Bringing Caregivers Back to Tech: Grubhub Launches First Returnship
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Grubhub — in our technology organization and across the company as a whole — are values we’re always thinking about and working to improve upon. Over the last few years, we’ve removed subtly biased language from our systems, processes, and job descriptions; diversified hiring panels; launched seven GrubConnect groups. And, just this past April, we were proud to launch our Grubhub Reconnect Returnship Program in conjunction with Path Forward, whose mission is to empower individuals who are looking to return to the workforce in technical roles after taking time spent as a caregiver, with the tools they need to succeed.
Grubhub’s Reconnect Returnship Program is a 16-week paid returnship for experienced professionals reentering the workforce after spending at least two years off caring for their families.
Earlier this summer, I sat down with Padmaja Ayyagari (Grubhub’s Team Lead for DEI efforts), Caryn Drange (Director of Product Management) and Gargi Gupta (Software Engineer II) to discuss how the returnship came to be, what the biggest takeaways have been, and where they’d like to see the program go in the future.
Michelle: Can you tell me a bit about the origins of our Reconnect Program? What was the process of launching the program like?
Padmaja: The first time I heard about the idea of a returnship program was back in 2018 at the Grace Hopper conference. At these conferences sometimes you tend to drift off, but this was a very engaging conversation. As I listened, I realized that this is an opportunity and a space where Grubhub can invest.
I was excited because I personally experienced struggles reentering the workforce. Back in India, I worked, I had a career, and then I left all that behind when I joined my husband here in the United States. I was a new bride, had a baby I was raising, and I ended up staying home for seven years. I was happy, but I knew there was something more that I wanted. But when I started looking for work again, I did not get a job easily. Eventually, a friend of a friend reached out and said ‘hey, there’s an opportunity I have for you — someone is looking for help with recruiting.’ At that point, I had no idea what recruiting was! I just landed in it. When I found out about Path Forward’s Returnship Program, I wished this kind of program existed 12 years ago. I realized there are so many other women, other people like me, who are looking for a program that helps them get back into the workforce, and this is an amazing opportunity to bring them back.
The idea of a program like this had been discussed a few times, and when we founded the Tech Women Connect ERG last year, Caryn Drange and Gargi Gupta reached out to me, we talked about returnship program and we decided it was the perfect time to pursue it, especially given the disproportionate amount of women who had been impacted professionally by COVID-19. We pitched the idea of this program to leadership once more, and the rest is history.
Gargi: I’m a mother of two, and I have friends who left the workforce to take care of their young kids who are now exploring their options to return. It’s been really challenging for them because of how employers perceive the gap in their resumes. These women worked before; they had just taken a break to care for their families. This program gives women a supportive transition back into the workforce and it’s something I think every company should consider implementing. Personally, I struggled when my kids were little and I was making a career transition from QA into development, and I know I would have benefitted from a program like this.
Caryn: I’ve been in tech 20 something years, and at Grubhub for almost nine. I worked in financial services for over a decade, and I’ve always been the only woman in the room. Always. Even in college, I was the only woman in my computer science classes, and it was always a challenge to be the only woman. How do you get other women to be in the room with you? This question has always been a passion of mine.
For many years, Grubhub was really small, there was only so much we could do. I think we started scratching the surface a bit when we started our college recruiting program. We were like, let’s get them early! Catch the women early, let’s find them early.
When I was nominated with Gargi as a co-lead for Grubhub’s Tech Women Connect ERG, I already knew that I was going to go talk to Padmaja about implementing a similar program for tech roles. I didn’t know that you [Padmaja] had transitioned into a DEI role, I thought you were still just doing recruiting, though now I know you do both! You had told me about this Path Forward program and obviously, given my passion for women in STEM, I read a lot of articles and one of the things that always bothers me — and it’s not just women in tech — is how do you get women up the career ladder at higher level positions? A lot of women opt out. Or, they don’t even opt out — they go to other companies because they feel like they’re hitting a wall in their progression. When you told me about Path Forward and its Reconnect Returnship Program, I thought, this is awesome, and we can really sell it [to executive leadership]. And ever since we’ve kicked the program off, it’s been a great experience. I know we’re only scratching the surface with the initial pilot program, but this is another way to bring in talented women at a pace that supports our company’s growth.
