Women in Tech: Amy Brown | Women’s History Month 2024

Did you know that 20% of Maestro’s staff and 40% of our leadership team are women? In a male-dominated industry, we’re very proud to have this representation on our team.

In honor of Women’s History Month, we’d like to introduce you to Amy Brown, one of the phenomenal women who keeps the gears turning at Maestro.

Who is Amy Brown?

Amy Brown is a Customer Success and Operations Manager at Maestro. Her work includes managing accounts for Enterprise clients, providing technical support for self-sign-up customers, and managing the development team's projects. Amy also leads several cultural initiatives for Maestro, including hosting fun internal events like our holiday parties and Fun Fridays, where the team plays board games together online.

In her free time, Amy loves spending time with her partner Nolan and her cherished pets, Daisy Grace (her Labrador) and Brodie (her cat). Amy loves to bake, read, play video and board games, and go for long walks with Daisy while listening to audiobooks.

Q&A with Amy

We sat down with Amy to get her take on her experience as a woman in tech. Here’s what she had to say.

What has your journey looked like as you’ve stepped into a role in tech? 

Winding. I graduated in 2014 with a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre. I studied technical theatre. Lighting design, scenic design, and stage management were my specialties, but I never thought that I’d work in software. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always loved technology, and that’s why I pursued working with event tech, but I never pictured myself where I am today.

I began my career working in Corporate and Special Event Planning utilizing my theatrical skills to bring stage-worthy logistical planning and carefully honed talent management skills into conferences, community events, massive birthday parties, brand engagements, concerts, and art festivals. I met many people along the way who gave me a lot of incredible opportunities, and I ended up blossoming into an event producer who specialized in stage management and project management.

When the pandemic hit, one of my connections was quick to jump on building events virtually and asked me to be a “Virtual Stage Manager.” I said, “What does that look like?” He said, “I’m hoping you can help me figure that out.”

For two years, I worked with incredible teams, building broadcasts of the events our clients loved to host in-person and doing our best to incorporate engaging moments into the virtual environment. This led to me researching and adopting many live streaming platforms, learning how to become a livestream engineer, and strategizing on how to build the virtual stage for these re-imagined events for all sorts of clients with all sorts of use cases. Honestly, it was pretty intense. At a time when many of my friends and colleagues in the event industry were unemployed, I was busier than ever.

During this time, I used Maestro myself five times with five different clients. Eventually, the Customer Success team asked me to hop on a call to learn what they could do to better serve producers like me. That call turned into a job offer. 

I took a real chance giving up on live event work to be here. I stepped away from a huge community that helped and raised me up every step of the way since I graduated. But I love what I do here, I learn so much every day, and it’s opened a lot of doors for me that I probably never would have considered.

What skills or experiences have propelled your career as a woman in tech?

I’ve always been a bit of a tomboy and have held hobbies that are traditionally thought of as “masculine,” so I’ve been hanging out in male-dominated fields forever. I was in drumline with five boys in high school. When I picked up theatre, I was always in the woodshop or hanging lights and running cables. When I was working in events, I worked in logistics and production, so I’d say I have a lot of experience breaking into these spaces and making myself comfortable. 

When I came into Maestro, I knew how to step into the role. I don’t back down when I can tell someone thinks I’m in the wrong room. 

Aside from that, paying attention and learning or using my resources to figure something out has opened so many doors for me that I can’t even count. I’m a fast learner. I want to fiddle with things, see how they work, and come up with a plan to use my learnings effectively. That kind of curiosity and forward-thinking have always led me down a successful path.

What unique qualities or perspectives do you think you and other women bring to the tech field?

This is such a great question! One of the things I do at Maestro is Project Management. We use Agile project management methodology here, so I'm the Scrum Manager for our Development teams. If you’re unfamiliar, Scrum is a project management framework. As the Scrum Manager, it’s my job to ensure all of the tools we use to prioritize and complete work are utilized appropriately and that the team remains unblocked and can complete their tasks.

In that role, I noticed straight away that my empathy is a strength. I can very quickly spot interpersonal challenges and easily hear if a team member seems to be having a hard time. I am quick to jump to offer them support or anything I can do to brighten up their day or lessen their load. I notice this trait in the other women in our company, and I love that we share a strong sense of empathy. 

It can be easy to get caught up in our day-to-day work, especially since we’re totally remote, but the women at Maestro stay in tune with our entire team and try our best to lift everyone up and offer extra support when needed.

I also think I'm a pretty open and vulnerable person. At work, this shows up when I admit I don’t know something and am all too willing to ask for help when encountering a roadblock. I don’t encounter this from many other people in my field, and I personally view it as a strength. I’m what our software engineers would designate as “non-technical,” but I find myself on daily calls that are delving into deep engineering principles. Where it would be extremely easy for me to zone out and multi-task, I force myself to stay present, writing things down to research later. 

Ari, our CEO and Head of Product, frequently asks the group, “Are you following?” when leading meetings like this, and I’m usually heard answering him with, “Honestly, no. Can you explain that again for me?” You can ask any of our developers how many times they’ve gotten a Slack message from me saying something to the effect of “Hey, when you have a second, can you explain this concept to me in an ‘explain it like I’m five’ version?” 

I’m happy to say that I have wonderful colleagues who are typically thrilled to be given the chance to describe what they’re working on in detail. They’re all big nerds. Generally, I find that my questions also help other people on the team who may have been afraid to speak up!

What advice would you give to young women who have their sights set on a role in the tech industry?

Don’t back down. I referenced this earlier, but women need to be comfortable in rooms that don’t feel welcome. It’s an unfortunate truth that there are folks out there who just don’t think that the tech industry is our place. There are folks out there that don’t want to hear from us. They want to hear from our male co-workers.

Don’t worry about their comfort.

Get into the room and make yourself at home. Work hard. Surround yourself with other women that you admire and learn from them. Bring the traditionally feminine traits you may carry with you into those spaces. Be empathetic, be sensitive, be all of yourself, and just don’t back down.

Do you have any good resources or tools for continued learning and growth in the industry?

I rely heavily on Reddit for everything, so I suggest /r/womenintech for an interesting forum. Also, I just started listening to the podcast Girl Geek X, and I'm really enjoying it so far! 

Final Thoughts

Amy and other women who have broken into male-dominated spaces are paving the way for other women with similar aspirations, and that is surely something to be proud of!

We’d like to give a huge thank you to Amy for talking about her journey as a woman in tech. You’re the best!