CarTrawler partners with Code First Girls to enable women employees to advance their careers in tech

Feb 7, 2024

Women employees at CarTrawler to be provided with the opportunity to learn how to code and kickstart their careers in software engineering 

Dublin, 7 February 2024 – CarTrawler, the leading B2B technology provider of car rental and mobility solutions to the global travel industry, has partnered with Code First Girls, the largest provider of free coding courses and employment opportunities for women globally, to offer free coding training to 19 women currently employed by CarTrawler in Ireland, across a number of different functions (People, Business, Product & Technology, Revenue, Customer), enabling them to kickstart their careers in software engineering.  

The group will initially take part in an 8-week Code First Girls Coding Kickstarter – Introduction to JavaScript course, with two participants selected to advance to the CFGdegree. The degree involves 4 months of intensive training in one of the following specialisms Software Engineering, Data, Full Stack or Product Management. The successful candidates will be offered the opportunity to join CarTrawler’s technology team upon completion. 

The initiative with Code First Girls is part of a wider ‘Advancing Gender Equity’ programme at CarTrawler, one element of which is to address under-representation of women in technology roles. According to the Central Statistics Office (CSO), women accounted for just 25.9% of STEM professionals in Ireland in 2020.  

CarTrawler is one of the first Irish companies to partner with the UK-based Code First Girls initiative, which to date have provided 150,000 opportunities for women to learn to code and work with 130 industry partners to build their pipeline of diverse tech talent.  Based on the levels of interest received from women employees at CarTrawler, it is expected that the programme will continue to run to provide more women employees with the opportunity to learn to code and support the company’s talent pipeline in tech roles.  

We recognise the significant gender gap in STEM careers for women in Ireland. Our proactive partnership with Code First Girls underscores our commitment at CarTrawler to support our women employees interested in engineering, facilitating their career transition and fostering their professional advancement. At CarTrawler, we value diversity and strive to create a culture where everyone feels supported, valued and able to participate. As an organization, we are taking meaningful action to incentivise and open doors, creating a clear pathway for increased women participation in the tech sector.

Having collaborated with the ‘30% Club’ and ‘Connecting Women in Tech,’ we’ve initiated various programs to promote women representation and career advancement in the Tech sector. Additionally, we’ve introduced a comprehensive range of supports for our women employees. Our commitment remains steadfast, and we are dedicated to ongoing efforts in making the tech sector more accessible for women. 

Jody Jordan, Chief People Officer of CarTrawler

Our proprietary technology platform is developed in-house by a talented engineering team. We have huge ambitions to grow and scale our tech capabilities and aspire to increase the percentage of women across our technology function. Our partnership with Code First Girls allows us to tap into the incredible talent we already have at CarTrawler, to enable employees to try out a new career opportunity within our business.

Eoin Greene, Chief Product & Technology Officer from CarTrawler

With 94% of tech employers in Ireland reporting skills shortages as the main barrier to growth, and just 15% of Irish STEM graduates being women, it’s clear that businesses in the region need to find alternative ways of building diverse tech teams in their workforces.  

Through our partnership, Car Trawler is helping to plug this gap by upskilling their existing employees to kickstart their careers in software engineering – at no cost to them. As one of our first partnerships in Ireland, we’re delighted to be supporting accessibility to one of the most lucrative careers in a rapidly developing tech hub.

Anna Brailsford, CEO of Code First Girls

CarTrawler has also introduced a range of support systems to help women return to work and encourage greater participation in the sector. These supports include a surrogacy leave policy, enhanced adoptive leave, fertility leave and assisted reproduction policy leave for early pregnancy loss and a tailored phased return to work with full pay for new primary caregivers. Unconscious bias training and inclusive leadership training programmes have been made mandatory companywide.  

 

About Code First Girls:  

Code First Girls is on a mission to close the gender gap in the tech industry by providing employment through free education. We’ve already helped more than 150,000 women learn to code and by working with companies globally, we’re boosting employability, diversity and social mobility, transforming local economies and communities. But we want to go further – our aim is to provide one million opportunities for women to learn to code and participate in the industry in the next five years, becoming the world’s first EdTech unicorn dedicated to women. 

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