NinjaTrader Inclusion & Diversity

Describe your experience as a woman in engineering. What are some of the challenges you’ve faced and how have you overcome them?
Being the first woman in an engineering leadership role at NinjaTrader has had its challenges. Early on, it was difficult to feel like I belonged in rooms where I didn’t see many people like me. I had to learn to speak up, even when it felt intimidating, and build a network of mentors and peers I could lean on. What’s helped me most is focusing on the impact I want to make rather than worrying about fitting in.

At NinjaTrader, I’ve been fortunate to work with a team and leadership that value my perspective and support me in driving meaningful change. Teammates here genuinely want to hear different viewpoints and ideas, and that has made it so much easier to build confidence and push through those challenges.

What are your professional goals and how has your current company enabled you to pursue them? What career growth resources/opportunities are available?
One of my biggest goals has been to grow as a leader while also continuing to build a strong platform that makes life easier for our developers and better for our traders. At NinjaTrader, I’ve been able to do exactly that. I’ve had the freedom to drive initiatives that make a real impact.

What I appreciate most about working here is the trust and support we get from leadership. We’re encouraged to take ownership of projects, try new things and keep learning. Just as importantly, I’ve got a team that brings those ideas to life. They’re the ones doing the hard work to make big changes happen.

At NinjaTrader, there are clear opportunities for career growth. Whether you want to deepen your technical expertise or take on leadership responsibilities, there’s room to advance and support to help you get there.

What advice do you have for women in engineering or other technical roles regarding how to identify a company and team that will support their growth and development?
In interviews, don’t hesitate to ask about mentorship and career growth paths. For me, NinjaTrader has been that kind of place. From day one, I felt supported in bringing new ideas to the table and taking ownership of big initiatives. My advice is to trust your instincts. If a company makes you feel welcome and gives you room to grow from the start, that’s usually a great sign.

Ask yourself: Will I feel respected here? Will I get opportunities to work on meaningful projects? Does leadership invest in its people?

As a platform/site reliability engineering manager, I also advise women in engineering to explore site reliability engineering, even if it feels a little intimidating at first. Site reliability engineering work really matters. You’re the one making sure systems stay up, things run smoothly and other engineers have the tools they need to do their jobs well. It’s definitely challenging but also super rewarding. You get to work across the entire stack, from cloud infrastructure and networking to continuous integration/continuous delivery pipelines, observability tools and application performance. It’s a role that helps you build a broad and highly valuable technical skill set.