One year growing the People of Color Employee Resource Group

Test Double’s People of Color Employee Resource Group (ERG) put its first year in the books! As one of the first ERGs at Test Double, this year was one to celebrate as we worked to build a community inside the company that focuses on progressing our careers and fostering interconnectedness.

Building community inside the ERG

As a 100% remote company, it can be easy to become isolated as you get heads-down on work. The ERG works to build interconnectedness between the people of color in Test Double. We hold regularly recurring meetings that cover lots of topics. Sometimes we use icebreakers or games to get to know each other better. Other times, we hold brainstorming sessions to figure out what our priorities should be or ways that we can support each other better. These meetings have helped us build a stronger sense of community.

Improving recruitment pipeline by improving visibility

Test Double is a predominantly white company, but we strive for inclusivity, and the ERG works to help build our recruitment pipeline. This year we worked to improve the visibility of Test Double’s people of color outside of the company by promoting content creation, getting featured on the Test Double blog, and getting involved in interview profiles.

Blog posts

• How environment variables make your Ruby test suite flaky, Ali Ibrahim
• 4 Reasons to Be a Software Consultant, Landon Gray
• What we’ve learned about Pride, Jaquel Rogers Robertson
• Why Are We Adding Another Modal?, Minnie Lee

Talks

• Babies just want to have fun, Ali Ibrahim
• Mastering the Macro Machine, Camilo Payan
• The Value Of A Small Pull Request, Glenn Harmon

Profiles

• Sukhraj Singh
• Glenn Harmon
• Viral Patel
• Minnie Lee
• Ali Ibrahim

Progressing members

Creating content doesn’t just build visibility for people of color outside of Test Double, it also improves our career prospects. The ERG brought in Test Double leadership to field questions about the promotion and progression processes at Test Double, and we worked to support each other through those processes. All of this helped several ERG members get promoted in the last year. 🥳

Growing the ERG

What’s next? The People of Color ERG grew and changed over the last year. We want to keep growing the number of people of color at Test Double and the impact that we have inside and outside the organization.

With the thoughtfulness, intelligence, and creativity that everyone brings to Test Double, there’s no doubt that the group will continue to grow and build!