By Haben Abraham and Jesper Helt 

As a graduate, entering the tech workforce can be a daunting prospect. It’s a dynamic industry, with jobs often demanding the sort of technical and consultative skills that can only be forged by experience—which you likely don’t have yet. If you’re a graduate from an underrepresented minority hoping to start your career in tech, there’s all of this—plus the systemic inequality challenges to confront too.

At Samsara, we firmly believe that diversity and inclusivity means better products, better innovation, and better teams. But beyond being critical to Samsara’s success as a global family, inclusivity matters, period! 

According to Colorintech—a non-profit that aims to increase the number of underrepresented minorities entering the UK tech workforce—just 2.6% of tech leadership positions in the UK are held by people of color, compared with 17% in the US. Diversity in Tech reports that only 15% of the UK tech workforce are from ethnic minority backgrounds.

That’s why we recently partnered with Colorintech and Queen Mary University to host a graduate open day for students from underrepresented backgrounds to see what life is like at a tech company, offer career guidance, and showcase some of our entry-level opportunities. 

3 takeaways for graduates starting a career in tech

The day was jam-packed, starting with a tour of our London office, followed by presentations from different members of the team, and a Q&A. There was a lot of learning and reflection on the importance of starting your career the right way. We wanted to share a few of those insights for graduates in a similar position here on our blog so that you can feel as inspired as we all did that day. 

1. Take time to reflect on what you want 

One thing that came up in our discussions was the importance of being clear on what kind of environment and role would support you to thrive. 

Do you want flexibility? What skills do you want to develop? Do you need support or do you need independence? What kind of day-to-day tasks would motivate you and what tasks would demotivate you? What would it take for you to be successful at this organisation?

As a graduate, you might not have all of the information to answer the questions above yet—but you should aim to learn them. It’s a matter of trial and error and creating opportunities to test some of these things out. Samsara has many opportunities beyond engineering. We encourage employees to engage with different departments and speak with their manager about moving into other teams as their understanding of their strengths grows. 

Haben has first-hand experience with this. Having begun her life at Samsara on the front desk, she moved on to a role as Recruiting Coordinator, and she’s now the Workplace Operations Manager. Be open to taking different routes toward an end goal—you never know what will happen along the way!

2. Don’t be afraid to network in different ways

Many of the students we spoke to acknowledged a lack of exposure to the corporate world. Parents and authority figures in their lives tended to be working in vocational careers or public services, meaning private business had always been a bit of a mystery. 

A lot of what informs that choice of a first job out of university is your network—what are people around you doing? What seems accessible? Talking to people allows you to broaden that scope of possibility. Non-profit organisations like Colorintech, Diversity in Tech, and SEO London provide resources for professional development specifically for young people from underrepresented and underserved backgrounds, as well as an opportunity to connect with peers and mentors. We’d also recommend reaching out to professionals already at the company you want to work for on platforms like LinkedIn. 

Like we do here at Samsara, there are a number of tech organisations that participate in diversity initiatives for new recruits. Speak to your university careers counsellor and search online to see what options are out there. And don’t forget to watch the Life At Samsara space for more events in our London office before the end of this year.

3. Look for a company that values diversity, equality, and inclusion 

We’re glad to acknowledge that progress has been made in diversity, equality, and inclusion in the tech world in recent years. And we’re not just talking about startups. Accelerated by the pandemic, traditional corporate life has become a lot less uniform across the board, with much more room for individuality. 

However, we still have a long way to go as an industry. When job hunting, seek out companies that can demonstrate the efforts they’ve made towards promoting DE&I. Look up employees on LinkedIn. See what the story is on social media. If you can’t find anything online, ask questions in the interview about the company culture and what its values are.

For example, at Samsara one of our values is “Be inclusive.” You can see inclusivity in action in our diverse workforce. With all the different languages being spoken, it often feels like a youth hostel in our London office at lunchtime! We also have what’s called Employee Resource Groups which include “Women of Samsara,” “Pride@Samsara,” “Samsara4Good,” and “Blaccsara.” These are communities within our organisation where our employees can connect with other people from similar backgrounds and find a safe space to work through the challenges that they face. 

But we’re always looking to go further. We’re growing so fast and are seizing this moment to put the programs, outreach, and infrastructure in place that will help us beat the odds of the tech industry and create the truly diverse workforce that is so vital to our success. 

Joining Samsara

With the tech industry constantly evolving, we are increasingly in need of new generations of talent who possess the skills and knowledge that we don’t currently have. We’re keen to hear from young talent passionate about our mission to build a smarter, more sustainable world.

Take a look at our careers page to view open vacancies and find out more about what it’s like to be a Samsarian. We look forward to meeting you.