Women in Technology: Tiffany Bridge

Nexcess’ Product Manager for WordPress eCommerce on what inspired her love of tech, counting on trusted friends as advisors, and the ability of hospitality.

Tiffany Bridge is originally from the Pittsburgh area, in a little bit town called Clairton. “My family has lived around there for generations, so I grew up with a number of aunts and uncles and cousins and second-cousins-once-removed close by, sometimes on the identical block,” she says.

Bridge grew up watching Star Trek reruns together with her parents, a childhood pastime that set her expectations for the way we must always interact with computers and what they need to have the ability to do for us. So when the Web began making its way into homes when Bridge was in highschool and college, she knew it was something she desired to learn as much as possible about. “It felt like the start of my expectations finally being met!”

After completing highschool, Bridge received a level in political science. “I wasn’t expecting to enter tech,” she says. “After I finished school, I used to be tech-adjacent for a very long time. I worked as an office manager for a dot-com (in the primary dot-com bubble!) and as a tech recruiter for a staffing agency, all of the while teaching myself increasingly about tech in my free time.” That’s how she got began with WordPress in 2004 after which got a job managing web content for an association in DC. “I did federal web consulting for some time, spent a while freelancing, after which went to work for Automattic before ending up here. Tech has all the time been a fascination of mine.”

Now at Liquid Web, Bridge serves because the Product Manager for WordPress eCommerce on the Managed Apps team. “Meaning I spend numerous time enthusiastic about the way to make our platforms the most effective place to earn money with WordPress,” she says. “Sometimes which means deciding what sorts of features and add-ons to incorporate in our plans, working with our Marketing and Sales teams to know the needs of the entire spectrum of WordPress users, and sometimes it even means collaborating with design and development teams to assume, prioritize, and construct the features of a product like Storebuilder.”

After years of being a tech person in non-tech environments, when she finally made the leap to tech, it surprised her at first how much she didn’t wish to be around computers when her workday was over. “Now that something that was once my hobby is my full-time job, it’s the very last thing I need to do on my off-hours,” she says.

When she’s not working, her favorite technique to spend a day is reading a novel. “It’s hard to get that uninterrupted time as a parent, so when it happens, I don’t take it as a right. Something that’s a bit more accessible now, though, is that I may even spend a complete day in my kitchen. Cooking requires me to be present in my senses, and for those who take a look at just about any type of meditation, it’s the identical thing: noticing what your senses are telling you and attempting to stay present in it.”

Bridge has found that profession success comes when she is most aligned together with her values. “It sounds hokey, nevertheless it’s true: success is so person that for those who start measuring it by the things another person thinks are vital somewhat than by what to be vital, the wheels come off.”

Friends play a necessary role in keeping her grounded. She moved to the Washington, DC area in her early 20s and now lives in Northeast DC together with her spouse, child, and cat. “Neither of us is from here, so we’ve needed to re-create that sense of nearby family with a decent group of friends.” Bridge feels she has been fortunate to have some close friends who’ve turn into each trusted advisors and hype-women when she needs it. “They haven’t written books or viral blog posts or anything like that, but they know me and what’s vital to me, and so they give good advice that helps me keep perspective on who I’m and what I value once I’m attempting to make profession decisions. After all, I’ve read good books and located lessons from high-profile people, but these couple of friends have steered me, personally, higher than anyone else could.”

Bridge knows that the longer term of girls in technology is determined by how we as a society support women and caregivers. “The pandemic has pushed numerous us out of the workforce (including me for a little bit while), and there are not any signs that, as a society, the U.S. goes to stop counting on women to choose up the slack as a substitute of constructing an actual social infrastructure,” she says. “Where I hope the longer term goes is that we ignore attempting to #girlboss our way into running things like men have been and begin (and in lots of cases proceed) imagining a greater future, more ethical goals for our products, more equitably distributed advantages of what we construct and maintain.”

And more women in tech will mean higher products for everybody. “I believe a consistent challenge within the tech field is the homogeneity of oldsters making the product decisions. Probably the most obvious example is abuse and moderation; most of the platforms we use must scramble to resolve their harassment problems after the very fact because they were designed by individuals who rarely get harassed. Nevertheless it’s true for numerous things. When product decisions are made by individuals who don’t have experience with the issue being solved, the solutions suffer. That’s not going to get well without women and other traditionally under-represented folx entering into those rooms. We have now to get there, and we have now to assist one another get there.”

Bridge suggests that ladies starting in tech be selective about whose advice they follow. “Ensure that you understand their values and priorities because that may shape the recommendation they provide you with. Mentorship is great, but at your job, sponsorship is best. You wish people who find themselves going to have your back, talk up your ideas, introduce you to people, and show you how to raise your profile.”