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Celebrating Women in Tech: Insights from Female Software Engineers at Acre

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In honour of International Women’s Day, we spoke with Acre’s female software engineers to discuss their experiences and perspectives on being women in a male-dominated industry.

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Rosa, Viktorija (“VDaug”), and Shehneel share their favourite things about working in software engineering, offer advice to women interested in pursuing careers in tech, and touch on topics such as imposter syndrome, lack of female role models and mentors, and combating biases in the tech industry.

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Although traditionally women have been underrepresented in technical roles, there are many talented role models like Rosa, VDaug, and Shehneel who are making significant contributions to the field.

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Their conversation highlights the challenges that women face in tech, but also emphasises the importance of perseverance, finding supportive communities, and owning their abilities.

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We hope that this discussion helps listeners gain insight into the experiences of these impressive women in tech and work towards a more inclusive and diverse industry.

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Discussion Summary:

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Career Paths

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Rosa: In my early years, I loved building things with computers. I'm less attracted to pure data science because it's less visual. My career started with an early internship in Spain with an aerospace company that was very data-oriented. Then I moved to the UK and met great allies.

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VDaug: After uni, I landed a random back-office job in a tech company. That's when I discovered programming is kind of cool. I started with the backend because I thought frontend is just changing button colours, but then I slowly went into full stack and realised that frontend is actually just 10% styling! It's nice to have visual feedback and see the user impact.

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Shehneel: My background was in maths. I was an analyst for a bit and that didn't suit me. So I became a consultant for a bit, which also didn't suit me. Then I tried data science, but the backend engineers had access to models that were a lot better than the ones I could make. Like AWS endpoints which I didn’t know how to access at the time. So I started to learn backend to be a better data scientist. I started to enjoy it a lot more because data science involves a lot of data cleaning and talking as opposed to backend where you get things out.

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Favourite bits

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VDaug: It's nice to contribute to a new industry that has a lot of potential. It's also a low-stress environment that is collaborative and supportive.

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Rosa: I agree with VDaug. The future is tech and it’s a promising career path. Also, it's flexible with working hours and there are so many different areas you can work in.

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Shehneel: The best part is probably the code.

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Advice

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Rosa: Apply to roles that interest you, even if you don't meet every requirement. You won’t lose anything. Surround yourself with people who remind you that you are valid.

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Shehneel: Follow your gut. If there are bad vibes, remove yourself from those situations or deal with them head-on. There are unfriendly people in the industry, but there are also very nice people.

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VDaug: Encourage diversity. Don't be afraid of being a female, speak up in meetings and ask for more money!

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Industry Bias

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Rosa: I wasn’t supported in my early years, but luckily, some men were very pro-women. Reuben was always on my side. It wasn't until recent years that I saw more women in tech. Just be aware of the biases and call them out. Encourage diversity and surround yourself with people who remind you that you are valid.

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Shehneel: There aren't many women in tech events, but it's great to see female CTOs and learn from them.

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VDaug: It can be very intimidating to go to a male-dominated workplace as a female. However, being that single female can shift the dynamic. Although this may not immediately change the environment, it's important to trust yourself and your abilities to do the job and own the space.

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Junior professionals may find it even harder to assert themselves in these environments. Therefore, it's up to those already in the industry to pave the way for future generations of women. Hopefully, the workplace will be more inclusive for women in the future.

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Acre is now Score

What's changed?

What's changing is the name and the way we look. Acre is now trading as Score, with a fresh brand identity to match, but everything you rely on stays exactly where it is. It's still the same mortgage all-in-one platform that advisors, firms, and networks across the country already use to grow their businesses, now presented under a name that brings us in line with the wider ClearScore Group.

Why the new name?

ClearScore acquired Acre earlier this year, and we've carried plenty of momentum into life as part of the Group since. Moving to the Score brand is a natural next step, because it brings us in line with ClearScore and reflects the mission we share, which is to make home buying quicker and easier and to help people take control of their financial lives. As our founder and Managing Director Justus Brown has put it, the day-to-day service you receive won't change at all, and bringing our brand together with the Group simply makes that shared mission clearer.

Has the mission changed?

