How Etsy Grew Female Engineers by Nearly 500 in One Year

Target outreach, a structured internship-to-full-time pathway, and measurable targets drive results. In Etsy’s case, female engineers grew by nearly 500 in one year, rising from about 120 to roughly 600. weve seen that when leadership defines clear goals and the teams work together–there is momentum, involving them and other people, with managers focusing on the issue of skills and representation–the experience of doing technical work improves for everyone.

Two factors mattered most: targeted sponsorship and a time-structured path that blends learning with real jobs. mostly the impact came from formal programs that connect early talent to advanced tasks, with sponsors from the companys leadership and a clear place for growth, while some mentors maintain a tenure of at least one year to deepen experience.

To replicate, your company should map roles to engineering tracks, set quarterly metrics, and track retention by gender. the plan should involve a mix of apprenticeships, scholarships, and project-based rotations. For example, Etsy formalized a return-to-tech program that helped people already involved in tech rejoin, and it reduced attrition. The focus should be on inclusive interview panels and fair evaluation criteria to prevent bias. This approach keeps involved mentors engaged and aligned with the goals.

These changes deliver measurable results in time; they create a place where people feel seen and valued. By involving technical leaders and program managers, the issue of underrepresentation shifts from a concern to a shared responsibility. The experience across the org shows that when the team does this together, the pipeline stays healthy and the product teams become more innovative.

There is a practical blueprint you can adopt this quarter: commit to a 12-month sponsorship cycle, fund two cohorts of interns, and assign a dedicated mentor for each new engineer. Doing so aligns tenure with milestones and keeps the focus on people doing meaningful work and time spent on real jobs, not just process.

Targeted Outreach: Partnerships with Women-in-Tech Groups and Universities

Launch a formal partnership playbook with measurable targets: sign 15 partnerships with women-in-tech groups and 12 universities in the next quarter, and run a 6-month pilot with a shared project curriculum. Each partnership centers on a co-designed course that blends practical engineering challenges with mentorship from senior engineers. Those campuses and groups become a smart node on our community network, from which our team sources talent, feedback, and project ideas.

Implement a joint outreach calendar that maps school sites to campus clubs, with clear roles for our team and partner members. The first step is an experiment: a 2-hour problem-solving session, followed by a 6-week course and a capstone project. Those events should be tracked with a shared dashboard on our site to measure reach, engagement, and conversion into internships or full-time interviews. weve found that a warm introduction from a local alum or faculty member raises trust, so we keep a civil, respectful tone in all communications to avoid missteps and risk. If a partner signals constraints, we can adapt rather than push a single rigid plan, either scaling back or shifting to a virtual format. Second, this approach probably boosts participation and future hires, and it gives us clear sense of what resonates across campuses. We can know which elements scale best by comparing site performance.

Partnership mechanics and incentives

Co-design a curriculum and offer paid internships during the cycle. Provide student stipends via sponsor funding, ensure mentors from our team commit to monthly office hours, and create a shared brand on the site that signals commitment to diversity. Each cohort includes a project gallery, member spotlights, and a final demo day that links to open roles within our team. The collaboration reduces risk by sharing responsibilities between the site partners and our internal team; those who run the program know the local context and adjust course content to fit the school reality.

Evaluation, learning, and scale

Track metrics per site: applicant flow, interview rate, offer rate, and 12-month retention. Target: 30% interview rate, 60% offer rate, 85% retention. Compare performance across school sites and women-in-tech groups; adjust course content to fit the local context. Each site yields learning that helps refine our approach. Conduct quarterly reviews with the partner organizations to share results, address gaps, and plan expansion to additional campuses. Through this work we build a network that supports both the community and our product teams.

Standardized Interview Frameworks: Reducing Bias in Candidate Evaluation

Implement a standardized interview framework across all hiring panels to reduce bias and ensure the same criteria apply to every candidate. Build a 5-step process: blind resume screening; job-relevant questions; a structured scoring rubric with clear cutoffs; panel calibration sessions; and a transparent debrief using data from the table below. The experiment runs in the department for two quarters, with metrics tracked by percent agreement among interviewers and the conversion rate from interview to offer. those involved must commit to time-bound reviews, and the results become the baseline for ongoing improvements. kellan from the data team notes that when panels focus on signal rather than noise, engineers and non-engineers alike gain trust in the process, which supports better retention and broader participation among those who previously felt overlooked.

Through standardized prompts and a tracked table of factors, you can reveal knowledge gaps and strengths with objective evidence, not gut feel. The framework helps teams move smart and focused, through consistent questions and scoring, so time spent interviewing aligns with real potential rather than tenure alone. The priority is fairness, with risk mitigation built into the design by requiring blind screening and cross-panel calibration.

Practical steps and evaluation table

By implementing this approach, departments can get measurable improvements in hiring quality and fairness. Time spent on subjective debates becomes time spent on evaluating actual fit, helping boots-on-the-ground hiring become more transparent and predictable, ensuring that boys and all candidates are evaluated with equal fairness.

Transparent Hiring Metrics: Tracking Pipeline, Offers, and Conversions

Define a compact KPI set and publish weekly updates that track pipeline, offers, and conversions. Build a lightweight table that shows sourcing funnel, stage transitions, time-to-offer, and acceptance rate; share updates on fridays to keep everyone involved.

