Life at Ritchie Bros.: diversity is “hard-coded” into our IT department.
Published on March 29, 2018
A team built on different backgrounds.
Recently, a few of Ritchie Bros.’ IT team members participated in the YWCA’s Business Technology Career Café — an event to help encourage high school students, and particularly female students, to pursue careers in the tech industry.
Guest speakers included women working in a variety of tech-related businesses, including Ritchie Bros.’ own Jeanette Shabbir, a UX Designer at our corporate headquarters in Vancouver. The event, while focusing on career opportunities, also highlighted how the once male-dominated industry is changing rapidly as more and more women join the ranks — and how that added diversity and shift in gender balance can only be a positive thing.
Jeanette fielded questions about everything from the nitty-gritty of her day-to-day job, to how the politics and culture of the IT industry are changing, as more women begin careers in tech. Here’s some of what Jeanette had to say:
What inspired you to get into this career?
I like to communicate through visuals. I started my professional career as a graphic designer, focusing on print material. Even though I was enjoying what I was doing, I wasn’t getting any feedback on how the design was performing. We couldn’t get any metrics to determine if the model was successful. That’s one of the reasons why I started to get more interested in digital design. When you design a banner ad or work on a landing page, you’re able to track how many people visited the site and how many people clicked the banner. Then I started questioning myself. By having a banner with these calls to action, are we truly affecting the goals of the page? Are we adding distractions to the users?
I started thinking more holistically.
Now, as a user experience designer, I need to understand why people are coming to our website and what kind of information they’re expecting to find. Then we need to present this information in a way that makes sense to them, so they can engage and interact with our product. The primary goal for a UX Designer is to allow the users to perform their tasks with ease and delight while supporting the business in reaching its goals.
If you could give advice or a tip to your younger self, what would it be?
Never be afraid of learning. Always be curious. It’s okay to get out of your shell and challenge yourself to learn and gain new skills. So many doors will open, and new opportunities will arise.
What are the main challenges and opportunities for women in your industry?
I work in the IT department of heavy equipment, construction-related company (Ritchie Bros.); it doesn’t get more male-dominated than that. However, I never see myself as part of the minority. To be honest, I barely notice it. I see myself and other members of the team as valuable contributors, where nobody is more or less because of gender or any other differences.
How do you keep up with evolving trends or changes in technology?
Work with teams. For many years I worked as a freelancer and found myself isolated from the rest of the world. Listen to what other tools people in the industry are using. Experiment with them. Participate in meet-ups, workshops and conferences.
What’s your favourite part of your job and what’s the most challenging?
My favourite part is to look at the data and see how a design recommendation or solution improves the experience and KPIs (key performance indicators) for the business. The most challenging part of my job is to convince stakeholders about specific design solutions and also work within technical limitations.
