This new social media campaign is busting stereotypes of what engineers look like
Isis Anchalee, an engineer with security startup OneLogin, agreed to be a part of a recruitment-focused ad campaign at the last second.
It ended up blowing up in her face.
That ad ended up blanketing the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit System (BART), eliciting some surprisingly strong reactions on social media:
That's not a typical SF-tech recruiting poster. pic.twitter.com/LassflTk9p
- You (@timocratic) July 31, 2015
Comments on Facebook and Twitter started piling up, dissecting her appearance - trying to decide if this campaign was specifically designed to catch the eye of predominantly male software engineers, or if she "looks like an engineer."
In response to this controversy, Anchalee started up the Twitter hashtag #ILookLikeAnEngineer to show that there isn't just one look for those working in programming or software engineering.
Anchalee herself got things started:
And the cause was quickly taken up by others:
I worked on enterprise Java & iOS applications with millions of users. I teach people to code. #ILookLikeAnEngineer pic.twitter.com/yhKxnrviJI
- Erika Carlson (@eacarlson) August 4, 2015
I work on International Growth at Pinterest and my hair game is ON POINT. #ILookLikeAnEngineer pic.twitter.com/GRtKbTofcM
- Tilde Ann Thurium (@annthurium) August 3, 2015
#ILookLikeAnEngineer, because I am one. 10 years in FOSS, EECS degree, started programming by learning Z80 by myself. pic.twitter.com/5ebRD1t7r1
- Burcu Dogan (@rakyll) August 4, 2015
Amazon CTO Werner Vogels even chimed in to express his support for the hashtag (and to make his own recruitment pitch for Anchalee):
Admiral Grace Hopper will forever be an engineering superstar to all of us engineers. #ILookLikeAnEngineer pic.twitter.com/mute8G3tcC
- Werner Vogels (@Werner) August 4, 2015
I wish @isisAnchalee would work for us. Anything we can do to attract the world best engineers... #ILookLikeAnEngineer
- Werner Vogels (@Werner) August 4, 2015
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