Serena Williams invests in Seattle-based startup to support Black software engineers

Tennis icon Serena Williams is joining forces with a startup to support current and aspiring Black engineers.

The interviewing company Karat, based in Seattle, said Williams invested in its Brilliant Black Minds program, which “improves access and inclusion across the technology industry,” in an April 19 news release.

Williams will also serve as the program’s “Champion of Brilliance.”

Karat launched the program to close what it calls the “interview access gap” among Black software engineers and overcome the numerous systemic and socioeconomic barriers they face when trying to break into the industry, the release said.

Some of those barriers, according to the release, include:

• a lack of access to knowledge of how the engineering industry hires candidates
• fewer professional connections within the industry
• fewer opportunities to practice technical interviews

“The technology industry is focused on solving some of the world’s biggest challenges. My focus is ensuring the solutions to those challenges are developed by all of us,” Williams said in the release.

The company’s Brilliant Black Minds program aims to “deliver free interview practice, feedback, and coaching to help aspiring software engineers in this community prepare to successfully enter the tech industry,” Karat said in the news release.

The industry faces a “multi-decade shortage of software engineers,” but continues to “source talent from the same talent pool over and over again,” Mohit Bhende, co-founder and CEO of Karat, said in the release.

The program is currently open to “all current and aspiring Black software engineers in the U.S. who want the opportunity to make progress on their technical interviewing skills,” the news release said.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 5.9% of computer hardware engineers in the U.S. are Black.

Karat and Williams aim to add more than 100,000 Black engineers to the tech industry in the next 10 years.

“There has never been a shortage of brilliance in Black America; only limits to the access and opportunities extended to our community,” Williams said in the release.

This story was originally published April 19, 2022 at 6:05 PM with the headline "Serena Williams invests in Seattle-based startup to support Black software engineers."