Identify the core fields that drive decisions: source, role, level, stage, time in stage, offer status, and reason for decline. Ensure data entered is required and consistent across teams so the table yields reliable signals.

Assign ownership to a cross-functional squad, with a shared sense of beliefs and logic about what moves a candidate forward. When companies align on that logic, you reduce bias and shorten the hiring curve. The team took responsibility for making data-driven decisions, which helps you become more predictable in hiring and perform better.

When february results highlighted gaps, adjust fields and strategy to ensure enough funnel momentum. Use a required criteria checklist that prevents losing quality hires at the offer stage and helps you take action quickly.

Segment candidates by tenure, level, and history with the company. Compare junior pipelines to advanced tracks to see where you perform best. If the junior track underperforms, revisit sourcing fields and provide targeted training, or apply grants to boost outreach and help more candidates become part of the team.

Involve stakeholders from related teams–engineering, finance, and people ops–to interpret data and avoid bias. Lean on logic, not anecdotes, when deciding to reassign candidates or extend offers. This supports sense making and builds a history you can reference over time.

Case example: kellan uses a flickr-inspired dashboard to track milestones and drive alignment. The data show a pathway from junior to advanced roles, and partnerships or grants widen the funnel when wanted. With this approach, teams take advanced steps and keep history of outcomes.

Mentorship and Sponsorship Programs: From Onboarding to Promotion

Launch a 90-day onboarding-to-promotion program that assigns every new female engineer a dedicated mentor and sponsor from day one, since time is limited, with clear milestones and biweekly check-ins. The sponsor should advocate for high-visibility assignments, while the mentor guides skill-building and cultural acclimation.

Why this works: it accelerates skill-building, increases visibility for those engineers, and shortens the time to take on meaningful projects. In Etsy’s case, female engineers grew by nearly 500 in a single year when mentorship and sponsorship were embedded into team processes.

• Onboarding pairing: start with a mentor within the first week and a sponsor within the first month. Align the course and project interests with development goals; ensure girls receive access to opportunities on the same footing as their peers.
• Mentorship cadence: hold 1:1s every two weeks; set quarterly skill checks; keep notes in a shared table to track blockers and progress. Use these notes to adjust the learning path and project assignments.
• Sponsorship and project access: the sponsor should advocate for engineers to join higher-visibility projects that align with their strengths; use a variety of assignments to prevent stagnation and to expand the engineer’s portfolio; these opportunities were instrumental in building experience.
• Portfolio and transparency: create a public gallery-like flickr-style feed where teams witnessing progress and sharing concrete examples; link to actual code, documentation, and contributions.
• Governance and fairness: use a standard rubric to allocate assignments and promotions to reduce politics and bias; base decisions on logic and impact; maintain the same criteria across teams, while ensuring transparency and side channels to avoid wrong conclusions.
• From former practices to current: borrow effective elements from successful programs and adapt them to the Etsy culture; keep the priority on measurable outcomes and the most impactful roles.
• Metrics and accountability: monitor time-to-promotion, project lead opportunities, retention, and satisfaction across the team; capture data in a central table and review quarterly to stop ineffective approaches.
• Inclusion and impact: target support for girls in tech and others who are underrepresented; ensure welcoming onboarding, inclusive language, and access to training resources with computers and cloud-based environments.

Culture and Retention: Inclusive Practices that Support Long-Term Growth

Deploy a formal mentorship and sponsorship program that pairs new female engineers with senior tech leads within 30 days and publishes a clear career milestone roadmap on the site. This should be the top priority, because it helps engineers become confident and perform well. This doesnt rely on a single approach; mostly boots on the ground checks ensure feedback loops stay grounded in real work and that program tweaks reflect ground experience.

Adopt a structure that reflects a variety of backgrounds across positions, and take a concerted view on hiring, promotions, and project assignments. A bunch of ideas emerge from hearing sessions with current women engineers and their managers to surface ground-level obstacles and opportunities. Before making changes, align on beliefs about inclusion and measure progress with data seen across teams. Publish quarterly results on the site and share updates with flickr to show progress and learning. second, implement small, incremental changes with clear owners, and communicate the rationale to the wider team.

Offer a well-documented growth course that includes stretch assignments, cross-functional rotations, and paid time for learning. Ensure higher representation by taking a steady year-by-year approach to internal mobility and by providing formal sponsorship where managers advocate for underrepresented colleagues in reviews. This keeps the pipeline active and spirits growing over time. Such progress signals that inclusion compounds success across teams.

Make the hiring process inclusive by explicit policy: diverse interview panels, standardized questions, and a bias-aware review cycle. Respect employees’ beliefs and experiences by creating forums for open dialogue on topics from workload to politics, with structured hearing channels that surface concerns without retaliation. Ensure feedback leads to action and visible changes in the next cycle.

To sustain growth, create boots-on-the-ground support networks in each site where engineers can share wins with peers, ask for feedback, and mentor others. Highlight higher retention through small, measurable steps: pairing, assignments, and visible recognition for contributions. The aim is a steady, concerted path that shows inclusivity translates into stronger performance across tech teams, over time.