29 Facts About Erica Baker

Erica Baker has worked at companies including GitHub, Google, Slack, Patreon, and Microsoft.

Erica Baker gained prominence in 2015 for starting an internal spreadsheet where Google employees reported their salary data to better understand pay disparities within the company.

In High School, Erica Baker took a calculator programming class, learning how to program in BASIC on Texas Instruments brand graphing calculators.

Erica Baker learned how to code websites, hosting her own on GeoCities.

Erica Baker attended the University of Miami and majored in Computer Science.

Erica Baker says she was one of the only two Black people in one of her core classes, and decided to transfer to the University of Alaska earning an Associate of Applied Science degree in Information Technology.

Erica Baker then moved to Home Depot for a year, doing network operations and mobile desktop support.

Erica Baker worked at Google from 2006 to May 2015, in various roles, ending with the role of Site Reliability Engineer.

In July 2015, after leaving Google for Slack, Erica Baker revealed in a series of tweets that she had started an internal spreadsheet at Google for employees to disclose their salary information.

Erica Baker reported that a number of her colleagues sent her peer bonuses for starting the spreadsheet, but her peer bonuses were denied by management.

From May 2015 to July 2017, Erica Baker worked as a build and release engineer at Slack.

In June 2017, TechCrunch, and USA Today reported that Erica Baker was leaving Slack to join Kickstarter as director of engineering, reporting to Lara Hogan, the newly appointed VP of Engineering, and working in Brooklyn.

In January 2019, Erica Baker joined Microsoft as Principal Group Engineering Manager.

Erica Baker shed light on the performative nature of technology activism when she denounced Benioff's tweet during the Black Lives Matter protests, where a black man who was wearing a Twitter logo was being arrested.

Erica Baker denounced a video series by Elissa Shevinsky, the author of Lean Out, stating that it only addressed the diversity problem superficially.

Erica Baker was interviewed by WIRED's Davey Alba at WIRED Business Conference 2016.

In January 2017, Erica Baker was a keynote speaker at the Women of Color in Computing conference held by Mills College.

In March 2018, Erica Baker was a featured speaker at the Bond Conference.

Erica Baker was a featured speaker for a Berkeley Center for New Media panel and The Wall Street Journals Women in the Workplace Forum both in October 2018.

Erica Baker appeared on Jeopardy as a guest presenter in February 2021.

Erica Baker is on the board of directors for Girl Develop It.

Erica Baker is on the advisory board of Hack the Hood and is a tech mentor for Black Girls Code.

Erica Baker was on the list of the BBC's 100 Women announced on 23 November 2020.

Erica Baker won the 2015 Level Playing Field Institute Lux Award.

Erica Baker spent her childhood on the move, first in Germany, where Erica Baker was born while her parents were deployed there, then New Mexico, Florida, and Alaska.

Erica Baker got married while in college in Alaska, but said it didn't work out.

In 2021, Baker married her current husband, American B Astrella.

Erica Baker has a strong interest in genealogy, and has spent more than ten years researching her family's history.

Erica Baker's hope is to someday help fill in the gaps for every other African American family as well.