Tasha Markovich
Name: Tasha Markovich
Current Job: User Experience Designer / Researcher @ Rockwell Automation
Favorite restaurant in town? Cederland, Mediterranean Restaurant on West 25th St.
Favorite thing about Cleveland? We experience all four seasons multiple times throughout the year. My favorite is Fall because of Cleveland has the most amazing sunsets during this season.
Q: You just started a new job. How was it starting in a remote-first role? Overall it has been a great experience. I connect with my team primarily through voice and video and we have an awesome remote culture. Not only is everyone supportive of each other as we grow as a team, I feel as if we are more productive remote. We have fewer interruptions during the day, and I have more access to my team via video chat. At the end of the day, I can avoid the busy traffic and walk out of my office to immediately enjoy time with my family.
Q: In addition to your job, you are on the board of Akron Women in Tech. Can you share what you do? We, Akron Women in Tech, have found that our niche in the tech community is bringing together women who in technology while also introducing women to technology. We not only support women in our industry, we invite men who support us as well to our meetings. Over that last few years we have had a number of women and men who have thanked us for giving them the confidence and support they needed to pursue technology as a career path. We plan our events around introducing areas and tools of software in a fun, supportive environment.
Q: What are some of the initiatives you are working on? Some of our past initiatives have included bringing in speakers on the following topics from Docker, Mobile Application Analytics, to Professional Development. Currently, we are creating a set of events based on feedback we received from our members this past May. Creating these events have admittedly been challenging during this COVID pandemic; however, it has not stopped us from planning and learning new ways to deliver content in a remote environment. This month we have a speaker focused on Data Intelligence and in October we will be hosting Hacktoberfest. Hacktoberfest will be a three-day-event series this October focused on using GitHub. This year we have created our own project with tasks that range from beginner to advanced that are focused in the areas of development, design, and tech writing.
Q: How can someone get involved in the organization? The best way to get involved is to attend an event or volunteer to speak. Our updated mission gives an overview of how we help women:
Increasing Confidence - We all could use a confidence boost here and there. Our goal to show you that you have what it takes to meet your goals in technology.
Growing Mentorship - At every one of our meetings you either serve as a mentor or are being mentored. We all can help each other with what we know or learn from one another.
Advocating for Women in Tech - We invite both men and women to join us in advocating for women by showing support for women in our meetings as well as in our places of work.
Providing Opportunities - We give you little gold nuggets to help you learn what types of technology are out there for you to take and run with.
Q: What are some of the ways tech organizations can make their firms more inclusive? I reached out to a number of our members to ask, “What have we done to make our members feel inclusive?” and “Do our members have ideas for us and other organizations?”
When a company is making their job descriptions these job descriptions need to be more attractive to a broader audience (i.e. not the TYPICAL candidate). An example: Declaring the salary range on your job description. Openly talking about how your company provides accommodations. Mentioning family/ parental leave benefits. Working harder on the front end of the process to have a more diverse/ inclusive candidate pool from which to choose to hire. - Hannah
Reach out to people, specifically, if you want them to participate. Make them feel welcome when they take you up on the invitation. - Shannon
Hearing about resources and getting advice on what to do - Roxanna
While I may understand and dabble in technology, there are others doing such high level stuff I can barely wrap my head around it. Yet the Akron Women in Tech is open and supportive to all skill levels and backgrounds. - Jullian
To wrap up what I have heard overall from our members is that we need to understand who we are trying to bring into our organization from more than a skills perspective. We need to understand the entire person which includes what is important to them and their everyday needs.