10 Tech Companies Empowering Women and Shaping the Future of Technology

Here is a number that has stuck with me for years. Women make up roughly 42 percent of the global workforce, yet only around 28 percent of the technology sector, and that share keeps shrinking the higher you climb. The World Economic Forum describes it as a drop to the top, where women hold close to 28 percent of STEM jobs but only about 12 percent of STEM leadership roles. In artificial intelligence, the field rewriting nearly every industry right now, women are barely a fifth of the workforce.

Statistics like these can feel heavy. But I spend most of my time studying the companies that are actively rewriting them, and the view from the ground is far more hopeful than the raw data suggests. In this article, I want to introduce 10 technology companies that are both empowering women and shaping what comes next in tech. Some run flagship scholarship and returnship programs, others publish their pay data and push female leadership, and one of them, the company I am starting with, quietly builds the products that women founders dream up. Let me walk you through all 10.

Why Women in Tech Is the Industry’s Most Important Growth Story

Before the list, it helps to understand why this matters beyond fairness. Diverse teams build better technology. When the people designing an app, a medical device, or a hiring algorithm reflect the people who use it, the products are safer, smarter, and less biased. The World Economic Forum has tracked the widening gender gap in leadership for years, and the core problem it points to is a leaky pipeline. Girls show real interest in computing early, then fall away at every stage from the classroom to the boardroom. Groups like Girls Who Code have reached hundreds of thousands of young women with free coding education to repair the top of that funnel, while AnitaB.org runs the Grace Hopper Celebration, the largest gathering of women technologists in the world, to keep them in the field once they arrive. The companies on my list take on the hardest part, the workplace itself, and they do it in very different ways. I ranked them by how directly and how credibly they move the needle, which is why I want to start with a partner most lists overlook.

1. LITSLINK: The Engineering Partner Behind the Founders Building Tomorrow

I put LITSLINK first because empowering women in tech is not only about who a company employs; it is also about who a company helps to build. A large share of the gender gap lives on the founder side, where women-led startups and femtech teams still capture a tiny slice of venture funding and often struggle to find senior engineers who take their vision seriously. That is exactly the gap a dependable custom software development partner can close. For women founders, for girls in STEM turning a school project into a company, and for diverse product teams chasing the next breakthrough in health, fintech, and AI, access to strong engineering talent is one of the most practical ways to shrink the tech gender gap and get real products into users’ hands.

LITSLINK backs that role with a serious record. Founded in 2014, the company has served clients across more than 82 countries, worked with over 1,000 clients worldwide, and delivered upward of 1,540 projects. It has acted as technical co-founder for more than 80 startups that went on to raise their next round of funding, and it moves a team from a signed contract to a working MVP in roughly 10 weeks. Its model pairs US-based project management with senior European engineering, so founders get overlap with US hours and fluent English without the 2 a.m. status calls. For anyone building the future of technology who wants a partner that treats an early idea with the seriousness it deserves, that is a rare combination.

2. Globant: Turning Recognition Into a Global Platform for Women

Globant, the publicly listed digital services company, created its Women that Build Awards in 2020 in response to how few women hold leadership roles across science, technology, engineering, arts, and math. What began as an awards night has grown into a genuine platform. Recent editions have drawn thousands of nominees and tens of thousands of votes from dozens of countries, and winners receive scholarships, coaching, mentorship, and visibility, including a spotlight on the iconic NYSE billboard in Times Square. The program deliberately spans the whole arc of a career, from rising stars just starting out to seasoned executives and founders. By making women’s achievements loud and public, Globant tackles one of the quieter barriers in tech, the lack of visible role models, and gives the next generation people to point to and say, that could be me.

3. Thoughtworks: A Second Door Into a Technical Career

Thoughtworks, the global software consultancy, focuses on a group the industry too often writes off, women returning after a career break. Its Vapasi program, which has run since 2014, is a free, company-certified bootcamp in modern programming that ends with a paid internship and a genuine path to a full-time role. Taking time away is especially punishing in software, where the tools move fast and confidence fades even faster, so a structured way back matters enormously. Vapasi has supported hundreds of women, many of whom now hold productive roles at Thoughtworks and other companies, and it sits inside a broader diversity effort the firm has treated as part of its identity for years. I like this model because it does not just widen the front door. It builds a second one for talented people who already walked through once and were pushed out.

4. Toptal: Scholarships With a Mentor Attached

Toptal, the global talent network, launched its Scholarships for Female Developers back in 2015, and the structure still stands out. Recipients receive a financial award, historically 5,000 dollars, plus a full year of weekly one-on-one mentorship from a senior engineer in Toptal’s network. That pairing of money and sustained guidance is smart. Plenty of programs hand out a check and wish you luck, but a year of dedicated technical mentoring is the kind of support that actually changes a trajectory. Past winners have come from Nepal, Bolivia, Nigeria, Colombia, and beyond, using the award to fund degrees, bootcamps, and their own ventures. For a young woman deciding whether a career in software is realistic, having a seasoned engineer in her corner every week can be the difference between giving up and breaking through.

