{"id":557,"date":"2021-12-20T09:00:24","date_gmt":"2021-12-20T17:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/?p=557"},"modified":"2021-12-20T11:54:00","modified_gmt":"2021-12-20T19:54:00","slug":"women-of-mozilla-resource-group","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/women-of-mozilla-resource-group\/","title":{"rendered":"Women of Mozilla, a resource group for female Mozillians and allies"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s <\/i>our mission<\/i><\/a> at Mozilla to build an internet that includes everyone, regardless of demographics and opportunities, and we\u2019re building our team the same way. We believe our growing list of Mozilla Resource Groups (MRGs) \u2014 Afrozillians<\/a>, Disability@Mozilla, Latin Pride<\/a>, Mozilla API<\/a>, Pridezilla<\/a>, and Women of Mozilla \u2014 are critical to our success.<\/i><\/p>\n

We also believe that the best way to understand these groups is through the people in them. Below, Mozilla Senior Product Manager Elgin-Skye McLaren shares what she\u2019s learned from getting involved with Women of Mozilla and other MRGs \u2014 and what she\u2019s excited about going forward.<\/i><\/p>\n

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How did you get involved with Women of Mozilla (WoMoz)?<\/b><\/p>\n

Initially it was through the WoMoz learning series, which offers professional development opportunities for members of the MRG. They were doing a set of StrengthsFinder<\/a> workshops, and a teammate messaged me about it because she thought I might be interested. I\u2019d actually worked with another MRG, Pridezilla<\/a>, a few months earlier \u2014 not as a member, but because I\u2019m part of the Hubs<\/a> team; we\u2019d helped put on a virtual Pride Month event.<\/p>\n

But I hadn\u2019t heard about Women of Mozilla at that point. So I jumped into the Slack channel, and it was such a nice community of folks. I did sign up for the workshops, which have been great, and I\u2019ve also enjoyed just being able to connect with other women at the company. Mozilla is so distributed \u2014 and I live in a very remote part of Canada and don\u2019t have many opportunities to see people in person \u2014 so I especially appreciate having a place where I can chat with people who might have some similar experiences to me, and who I can learn from.<\/p>\n

What activities have you been part of?<\/b><\/p>\n

It\u2019s only been a few months at this point, so the StrengthsFinder workshops are the only formal events I\u2019ve joined so far. For that, we get together once every two weeks for training and breakout sessions. I think it\u2019s really helped us learn not only what we\u2019re good at, but what we actually like \u2014 and what skills we want to develop.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also a lot of activity in the Slack channel. Sometimes we just give each other shout-outs \u2014 if one of our members is presenting for their team during an All Hands meeting, for example, we\u2019ll tell them, \u201cHey, great work!\u201d We do discuss gender-related issues, too. The other day someone shared an update about one of the company harassment trainings, and we\u2019ve talked about things like being a shorter person in business, which of course is more common among women. I\u2019m on the short side myself, and I\u2019ve been in so many meetings where I\u2019m physically looking up at everyone else in the room. It can make it harder to be heard. And even if you don\u2019t chime in on those Slack conversations live, the channel functions as sort of a list of people who might be willing to talk with you one-on-one, when you want another woman\u2019s viewpoint. You can also sign up for random one-on-ones with Donut<\/a>, though I haven\u2019t done that yet because I\u2019m already in some of those for other groups.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s just a great way to build new relationships; I\u2019ve met so many people already, through the workshops and the channel. I\u2019m relatively new in my role \u2014 I was a community manager before \u2014 and it\u2019s been really helpful to hear how other people have built up their skills or explored new areas. I feel like it helps me plan my own trajectory. It also helps day to day; several times I\u2019ve been in Hubs meetings where we needed to talk to someone from another team, and I already knew someone through the MRG.<\/p>\n

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Elgin, hanging out in Mozilla Hubs<\/p><\/div>\n

Tell us more about the collaboration between Pridezilla and Hubs.<\/b><\/p>\n

That was so much fun \u2014 it was one of the highlights of the year for me. They reached out several weeks in advance and a few of us started meeting. We learned more about what they had in mind for the celebration, and they learned more about Hubs and what the product could do. Then we got our artists involved and added some customization to a scene we\u2019d built, to decorate the space. We actually ended up sharing a version of that publicly, too, so other people could use it for their own Pride celebrations.<\/p>\n

For the events themselves, we held them throughout the day to make sure people from different time zones could attend, and it was all really joyful. People shared photos from previous years; there were booths; we had a DJ. With the pandemic, the past couple of years have been tough, even for people who normally work remotely, so being able to celebrate together was great.<\/p>\n

Where is Mozilla at right now in terms of D&I?<\/b><\/p>\n

We are always striving to do better, but what I really appreciate is being at a company that takes D&I seriously. It\u2019s easy to make commitments and not actually do much in practice. Mozilla is setting targets and making the results public<\/a>, too. It\u2019s definitely an ongoing conversation, not just in MRGs but in our all-company channels and All Hands meetings; we\u2019re encouraged to speak up. And I know it\u2019s important to our senior leadership. I helped plan a fireside chat around D&I for the MRG with some of them right now.<\/p>\n

I see D&I represented a lot in everyday conversations, too, whether it\u2019s hiring or product management. There\u2019s an understanding that it is inherently valuable to have a diversity of experiences in the room when you\u2019re making decisions. Hubs is a great example, actually \u2014 it\u2019s built the way it is in part because some of the people on our team have been in virtual spaces where you could hide behind avatars and bad actors could come in and make things toxic really quickly. In a Hubs space<\/a>, no one without the URL can have access, which gives everyone the ability to come together with their communities safely.<\/p>\n

\nhttp:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/files\/2021\/12\/Elgin-at-a-work-meeting-in-Hubs-2.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

What are you excited about \u2014 for yourself, and for D&I at Mozilla?<\/b><\/p>\n

For me, I\u2019m definitely going to keep my eye on other Women of Mozilla workshops, because this one has been so useful. I\u2019m about six months into being a product manager, and I\u2019ve been helping out with product lead responsibilities, too, doing more strategic work. So I\u2019m really glad I\u2019ve been able to reflect on what my strengths are and how I can bring those to the team, to bring everyone together and make sure more people are included in helping shape the future of Hubs.<\/p>\n

In terms of Mozilla, it\u2019s exciting to see Women of Mozilla and the other MRGs continue to grow, and to build solidarity with one another. I\u2019d love to work together more on things like breaking down barriers to entry for candidates. I think we do pretty well with our job postings, but I\u2019ve seen firsthand how relationships can help create access, too \u2014 I first got involved with Mozilla through a speakers program for open-source volunteers. The more we create those kinds of connections, with outside groups and with each other, the better off we\u2019ll all be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s our mission at Mozilla to build an internet that includes everyone, regardless of demographics and opportunities, and we\u2019re building our team the same way. We believe our growing list … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":144,"featured_media":562,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[466909,30710],"tags":[441180,318942,466911,69924],"coauthors":[306191],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/144"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.mozilla.org\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}