Amazing sounding woman just named to head technology at Redfin! One fascinating detail: she worked from home FOR YEARS in the "make or break" part of her career, and yet continued to rise in the ranks of engineering management. Someday I hope to meet her and ask how.

Sounds like she's always been a hard worker, so that's at least part of it:

As a junior [at Harvard] she received one of two Microsoft National Women’s Technical Scholarships, which paid for her tuition senior year. She was even profiled as one of the seven busiest students at Harvard.

“As an undergraduate, I wanted to try as many activities as I could fit into my schedule: I was the co-editor-in-chief of the weekly newspaper; I was a teaching fellow for several computer science courses; I had summer internships at Motorola, Marble Associates and Microsoft; and I volunteered a lot.”

After graduating in 1999, Bridget set her sights on San Francisco, where the majority of innovation was happening.

Hey, let's not discourage women who did NOT have this stellar record in school -- LIKE ME. Not only was I a history major rather than a computer science major, but I didn't do ANY activities. I did not exercise nor did I even drink as an undergrad. I spent hours and hours talking to random people in the city, and also reading all kinds of books for fun. I learned to knit and sew and cook. I had romantic relationships. I worked crappy jobs. And guess what? I'm a female CTO too. :) So there are many roads to technical competence, and although I respect the crap out of Bridget I don't want people to think that if they didn't take her road from age 17 they are somehow already out of the running.

I re-read the article and it does make her sound like a superhero.

Thanks for setting the record straight that mortals can become CTOs, too.