She is NOT describing Etsy as "a little snake pit of the patriarchy", but that description could apply to a lot of engineering orgs.

Geez, how bad are most companies??

“When I was hired at Etsy, it was the first time I didn’t feel like I was hired because I was a woman. At nearly every other place that I’ve interviewed, someone during the interview process or when offering me the job has said to me, ‘We’re so excited to have a woman developer.’ Etsy was the first time I felt like I was hired for my skills, not because I felt like I was going to be a token.”

She is also quick to point out that Etsy knows it isn’t perfect. 

“Etsy is good at acknowledging that it has a long way to go. And that’s important for me to point out because it’s true that I landed in a magical wonderland, but it’s also true that that magical wonderland is 5 to 10 percent of what it can be.”

In addition, the larger tech culture is still a problem. “Just because Etsy is an awesome place to work doesn’t mean that we can escape the rest of the industry’s terribleness,” Lara says. Although her work experience has improved, she is still dealing with sexism at conferences and online, two spaces that are crucial to her networking and career development.

Things outside her own workplace still affect her and her colleagues. “Last fall when I was reading stories of other misogyny elsewhere in tech, when I was reading about Gamergate, when I was reading about my friends’ lived experiences, it really had an affect on me. I was exhausted all the time, I was having nightmares, and I started to talk with other women I worked with, and they shared that the same thing was happening to them.” They too felt drained by the discrimination and harassment, even though they weren’t experiencing it directly.