Exploring lateral career development with Emma Canny, Interim Head of Software Engineering at Parliamentary Digital Service

Please introduce yourself…

I’m Emma Canny and I am currently the Interim Head of Software Engineering in the Parliamentary Digital Service.

Tell us a bit about your career and journey to your current leadership role. I’m interested in how and why tech and what you love about your role.

I have found myself “accidentally” in tech, but now wouldn’t have it any other way. My professional background is originally in Archives and Records Management, having completed my Masters in this at UCL. I worked in the archives and charity sector before joining Parliament as an Assistant Records Manager. Whilst at Parliament, I’ve enjoyed working with many different colleagues from across both Houses and I followed stakeholder-facing roles in Parliament before becoming a Delivery and Change Lead in Software Engineering in 2020. I become the Interim Head of the team in September 2022 and have been focussing on retention initiatives for the team, including pay benchmarking, experimenting with new approaches to recruitment, managing our delivery roadmap and maturing our approach to outsourcing development. I love being the Head of a fantastically talented team and it continues to be an honour to represent their work and act as their champion. I continuously learn in this role and that’s an important part of keeping me motivated. As Head of the Team, I often get problems escalated to me and I love fixing things, unblocking and finding ways forward. My delivery background also means I love getting stuff done and delivered – there’s an innate completer-finisher in me.

What inspired you to get into Tech? Did you have any female role models or great sponsors along the way? And if so, how important were / are they?

I have enjoyed working with colleagues and stakeholders during my Parliamentary career and this ultimately led me to tech – it’s a rewarding challenge to embed tech into Parliamentary procedure and see how tradition can be both honoured yet also transformed – our Pass Reader Voting solution used in divisions, by both Houses, is one example of bespoke software now sitting at the heart of Parliament. I am lucky to have had a number of female role models along my career journey so far, some in tech and others from wider industries. My first line manager at Parliament really set me on the path to where I am now and showed me what good line management looks like. More recently, I’ve had the support and informal mentorship of my current line manager since 2020; from her, I have learnt of the importance of team health and culture, and how to manage teams through change whilst also maintaining high-quality delivery outputs – no mean feat. I’ve been given a scaffold in recent years that has really helped me to grow yet feel supported, as well as build my own confidence. I hope to pay that forward and give the same scaffolding to other female colleagues.

For those who haven’t considered a career in Tech, why is it a great career choice for Women?

Tech is about people as much as technology – if not more. It is an industry that requires emotional intelligence and this is often overlooked – we constantly ask our stakeholders and users to adapt to new technology, alongside managing their important day jobs. This is best done in an open, transparent, trusted and empathetic way – all skills at which I see many female colleagues excel. We also know that more diverse teams are better at innovating, solving problems and alternative viewpoints help a team to excel - women are a critical part of this diverse picture in creating high-performing teams. Also, don’t be dissuaded from a career in tech if your background isn’t technical – we need plenty of different skills and capabilities in tech.

What’s the best piece of advice you’d give another woman or indeed your younger self, curious about building a career in the tech ecosystem?

I’d encourage my younger self to be more hands-on with STEM subjects – I was good at these subjects but I shifted away from them without realising. I am now conscious that I was lacking in role models and positive stereotypes, and this ultimately closed the door. I would also say, try to expose yourself to a diverse example of sectors, colleagues and leaders – you’ll learn so much more this way. Make learning a continuous endeavour (also, this will stop you ever being bored!).

Fast forward 5 years, what is the greatest improvement you’d like to see for women in the industry?

I’d love to see more unapologetic women in leadership positions across tech, with equity at all levels through an organisation including in the boardroom. I’d like to see more of us being comfortable and confident in leadership spaces.

This year’s IWD theme is Embrace Equity. What are you or your employer doing to Embrace Equity for this year’s IWD? Is there anything you do every day to do so?

I strive to embed our organisational values and my own personal values into my everyday behaviour in the workplace – including educating myself and others on the impact of bias in the workplace and our lives. I’ve ran sessions for my team on misogyny and shared my first-hand experiences to help others understand how inequality and inequity can be an unspoken struggle for many colleagues around us.

It seems there is no silver bullet to improving the volume of women / other under-represented groups in tech, more it requires a multi-pronged approach. Can you talk to me about any initiatives you’ve been involved with which are making an impact? (returners/youth / career switchers etc).

We are currently looking at creative ways to open up more diverse hiring pools, including apprenticeship opportunities. We are also looking at how we can work with some of the amazing organisations out there that help women to career-change, by teaching them to code and preparing them for engineering roles. From a team of 14 developers, we still don’t have a single female developer in the team. I’d love for us to smash that ceiling and even more so if we’ve done that through something like a career-switch initiative.

Pay equity is an important part of embracing equity. How do you think this could be improved? How can recruitment partners support here?

Transparency of pay data is important – pay shouldn’t feel like a taboo subject but it often does, and that makes it easier for inequity to seep in. I want to see more organisations committing to pay compensation schemes to account for job duties, experience and performance, as well as commit to regular pay benchmarking to review equity across teams – it shouldn’t be left to individuals to seek or ask for pay rises in line with benchmarking, especially in such a competitive industry. It is important to pay our people for their skills and talent, but also to have equity in our pay models. I still believe women are unfairly penalised for asking for pay rises, in a way male colleagues aren’t – recruitment partners can support by using their platforms to share pay data and act as the drivers for change by shaping our conversations on pay equity more transparently.

On matters of equity, what are your key priorities as we start 2023 and/or what are you feeling optimistic about as we go into 2023?

I feel optimistic when I look to my Senior Management Team in the Parliamentary Digital Service and see female leaders occupying the space and operating as positive role models, as well as driving forward strategy, culture and change. A priority for 2023 as Head of Software Engineering is to increase female representation in our technical roles and I am excited to partner with other organisations to provide new career opportunities for women wanting to get into tech. A personal priority is to believe in myself more – being a non-technical female leader in a technical team can be daunting, but I am continuously working on recognising the skills and value I bring to the table. I am also working on using my space as a leader to meaningfully address casual misogyny in the workplace – for example, I am slowly deconstructing the narrative that female colleagues are the default notetakers!