Michelle: What was the interview process like for the returnees? Were there takeaways where you thought, oh, we could be doing this in general when we interview candidates?
Caryn: We tried to leverage a mash up between our current process and our internship process. We had a remote coding session, then we did the normal panel of coding, design, and 360. Now we’re working on a doc about how to take what we learned from this and potentially make a specialized interview process.
I think our biggest learning and takeaway is that we didn’t set a clear expectation, or bar, on the interview process. Padmaja and I really had to take the feedback from the interview panels and sometimes challenge it with the hiring managers — like, is that a fair bar? How do you interview for trainability? Just because someone doesn’t have actual skills, what’s transferable? And I think there is an opportunity for our tech org to define those expectations clearly. And as we do that, I think it will make our interview pipeline and process go a lot smoother.
Padmaja did a lot of handholding with the managers to get them to think outside the box. It’s a little bit of a cultural shift. And I think with that cultural shift, it doesn’t mean that we’re lowering the bar. Not at all. It’s just that the bar is defined a little differently.
Ultimately, tech changes so quickly that everyone is learning constantly. By developing this approach to interview for trainability, that’s an amazing pipeline to define.
Michelle: What’s the ideal outcome at the end of the 16 week program?
Padmaja: The ideal outcome is to transition these women into full time employees, and based on their overall performance at the end of their 16 weeks, we’ll be leveling them.
Currently, we are partnering with Path Forward for multiple reasons. The first is that we are very new to this space and haven’t run a program like this before. Path Forward is a leader in the space and has already built out a very robust and scalable framework. They also have outreach and networking capabilities which are very valuable. Ultimately, our goal is to take what we’ve learned through this pilot and expand this program into other departments across the company.
Gargi: For Grubhub, we are hopeful that these women will transition into full time roles at Grubhub. Regardless of whether these women receive and accept full-time offers, they gain valuable experience and will have these 16 weeks under their belt and the name Grubhub on their resume. This experience will count towards their future work.
Caryn: This program is a good thing for our tech organization. It gives people that aren’t necessarily managers experience with coaching and mentoring others and building out that skillset, which is tough to do without actually doing it. You have to learn by doing. And these types of programs give experiences to build leadership skills. I think we don’t talk about that enough. Sometimes we worry more about the overhead cost / time of ramping up a new candidate who has transferable skills vs. the cost / time of hiring for a candidate that already has the exact skills/experience we need. With this pilot program, we will be able to demonstrate the cost / time of returnship hiring vs. the traditional hiring pipeline.
Padmaja: We talk about fungible skills. What are fungible skills? Well, these are fungible skills. These returnees are fungible. They are super adaptable, they are trainable, they are easy to coach, and they are very flexible. They can learn anything and everything. They have so much grit and determination, and they push through. I’ve spoken to at least 150 individuals and every single candidate surprised me. This returnship has given these women an opportunity to feel confident again. I still remember reading Caryn’s article about Imposter Syndrome — that was the first time I’d heard about it. I said to myself, 80%, 90% of women go through this, and we do not realize it, and we do not talk about it. I feel like this program gives a platform for us to air this out. I wish this program existed twelve, thirteen years ago when I was looking for a job!
Caryn: Padmaja, what you said resonated with me and reminded me of something Bob Waite [VP of Engineering] said when we first presented the program to leadership. He said, “Gosh, I wish this was around for my mom. She was a computer programmer, she took time off to have kids, and she couldn’t get back into the workforce, so she had to go and be a teacher,” because that’s what your choices were. That’s what my mom had the choice of being. A teacher, a receptionist, or a nurse. That’s it. Those were the three choices if you wanted a career. Once you took time off, those were your options [at the time]. It was interesting to see our leadership say that they wish we had this concept decades ago.
Padmaja: Definitely. And this program would not have happened without senior leadership’s support across the board and our Tech Women Connect ERG. If they hadn’t championed the project, we’d still be debating it. Every single person who has touched this program has been a really great support in many different ways.
Fourteen weeks into the returnship, we’re very excited with the success of the program thus far and are looking forward to having our returnees finish out their final weeks.
Grubhub is always looking for talented professionals from a wide variety of backgrounds. Learn more about our open positions.
