This Is the Woman at the Heart of Everything Google Builds

There was a time when Melody Meckfessel juggled two wardrobes: one for one Google, and one for the rest of her life. Her Google wardrobe included hoodies and t-shirts and blue jeans — standard engineering garb — never blouses, skirts, or dresses. Those were for the rest of her life.

“I began working at startups in my early twenties, and then I worked at bigger software companies, and I’ve now been at Google,” Meckfessel says. “Over the years, I was generally the only woman in room, and I adapted, in many ways, to be one of the guys.”

But somewhere along way, she dropped the distinction and began wearing whatever she liked to the office. It was very much a conscious decision, though she’s a tad reluctant to discuss it. It wasn’t a statement. It was what she wanted to do. “I just wanted to be my authentic self, all the time, and that meant more changes at work than in my personal life,” she says. “It wasn’t just about the wardrobe. I wanted to bring my full set of opinions to the table.”