is a database professional who has worked in the technology space for 25 years better known as DBAKevlar. If you missed parts 1 and 2 of our discussion with Kellyn, check out Episode 320 and Episode 321. Topics – A Lonely Place in Tech, Returning to the Oracle Community, Encouraging the Contributions of Women in Tech, The Backlash of DEI, Being the Messenger and Getting Support 3:31 – A Lonely Place in Tech Did Kellyn’s initial struggles with public speaking and the challenges recalling her presentation topics have something to do with a lack of women attendees at the events, or was it just due to the large social setting in general? “Being a woman in tech, especially a data infra specialist like I am…I’m not on the analytics side. I’m very large database. It’s a very lonely place.” – Kellyn Gorman In 2011, someone Kellyn hired a woman she had previously worked with to come work with her again. “I didn’t realize. We communicated differently between each other, and we had a great interaction. It was so nice to have someone else there that I could go to lunch with, that I didn’t have to worry about…. It sounds sad. I don’t want that. I want to feel the same way about guys that I work with. I love the guys. But it was different…. She was pretty much bullied out of the job, and I was angry…. This is the last woman that leaves. I had looked into the history and of the 8 women I worked with in my career, at that point 5 of them had left tech. I scheduled lunches with them, sat down and talked with them, and found out they had all left for all the same reasons when you got down to it. They had all left because of the sheer loneliness, the isolation, the lack of collaboration…and sometimes bullying. And it was just really sad. And I didn’t realize that I was often bullied, that I was often isolated and everything else. And I said, ‘we’ve got to fix this.’ So, I started doing Women in Tech programs within the Oracle community.” – Kellyn Gorman Kellyn started the Women in Tech organizations for Kscope (an Oracle Developer and Technology conference) in Europe many years ago. By the time Kellyn left, the women attending RMOUG went up to 22% from the former 7% because of these programs, and there were more women getting into the Oracle ACE program. Kellyn would bring in different sponsors to promote women in tech. She would also get allies and other Oracle ACEs to personally promote specific women in the community and people of color. “I took this stuff on head on. They’d come back and go, ‘she’s not technical.’ The women I’m talking about is now the lead speaker for AI in Oracle…. Absolutely took no prisoners. Did I get shot as the messenger? A lot! Worth it…I am Kevlar. I will be bulletproof as long as I can.” – Kellyn Gorman, on moving a community forward Kellyn says the Oracle community has grown a lot. Listen to the way she describes how it once was when it came to treatment of women in tech. “Now they’re more likely to be allies…. That means they’re growing too, and that’s what we want. It always has to be based on education, not on persecution…and we focus on that. And I learned that very much from the Microsoft community. The Microsoft community is much farther ahead than the Oracle community on those situations. They police their own. When somebody gets out of hand, the guys are right there behind the women going, ‘no, you will not do this. This is not good.’ They expect that equality, that inclusivity, and I think that’s really essential that you see that growth. As long as there’s growth, as long as you’re moving forward, that is extremely important. That’s kind of where I take this.” – Kellyn Gorman 7:53 – Returning to the Oracle Community Kellyn has returned to the Oracle community after having to walk away from it for a little while. She is working to breathe some of the energy into it gained from being part of the Microsoft community but doesn’t feel she is quite there yet. “Well, I don’t know if I’m there yet…. For women in tech, we call it the death by 1000 pin pricks. It may be death by 1000 cuts, death by 1000 small bullet dings. I am the messenger that got shot a lot…. At a certain point I stepped away from the Oracle community and was like, ‘this is not healthy. You’re taking too many hits for too many people. You need to go where you’re safe and loved. I am very safe and very loved in the Microsoft community. So, I did that…and it really was helpful.” – Kellyn Gorman On the Microsoft side, Kellyn knew who paved the way for women in tech and understood the challenges involved. Kellyn shares the story of returning to Oracle Cloud World after a long absence. She had not been there since 2019. “…People coming up to me and giving me hugs and saying, ‘I couldn’t be where I am without you….’ I thought that no one remembered. I thought that no one cared.” – Kellyn Gorman, on returning to Oracle Cloud World John mentions that he loves being judged by the people he helps. Kellyn says it was lovely to know people cared about the efforts she had made during her earlier time in the Oracle community. It was an emotional moment. Shortly after the conference, Kellyn was approached about speaking at the Oracle Data and Analytics Conference and Kscope. She has been confirmed as the keynote speaker for BOTH events! Kellyn had submitted talks to both conferences, and they were moved up to keynotes. “‘We feel that you kind of got a raw deal with Oracle, and we want to fix that.’ Those kind of approaches…you didn’t even realize people noticed the hits you were taking, you know? So that definitely has been really nice. Not only am I coming back into the Oracle community, but I’m coming back in a way that I’ve got keynotes. I have articles that are being published in a number of top magazines. I am able to contribute in a way that is very powerful…. I had this conversation the other day that they were having problems with the haters, and I said, ‘don’t ever even pull yourself down into that level. Always work up. Always stay up. Don’t ever let them pull you down.’ This allows me to go back into the Oracle community and not be pulled down by anybody, to be able to do the best that I can do and focus on that…because I was anxious about coming into the Oracle community again, anxious about the challenges and those feelings….” – Kellyn Gorman Previous experiences in the Oracle community made Kellyn worry about getting into uncomfortable situations at events. A lot of events for the Oracle community may not have codes conduct or may be serving unlimited alcohol. This type of atmosphere lends itself to uncomfortable situations for women. “In the Microsoft community, there are very strict code of conducts. There are very high expectations, and there are people looking out for each other. That makes a huge difference. That takes a huge weight off of people when you’re there as a woman in tech, and I would love to see that at all communities. I don’t think people understand how important that is. We’re there to learn.” – Kellyn Gorman John mentions it is disappointing to hear about events with no code of conduct. Kellyn mentions how proud she is of the Kscope event organizers. When she expressed the importance of a code of conduct, organizers immediately implemented it as part of the conference. “We joke about it, but nobody wants the red card…that says you violated the code of conduct. DO not get a red card!” – Kellyn Gorman Nick says we’re highlighting important considerations when joining a technical community. This can be approached similar to the way Kellyn looked for new jobs – approaching people on the inside to gain perspective. Get perspectives on women in tech from people in that community, ask about codes of conduct for events, etc. Kellyn is also part of DevOps communities, which we didn’t get a chance to discuss. Kellyn tells us she is just now getting involved with the Postgres Conference. Many people she knows from the Oracle and Microsoft communities are attending. Kellyn shares the message she had printed on some stickers as a reminder to others in the community. “Assume that she is technical and capable of breathing fire. This is a saying that’s gone around the Microsoft community for a very long time. But I think we almost need little pins that say that just to keep us safe. It’s really important…. If I walk into a conference and I’m here to interact with my technical community and talk to people about tech and the only questions I receive are ‘how is your husband? Are you still living on the floating home? How are your kids?’ If I just get that over and over and over again, I wonder why I attended an event. This is with me speaking this has happened. So, I know it’s happening to other women, especially women that may be younger than me.” – Kellyn Gorman Kellyn has given the keynote at an event being only 1 of 3 women
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