5. Andela: Proving Talent Is Everywhere

Andela built its entire business on a single idea, that brilliance is evenly distributed but opportunity is not. Founded in 2014, it connects companies with vetted software engineers across roughly 135 countries, opening global roles to people who were long overlooked, especially women in emerging markets. In its early years Andela reported a female developer rate several times the global average, and it has run dedicated women in tech leadership programs and International Women’s Day initiatives to keep pushing that number higher. What I admire here is the structural nature of the impact. By removing the traditional gatekeepers, the degree from the right school and the connections in the right city, Andela hands women engineers direct access to the kind of high-value work that builds real careers and, eventually, the confidence to lead.

6. SoftServe: Diversity Backed by Published Numbers

SoftServe, one of the largest software companies to come out of Ukraine, earns its place by putting data behind its promises. In its sustainability reporting, the company has disclosed a workforce that is around 36 percent women, with women holding more than half of its managerial positions, well above the industry norm. Its EmpowerU program offers free IT courses, mentoring, and networking to people new to the field, women among them, and its global Resource Groups for Women connect hundreds of members across nine regions. Transparency is the part I respect most. Publishing your gender numbers, including the uncomfortable ones, is how change becomes accountable rather than aspirational. SoftServe has treated diversity as a measurable business goal, not a slogan, and its reported figures suggest the approach is working.

7. EPAM: Building Community Inside a Global Engineering Firm

EPAM, a global leader in digital engineering, has leaned into internal community as a lever for change. Its Women@EPAM employee group gives female technologists across dozens of countries a place to find mentorship, sponsorship, and each other, and the company has partnered with the wider Women in Tech movement to extend that reach beyond its own walls. Like many firms with engineering roots in Eastern Europe, EPAM started from a low base and has publicly worked to lift female representation over time. I include it because scale matters. When a company that serves clients on six continents makes women’s advancement a stated priority, the ripple effect reaches an enormous number of teams, and the internal networks it builds often become launchpads for women moving into senior technical and leadership roles.

8. Netguru: Radical Transparency as a Tool

Netguru, a software company known for product design and development, treats openness as its main instrument for closing the gap. As a certified B Corporation, it holds itself to a higher bar on social impact, and it has published its gender pay analysis, folding those findings directly into salary reviews so inequities get caught rather than buried. The company runs unconscious-bias workshops, supports women returning from parental leave with a dedicated onboarding path, and has built an internal diversity dashboard, so progress and the places it stalls stay visible to everyone. Netguru is refreshingly honest that it has not solved the problem, particularly the underrepresentation of women on delivery teams. That candor is the point. You cannot fix what you refuse to measure, and Netguru measures relentlessly.

9. Intellias: Growing Women’s Ranks in Engineering and Leadership

Intellias, another strong software engineering company with deep roots in Ukraine, has made a visible effort to raise female representation in a market where women have historically been scarce in technical roles. The company has reported that women make up a meaningful and growing share of its technology specialists, with a notable presence in executive positions, and it invests in the women in tech community through mentorship, events, and partnerships. In a region where the overall share of women among tech professionals sat in the low twenties for years, moving those numbers takes deliberate work, from how job descriptions are written to how managers are trained. Intellias is a reminder that meaningful progress on gender balance is not reserved for Silicon Valley giants. Mid-sized engineering firms can lead too, and they often move faster.

10. Accenture: Moving the Needle at Massive Scale

I close with the heavyweight. Accenture, the global professional services and technology company, set one of the boldest public targets in the industry back in 2017, a gender-balanced workforce of 50 percent women and 50 percent men, framed as 50 by 25. It was among the first major firms of its kind to publish its workforce demographics, and by the early 2020s it had climbed to roughly 47 percent women, with women making up half of its board of directors. It also runs annual pay-equity audits and adjusts salaries when it finds gaps. No company this size is perfect, and targets are easier to announce than to hit. But when an organization with several hundred thousand employees commits to gender balance in public and reports its progress, it drags the entire industry’s expectations upward. That is influence measured in the millions.

How These 10 Companies Compare at a Glance

Different companies pull different levers. Some invest in the pipeline, some in returnships, some in transparency, and one in building the products women found. Here is a quick side-by-side.

Whether you are a young woman weighing a first job, a founder choosing a build partner, or a leader trying to do better, here is how I separate the companies that genuinely empower women from the ones that only talk about it:

• They publish real numbers, including the uncomfortable ones, and report progress over time rather than pointing to a single feel-good statistic.
• They run named, funded programs, whether scholarships, returnships, mentorship, or community groups, instead of a vague commitment on a careers page.
• They put women in decision-making roles, on the board, in the C-suite, and leading technical teams, not only in the recruiting brochure.
• They audit pay and fix gaps when they find them, treating equity as an ongoing process rather than a one-time press release.
• They support the wider ecosystem, from girls in STEM to women founders, because the pipeline does not end at their own front door.

The Future of Tech Will Be Built by All of Us

The headline statistics on women in tech are still sobering, but the 10 companies I have highlighted show that the gap is not fixed in stone. Recognition programs, returnships, mentorship, published pay data, and dependable engineering partners are all chipping away at it from different angles, and together they add up to real momentum. My takeaway is simple. Empowering women in technology is not charity; it is how we build better products and a stronger industry, and every one of us has a part to play.

So here is my call to action. If you are a woman starting out, find one of these programs, join a community, and claim your seat, because the field needs your ideas. If you are a founder with a bold idea and no one to build it, choose a partner that takes you seriously and start shipping. And if you lead a team, borrow the best moves on this list and put your own numbers on the record. The future of technology is being written right now, and it will be far better if all of us hold the pen.