Underrepresentation occurs for a number of minority groups in the United States in the tech industry, including Hispanic and Latinx communities. Despite the increased attention paid to issues of diversity and inclusion in recent years, there’s a disproportionately small number of Hispanic and Latinx software engineers.

We’re going to take a look at some of the progress that has been made as well as how some tech companies started or run by Hispanic and Latinx individuals are impacting the field of software engineering.

Latinx & Hispanic Software Engineers: The Current Landscape

There has been great progress in increasing minority representation for software engineers in recent years, but there’s still a long way to go to continue building diversity in tech. According to research from 2022, the majority of software engineers in the United States are white (52.3%) while only 6.9% are Hispanic or Latinx. In addition, a 2015 study found that only 2% of the software developer population is comprised of Hispanic/Latinx women.

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Latinos in Tech are Forging Their Own Path

In the field of software engineering, Hispanics and Latinos are breaking new ground. Latina/Latino software engineers and Hispanic software engineers are driving most of the effort being made toward increasing Hispanic and Latinx representation in software engineering. Here are just a few examples.

Álvaro Celis

Álvaro Celis began studying Computer Science at the age of 15 in Caracas, Venezuela due to his interest in cutting-edge technology. After completing his education, he was quickly hired by Microsoft. He has been working at Microsoft in Redmond, Washington for the past 28 years. In his current role, he’s responsible for overseeing the sales of both devices and channels as Vice President. He participates in the company’s HOLA project, which aims to increase the number of Latino leaders and advance their careers in the U.S. technology sector.

Scarlin Hernandez

Scarlin Hernandez, a spacecraft engineer, checks the functionality of the ground systems used to manage the James Webb Space Telescope. Hernandez has worked at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and has a background in both computer engineering and astronautical engineering. She is also responsible for establishing the Women Empowering Women Group at STSci.

Daniel Loreto

Daniel Loreto is a rising star in the field of machine learning. He has started his own business, Jetpack.IO, which aims to revolutionize how engineers create scalable backends on the cloud. His resume boasts notable clients including Google, Twitter, Airbnb, and Virta Health. The main topics of his research are artificial intelligence, question-answering systems, and data mining.

María Teras Arnal

María Teras Arnal has led the Latin American division of Stripe, an online payment processing provider for online businesses, and has previously held significant roles at Google and Microsoft. The director stresses the need to encourage young women to be interested in STEM fields and problem-solving.

Lilian Rincón

Lilian Rincón, from Venezuela,  was instrumental in developing the groundbreaking technology behind Google Assistance. Rincón is in charge of the team that is responsible for developing new capabilities for the system. She has extensive experience in the field of technology, having worked with Skype, and is an expert in the areas of artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Latinx and Hispanic Tech Companies

Here are just a few organizations that are working to close the gap and bring more awareness and opportunities to Hispanic software engineers, Latina/Latino software engineers, and other tech professionals.

Techqueria

Techqueria is an organization dedicated to fostering growth among the world’s largest network of Latinx IT professionals. Incorporated as a nonprofit in March of 2019, its goal is to provide Latinx professionals with the tools they need to succeed and advance in the technology sector.

Through their support of local chapter projects and their digital membership base dispersed across the United States, they empower Latinx leaders in tech on a national scale. They encourage tech professionals to network with one another and benefit from the knowledge and experience of their peers by providing mentorship programs, professional development seminars and lectures, and networking events.

Latinas in Tech

The goal of Latinas in Tech, a nonprofit organization, is to foster a community of Latinas in the tech industry and provide them with resources to help them succeed. The organization started in Silicon Valley in 2014 but has since spread to many other places around the globe.

Now over 10,000 women from over 15 countries and over 200 technology companies make up the organization. In addition, the whole technology industry is represented by Latinas in Tech including developers, security analysts, data scientists, BD managers, PR specialists, salespeople, journalists, bloggers, business owners, investors, marketers, and recruiters, as well as anyone else involved in the tech ecosystem.

Latinos in Tech

Latinos in Tech was founded by Carlos Vasquez and Benjamin Juarez, who saw a need in the Latino tech community for more networking and career-building events. The group’s mission is to get Latinos in the field together to support and develop one another” through activities including information-sharing