Did you know that only about 17% of tech employees in Germany are women? 

With almost a third of women in our HelloFresh tech team (37% within our data team) we are over the national average, but are continuously searching for new talented women to join our HelloTech team. In order to find out what young women need in order to start a career in tech, we conducted a representative survey among 16 to 27 year olds in Europe. In this blogpost we present our key findings and give insights to our Women in Tech Scholarship program. 

A majority of the women surveyed believe that working in tech is desirable, but only a few see themselves pursuing a career 

 HelloFresh published a representative survey by Kantar among 3.000 people in Germany, Ireland and the UK between the ages of 16 and 27 to ask about their view on working in the tech industry. The results show that overall 70% of the women surveyed believe that working in tech is desirable, while only less than 10% say it’s very likely for them to go into tech. 

Every third woman surveyed actively considers a career in tech, but half of them say they don’t have the right skill set to pursue a career in tech. In Ireland and the UK more than three quarters and in Germany more than half of the women between 16 and 27 consider the technology sector to be male dominated.

Senior Vice President Product Annie Meininghaus says: “These survey findings are certainly not surprising, and these feelings are something that many women pursuing careers in technology have already come up against. I started my career with HelloFresh almost seven years ago and I am incredibly proud of the many inspiring women that I learned from and mentored myself on the way. ”  

In fact, the survey shows that role models are an important driver to make the industry more diverse: On average half of the women survey participants think more women in tech leadership roles as well as role models and mentors working in tech would motivate more women for career in the industry. According to the women surveyed, training and financial support would also contribute to that: On average, 40% said that access to training and scholarships for girls or women would help get more women interested in tech jobs.  

HelloFresh’s Women in Tech program: Six internships with 10,000 Euro scholarship support

After launching a successful first cohort last year, HelloFresh re-launched the Women in Tech program this year and doubled the number of participants. We sourced six women from different bootcamps, who started in Frontend and as Data Analyst interns in Berlin on the first of September 2022. 

In addition to the paid internship, the women are provided with a scholarship of 10,000 Euros each to support their educational and living costs. Moreover, to provide examples of role models, each intern is matched with  a woman working in tech as a mentor from HelloFresh’s team. 

Last year’s cohort was a success, with all three participants now working fulltime as FrontEnd Engineers. Two of them are mentors for this year’s interns and can give them first hand advice from their experience. Sophia Sager is one of them and works as Frontend Engineer in HelloFresh’s Pricing Experience Team: 

“Before participating in the Women in Tech Scholarship Program I was working in event management, a sector which ultimately dried up due to the beginning of the pandemic. With the scholarship I was offered a unique opportunity to change my career and I am happy I took it. I learned a lot over the past year and I am proud to say I have gotten to a point where I can now share my experience and knowledge with a new scholarship participant.”

“I’m very excited to welcome the six new joiners and see them learn from many inspiring women in our tech team”, said Annie Meininghaus. “As the leadership sponsor of the Gender Equality Team I am proud that we have significantly increased our diverse hiring rate. With initiatives like the Women in Tech program I am looking forward to further growing the representation of women working in HelloFresh’s tech team."