Women in Technology: Rebecca Diamond

Liquid Web’s WordPress Technician on how the tech field marries her love of creativity and connection.

Creativity and introspection have been a part of Rebecca Diamond’s life since she was very young. Diamond spent her childhood in Louisiana, and moved to Maine just before becoming an adolescent. “I’ve had a non-traditional life,” she says, “complete with being homeschooled before all of the cool kids were doing it.”

In those early years, Diamond developed an intense love of reading—she still reads between 5 and seven books per week. “On my days off, I like to spend time in my home office, which doubles as my creative space,” she says. “There I pop on an audiobook at 1.5 speed and knit, weave, crochet, sew, make jewelry, or work with metal, wood, beads or, well, you get the image. A perfect day for me involves lots and a lot of creativity.”

After her first job as a potato harvester in Maine, a love of creative work led Diamond to the tech world. “I first began freelancing using WordPress back in 2005, after constructing an internet site for my small photography business and discovering I loved to work with web sites,” she says. In 2009, Diamond joined a WordPress startup and worked there until 2017, helping people transition from WordPress as blogging software to WordPress as a Content Management System. Afterward, she spent a spot 12 months as a contractor for one more company after which got here on board SolidWP immediately after the acquisition by Liquid Web.

“Having known the founding father of SolidWP since 2008, joining SolidWP and the Liquid Web family was a dream come true,” Diamond says. “I’m neurodivergent and have disabilities, and I’ve been fortunate to work in places where those needs were accommodated matter-of-factly. Meaning I’ve at all times done a little bit of all the pieces, often far outside my initial job scope, at each tech job I’ve had.”

As a WordPress Technician, Diamond helps support quite a lot of WordPress plugins. “I also get to assist test recent things (yes, I’m paid to interrupt stuff!), and I help with documentation, so folks can higher understand and use our products,” she says.

Diamond sees herself as a part of the infrastructure in tech, moderately than someone on the forefront. “What I do,” she says, “and what makes me proud daily, is practicing the art of translating technical language and software into something accessible and fun for end-users. I do a lot of behind-the-scenes work helping improve UX for software I work with—it helps that it starts with great code from amazing developers, needless to say!—and I help interpret that for folk who may not live and breathe code.”

Most influential in her profession journey was the one who told her at 14 that ladies were incapable of learning math or science and that they actually shouldn’t expect to work in those fields. “I took what might have been an incredibly harmful influence and used it to empower myself and encourage me to create the life and profession I used to be determined to have.”

Having been around tech in a single form or one other since she began studying for her ham radio license at age 11 (“back when an individual needed to learn Morse code to get it!”), Diamond is pleasantly surprised by how briskly the sphere has modified to simply accept women in technology. “That doesn’t mean the industry is ideal—I’m white, cisgender, and are available from an economically privileged background, and so in some ways, the entry barrier was lower for me than someone without those aspects in place,” she says. “Nonetheless, each decade, I see significant progress made toward acknowledging the proven fact that everyone, of each gender, is able to contributing to and benefiting from technology.”

Diamond also appreciates how Liquid Web has cared for its employees and customers within the face of challenges caused by the pandemic. “I’m grateful for a way quickly Liquid Web pivoted to all-remote and the support they’ve offered each worker and customer during what’s a life-altering event for all of us,” she says. “The expansion of the industry during this time, and the ways we’ve been in a position to help folks scale online very rapidly, is personally meaningful to me.” Along with working in an organization invested in its employees, she says that her husband, their adult son, friends, and faith community have all played integral parts in her success.

Her motivations in work and life are easy—a desire to go away this world in a bit of higher shape than when she first entered it. “Not everyone gets to be on the world stage promoting sweeping changes, but I imagine one and all holds power to create positive change in their very own life and the lives of those around them.”

So far as the long run of ladies in tech, Diamond says that, on good days, she will recognize the environment becoming more accepting, more diverse, and more welcoming. “Someday, I hope that the concept women were once not accepted in tech seems as much ancient history as a trilobite fossil does to us today.” But she can also be realistic in regards to the amount of progress still needed and the hurdles remaining to be cleared. “Don’t imagine anyone who tells you that you may have to be a certain style of person, present a certain way, or check the boxes on some ‘100% geek’ checklist. If I can design and knit socks while taking (and even teaching!) technology classes, you possibly can actually bring whatever makes you unique into the sphere with you.”

Diamond loves working in tech because connecting with people is at the guts of her passions. “I genuinely love meeting folks, even virtually—so in the event you’ve read this and also you’re an SolidWP client, make sure you say hi the following time you stop by our helpdesk!”