Here's the story of 'Sophie': She wasn’t planning to leave. She joined the company full of energy. She’d finally landed a role where she could use both her technical skills and her people smarts. The product was exciting; the pace was fast and she liked the team. She felt like she’d found a place to grow.
In her first month, a male colleague joked that she must be in the wrong room when she sat down for a senior engineering meeting.
In her third month, she noticed her ideas only got traction when repeated by someone else.
In her sixth month, after leading a successful sprint that saved a project from going off the rails, a director thanked the male tech lead and didn’t acknowledge her at all.
She brushed it off, at first. She gave people the benefit of the doubt and told herself she wasn’t here to be liked, she was here to build things.
She worked harder, stayed later, and continued to deliver.
But slowly, the shine wore off. Because no matter how good she was, she always seemed slightly… out of place.
The only woman in the room.
The only one interrupted.
The only one getting feedback on her “tone.”
It wasn’t one big moment that made her start updating her CV.
It was the small, daily reminders that this place wasn’t built for her.
“We just can’t seem to find women for these roles…”
At MojiiCo, we’ve heard this line more times than we can count.
From well-meaning founders to Heads of People to Engineering leads.
They say it with concern, frustration and sometimes even with guilt.
And they usually follow it with:
“We really want to hire more women. But they’re just not applying.”
That sentence always makes us pause. Because it frames the problem as a supply issue, like women simply don’t exist in these roles.
Like the industry is short on qualified talent. Like it’s just bad luck.
But women in tech do exist.
They’re working. They’re leading. They’re consulting.
They’re also burning out. Moving sideways. Quietly quitting.
And in many cases, they’re walking away.
Not because they can’t hack it.
But because they’re tired of trying to succeed in systems that weren’t designed with them in mind.
The invisible tax
The women we speak to are skilled, smart, and ambitious.
They’re not looking for special treatment.
They’re just looking for a fair shot.
But the tax they pay for being one of the only women on a team? It’s real.
The meetings where they’re mistaken for the assistant. The projects where they lead, but others take the credit.
The constant balancing act: be confident, but not “too much”; be warm, but don’t get walked over.
The panels they’re asked to join when what they really want is a promotion, not another hashtag.
Over time, it adds up.
And it’s not just women feeling it. Anyone who doesn’t fit the mould ends up doing the invisible labour of navigating a space that wasn’t built with them in mind.
It's not a pipeline problem. It's a culture problem.
Yes, you can widen your recruitment reach.
Yes, you can write better job ads and remove gendered language.
Yes, you can post on “diverse hiring” boards.
All good steps. But none of that matters if, once they arrive, people feel like outsiders.
Because most women in tech don’t leave because they’re not capable.
They leave because it becomes too tiring to constantly prove that they are.
We’ve worked with women who were the only female VP in a 200-person org.
Women who led teams but weren’t invited to leadership off-sites.
Women who had to explain why another all-male panel was a bad look...again.
They’re not asking for extra support.
They’re asking for the basics: fairness, visibility, a voice that’s heard and respected.
What real inclusion looks like
It’s being taken seriously.
It’s being paid fairly.
It’s knowing you can speak up and not be dismissed.
It’s seeing other women at the table, and not all in “supporting” roles.
Real inclusion is leadership that reflects difference.
It’s understanding that there isn’t one way to lead, one way to think, one way to be “professional.”
It’s making sure that your culture stretches to include new people, not expecting them to shrink to fit it.
Change doesn’t mean softening. It means strengthening.
This isn’t about lowering the bar. It’s about removing the obstacles that shouldn’t be there in the first place.
The companies that get this right?
They don’t just “have more women.”
They have better ideas. Better collaboration. Better business outcomes.
Because when your leadership team reflects the world you're building for, you make better decisions—full stop.
At MojiiCo, we work with founders and leadership teams who are ready to go deeper than slogans.
To listen, adjust, and lead differently.
You don’t need to “fix” women to make them fit your culture.
You need to build a culture that’s big enough to hold more than one way of being great.
Do you want to stop asking why women aren’t applying, and start creating a workplace they want to stay in?
We help scale-up leaders rethink how they grow, who they grow with, and how to build cultures where everyone can do their best work.
📍 mojii.co | Let’s talk about real change.