![](\"https:\/\/tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com\/2016\/05\/tcdisrupt_ny16-8962.jpg?w=738\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Erica Baker, an engineer and outspoken advocate for diversity and inclusion in tech<\/a>, is leaving her job at Slack, and moving from the San Francisco Bay Area to Brooklyn to work in an engineering leadership position at Kickstarter.\u00a0Baker, who worked at Slack for about two years, will begin work at Kickstarter in early August as director of engineering, working under the newly appointed VP of Engineering Lara Hogan<\/a>.<\/p>\n Baker\u2019s last day at Slack is June 16.<\/p>\n \u201cIt has less to do with the company and more to do with opportunities for personal career growth,\u201d Baker told me about why she is leaving. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing wrong with the company. Slack is growing at an amazing pace and it\u2019s fastest rising startup and everything. There\u2019s just so much happening at Slack and I think that they\u2019re going to have a lot of success in the future. I\u2019m leaving because I got an amazing opportunity at Kickstarter. I\u2019ve wanted to move into an engineering leadership role for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s not that Baker could not have reached a leadership position at Slack, she said, but it\u2019s that it would not have been an immediate option.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it would\u2019ve been an option in the long run,\u201d she said. \u201cIt would have been available to me a year or two down the line, just because of the way things are happening at Slack right now. They\u2019re coming to the end of fleshing out what it means to be a leader. There\u2019s a lot of important work there that I\u2019ve been a part of, but I\u2019ve also made a vow to myself that I would keep growing and my growth is taking me to be at Kickstarter.\u201d<\/p>\n Baker will be joining a company with many women in leadership roles, noting how Kickstarter\u2019s VP of product is a woman, as well its SVP of operations and VP of engineering.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m really excited to be working with [Hogan] and working at Kickstarter just because I\u2019m going to be reporting to a woman who is a VP of engineering,\u201d Baker said. \u201cThat\u2019s pretty rare, so I\u2019m really excited about that opportunity.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of lady power happening. It\u2019s a diverse group of ladies. It\u2019s not a homogenous group of ladies.\u201d<\/p>\n Women, and especially women of color, in leadership roles at tech companies is indeed pretty rare. At Slack, for example, black people make up 3.5 percent of those in leadership roles and women make up 28.3 percent of people in leadership roles, according to the company\u2019s most recent diversity report.<\/p>\n Kickstarter, on the other hand, has yet to release an official diversity report, though it has released some demographic data<\/a>. As of last year, Kickstarter was 70 percent white. With Baker coming on board, it sounds like an official diversity report will come.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like that is something that will be one of the first things I work on,\u201d Baker said. \u201cI think it\u2019s important companies are vocal about what their diversity looks like internally and sort of set goals around what they want that to look like. That will be something that I work on. It will be one of my top priorities.\u201d<\/p>\n Although diversity and inclusion will not be an official part of Baker\u2019s role at Kickstarter, she said that she would not take a role where diversity could not be part of what she works on.<\/p>\n \u201cI am not going to have as much time to be as hands on, because I would not want to do that to the people I support,\u201d she said. \u201cMy job will be to make sure they can succeed and that the company succeeds. At the same time, part of that success is making sure Kickstarter is a diverse and inclusive place for people to come work.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"\"](\"https:\/\/tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com\/2016\/05\/tcdisrupt_ny16-8962.jpg?w=680\")
Erica Baker, an engineer and outspoken advocate for diversity and inclusion in tech, is leaving her job at Slack, and moving from the San Francisco Bay Area to Brooklyn to work in an engineering leadership position at Kickstarter. Baker, who worked at Slack for about two years, will begin work at Kickstarter in early August as director of engineering, working under the newly appointed VP… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n\n<\/img><\/a>
<\/img><\/a>
<\/img><\/a>
<\/img><\/a>
<\/img><\/a>
<\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5817,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[59,66,26],"class_list":["post-343143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-media","tag-techcrunch","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5817"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343143\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}