Women in Electronics - Challenges Remain

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What are the challenges still faced by female engineers in electronics? Christelle Faucon, VP Sales at Agile Analog, and her colleagues share their insights with New Electronics.

www.newelectronics.co.uk/, Feb. 01, 2024 – 

I have been working in the semiconductor sector for over 25 years. It's an industry I love, but there are of course challenges. Despite some progress in recent years, it is still a male-dominated environment, especially in senior engineering and leadership roles. So what can be done to help encourage more girls to study engineering, take up a career in engineering, and then progress to higher level positions?

According to WISE (Women Into Science and Engineering), an organisation that aims to champion gender parity in STEM, only 22% of engineering graduates and 11% of professional engineers are female. That's an increase on the 7% of graduates and 3% of professionals 40 years ago, but there is still a very long way to go.

As we approach the UN International Day of Women and Girls in Science, I spoke with a number of colleagues at Agile Analog to get their feedback on why they like working in engineering, what advice they would offer the next generation of aspiring female engineers, and suggestions on what could be done to try to increase the number of women starting and progressing in the semiconductor industry. I spoke with:

• Areeba Kamran: Analog Engineer
• Shukla Mahmood: Senior Software Engineer
• Mairead McManus: Senior Staff Analog Engineer
• Nicky Wilkinson: Senior Director, IP Delivery

What's so great about a career in engineering?

I personally preferred science when I was at school. I liked numbers, experiments, building and pulling things apart. So, it's not really a major surprise that I ended up studying engineering and then working for technology companies.

Shukla Mahmood had similar interests at school but didn't know much about the variety of careers in engineering.

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