Pedro Canahuati is the chief technology officer of 1Password.
In the ever-evolving landscape of the tech world, diversity, equity and inclusion are more than just buzzwords—they’re the pillars upon which innovation thrives. As a Latinx leader who grew up in Honduras, I understand the value of welcoming individuals with diverse and non-traditional backgrounds into the tech ecosystem.
My career journey has been far from conventional. Yet, this journey has equipped me with a unique perspective that I’ve channeled into creating opportunities for those who may not fit the “typical” tech mold. There are three key principles that I’ve found vital to building an engineering team and creating leaders who will help drive the success of your product development.
1. Open the door for others with non-traditional backgrounds.
Diversity, equity and inclusion have come a long way, yet I still find joy when I can help people with non-traditional backgrounds get their foot in the door. In the race for the best engineers, our industry often focuses on what they see as a dearth of qualified candidates and assumes that educational trends create a “funnel problem.” The reality is that it’s a personal bias problem by which we’ve created a narrow definition of what the “best engineer” will look like, where they’ll come from and what their background must be.
It’s only natural to build tools and software from one’s own perspective. This is why echo chambers are so common in technology and development when the people building them are a more or less homogenous group of engineers. As CTO of 1Password, our company targets everyday consumers to large enterprises, so we must make our products more approachable to people with little to no technology background.
To overcome these challenges, tech companies should consider recruiting non-technologists with backgrounds in areas such as liberal arts and psychology. These individuals can translate their unique experiences and insights into a distinctive approach. They refashion themselves as technical professionals and software engineers who can help ensure products are actually approachable and accessible by everyone—not just the technologically inclined.
2. Shape strong leaders.
I love building technology, but developing diverse talent into strong leaders is a huge dopamine rush. From the start of my career, I felt like an outsider and a victim of the personal bias I mentioned earlier. Despite how I may have looked, I was an engineer without an Ivy League degree to lean back on. Growing up in Latin America left me with less access to technology that was more easily attained by my peers. But regardless of the challenge my non-traditional background created, I shared one trait with the best engineers and technologists I worked with: We all desired to find great solutions to solve great problems.
Early in my career, I created my leadership mantra: “I want you to be a happy employee of this company first, a happy engineer second and, finally, a happy team member.” It’s when humans are happy that we can truly understand what motivates them and what doesn’t. Then, you can begin to shape job roles and responsibilities around those triggers to get the most from your team. Tech is an industry that historically promotes engineers based on their technical prowess. The strongest engineers have a combination of technical knowledge and leadership skills that they often learn from their managers. I’ve spent much time thinking about the psychological impact of the lack of proper leadership training on young leaders and their reports.
One of the biggest challenges new leaders must understand is that they’re no longer individual contributors. Their success isn’t measured by doing the job they’ve trained their whole lives for. Rather, it’s judged on their ability to influence others to succeed. People with non-traditional backgrounds often have a deeper skill set in these areas because they’ve been subject to more adversity or have had to work in more diverse environments. Their experiences have helped prepare them to react and respond rather than simply produce.
3. Happy people build better products.
We can create the best products by cultivating environments that encourage employees to be better people. Work should be challenging yet rewarding—and an avenue to find purpose. Time and time again, we’ve seen that when employees can’t make a meaningful emotional connection to their work, they become dissatisfied and lose motivation.
Recent research shows that 80% of security engineers feel some burnout. If we want this trend to stop, we must focus on building stronger, more resilient people—at least as much as we focus on building better products. People need to feel like they’re making meaningful contributions to their work and connect their output to what the company is accomplishing in the real world.
One essential factor that helps connect people emotionally to their work is an environment that fosters growth through psychological safety. Psychology tells us that safety is one of the most basic human needs. Employees who fear for their careers won’t take risks or commit the emotional resources or personal investment required to achieve great things.
Learning through failure and taking calculated risks is a vital part of growth. In my career, I encourage this by modeling the behavior of being open about my failures and what they taught me. I’ve embraced making mistakes to the point that I’ve normalized failure as a crucial part of becoming a stronger person and leader. I also institute processes from my experiences along the way. For example, operating with blameless post-mortems and enabling a culture of psychological safety in which taking risks can be celebrated regardless of the results can be framed as learning opportunities.
Both leaders and employees must understand that changing the status quo requires a leap of faith. Sometimes, you won’t see the next move until you’re safely at the bottom, the experience guiding your future decisions. When embracing non-traditional backgrounds and nurturing leaders from diverse experiences, we enrich our industry, spark innovation and pave the way for a more inclusive, vibrant tech environment.
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