Not in the slightest! We have always been here to make home buying quicker and easier, taking the pain out of the process so that people can get into their homes sooner, and that is exactly what we will keep doing, with a good deal more behind us now to do it well.

Will the service change?

No, it won't, you'll continue working with the same platform and the same people, and your existing contracts and commercial terms stay exactly as they are, still held with the same legal entity, Acre Platforms Limited. Our Customer Success team will keep looking after you just as they do today.

About ClearScore

Who is ClearScore?

The ClearScore Group is a global leader in financial marketplaces, helping over 27 million people access credit, insurance, and other financial products with greater transparency, fairness, and control. It founded its flagship UK credit marketplace in 2015, has since expanded across four continents and into new verticals such as its DriveScore app, and now works with over 200 partners worldwide. ClearScore is profitable, growing, and on a mission to make personal finance clearer, calmer, and easier to understand, and that mission runs right through its culture, along with a genuine belief in giving people more clarity and control over their money.

How do we fit into ClearScore?

We sit alongside ClearScore's other technology platforms, including D•One, its open banking service for lenders, together powering borrowing and home lending across unsecured credit, auto finance, and now mortgages.

What does the change
unlock?

What does joining ClearScore bring?

Joining ClearScore gives us a great deal more room to grow. With their backing, we can accelerate our technology roadmap and bring new AI-powered features to the platform faster than we could before, and we can enrich what we build with ClearScore's proprietary data and insights, getting cutting-edge technology into the hands of mortgage and protection businesses sooner.

What do brokers and firms stand to gain?

For the brokers and firms who use us, it really comes down to growing faster. Drawing on ClearScore's financial power and its UK user base of over 16 million, we can build the features you ask for more quickly and bring more leads into the ecosystem, which gives brokers, networks, and advisors more opportunities to win new business.

Is the business growing?

We're growing quickly, and so are the firms who build their business on the platform. Since the acquisition, we've seen record numbers of monthly mortgage submissions come through Score, and we've more than doubled our revenue year on year, with growth of over 2.5x. That momentum is showing up in our customers' businesses too: firms on the platform are saving each broker around four days a month on application processing, identifying protection needs for 85% of their mortgage clients, and doubling their client conversion rates. Delivering results like these takes serious engineering and serious investment, and with ClearScore behind us we can keep raising that bar at a pace few others in the market can match.

Why build your business on Score?

Because you'll be choosing a platform that is built to last. A lot of new mortgage tools have appeared lately, and many of them are small, pop-up CRMs put together quickly on basic AI, the kind of thing that can disappear just as fast as it arrived. Score is a very different proposition, we are an established, whole-of-market platform that brokers, networks, and advisors across the country already trust with their businesses, and we are now backed by one of the most advanced and reliable fintech stacks in the industry through ClearScore. A proven platform, real investment, and genuine scale mean we can keep powering ahead of newer, lighter-weight tools and keep building for the long term.

Independence and
ownership

Is Acre being absorbed into ClearScore?

No. We operate as an independent business unit within the ClearScore Group, with our full management team staying exactly where they are, and we'll carry on supporting mortgage and protection firms with the same data-driven platform, now with the reach and scale of the wider Group behind us.

Will our advice-first philosophy change?

No. We have always believed that the best mortgage decisions come from high-quality, personal advice, and it is a belief ClearScore shares. If anything, the direction the market is heading only reinforces it, which is why we will stay a whole-of-market platform focused on helping brokers do their very best work for their clients.

Your data

Is my data safe?

Yes, and nothing about the move to Score changes that. Your data, and your clients' data, is protected by exactly the same contractual obligations and technical safeguards as before, and being part of ClearScore does not give anyone new access to it. We will never introduce your customers to a third party without the right consent, and your clients always keep the rights to their own data. If anything, joining a group whose entire business is built on handling data responsibly, and only ever with the user's permission, raises the bar we hold ourselves to.

The best way to see what Score can do is to book a demo, and we'll walk you through the platform and how it could work for your firm. If you'd rather drop us a line, you can reach our sales team at sales@scoremortgage.com, or send any general enquiries to hello@scoremortgage.com.