Raji Arasu is a role model for women. Not only is she a female engineer, but she is also an executive, currently serving as Chief Technology Officer at StubHub.  That’s a pretty rare role, given that women currently make up 25 percent of the technology industry and fill only 9 percent of executive roles in the field – and these numbers have been in decline for the past two years.

Being a female technology executive is “sort of a lonely world,” she tells the Daily Muse. “In technology, there are fewer women than there are in business organizations, and there are even fewer women in senior roles.”

Raji didn’t always want to be an engineering executive. Like many children, she had lots of different childhood aspirations, ranging from teacher to astronaut. It wasn’t until she went to Pune University of Engineering that Raji discovered the exciting world of computer science and realized it was her professional calling. At school, Raji noticed the gender gap in her field from the start, but she didn’t let it scare her.

Starting her career as a software engineer at Oracle, Raji served as director of engineering at marchFIRST before joining eBay in 2001. This was a time of exciting innovation and growth for the company, and she helped tackle problems involving scalability, traffic and payments in the rapidly evolving world of ecommerce. She now creates personalized and intuitive experiences for millions of StubHub users.

The Daily Muse recently sat down with Raji to talk about her experiences as a woman in tech and to hear the important lessons she’s had to learn on her way up the ladder. Check out the full interview at their website.

I was lucky enough to sit down with the 10-year eBay veteran to chat about her time at eBay, the award itself and the challenges and opportunities she sees facing women in technology today.

Cheers,
RBH