EngineerHer

There are the things you learn in engineering school — statics, circuits, thermo, design principles — and then there are the things you learn only after you land your first job, sit through your first design review, get your first “Are you taking notes?” comment, or realise that everyone else seems to have been handed an invisible rulebook you never got.

That invisible rulebook?

That’s the hidden curriculum of engineering.

It’s the unspoken expectations, the behavioural norms, the subtle codes of conduct, and the “this is how things really work around here” knowledge that no one teaches formally… but somehow everybody is supposed to know. And, let’s be honest, the “everybody” tends to mean men, because a lot of this hidden curriculum is passed informally — in back‑of‑the‑plant conversations, shoulder‑to‑shoulder troubleshooting, quick whispered advice during meetings, and those magical chats that happen only when you’re already part of the inner circle.

Women, on the other hand?
We often learn this curriculum the hard way.
Through bruises, missteps, misunderstandings, and the slow burn of realising oh… THAT’S how that works.

So let’s talk about it, out loud, openly, because the hidden curriculum becomes a lot less painful once someone names it.

The Lessons Men Pick Up Long Before We Do

One of the first shocks women experience in engineering is how much of the culture is learned informally. A lot of men pick up these norms early, sometimes as early as their teenage years, through sports teams, technical hobbies, male‑dominated study groups, or early internships where they were gently coached by someone who saw themselves in the new guy.

They learn things like:

• How blunt you’re “allowed” to be without being judged harshly
• How to push back without looking “emotional”
• That confidence is often performed, not felt
• That interrupting is acceptable — expected, even
• When to speak up in a meeting and when to hold back
• How to build alliances and social capital in informal ways
• That a mistake is just a mistake, not a referendum on competence

No one sits them down to teach any of this. But they absorb it anyway, because they’re surrounded by people like them, modelling the behaviour.

Women… usually aren’t.

And yes, we’re back in the patriarchy again. Women don’t see how to do this, because when women behave exactly the same as men in similar situations, the outcomes are very different.

Assertiveness becomes arrogance.

Passion becomes an emotional outburst.

Setting boundaries becomes being a bitch.

Meanwhile: The Invisible Lessons Women Learn Alone

Most women I speak to describe the same pattern: they step into engineering bright-eyed, trained, fully qualified… And then spend the first few years learning by trial and error what their male colleagues already know.

Some of the lessons are obvious. Some of them are painful. Nearly all of them are unnecessary… if only they were visible from the start.

For example:

1. Authority isn’t given — you have to claim it

Women often assume that good work speaks for itself. In engineering, it rarely does. Visibility matters. Naming your contributions matters. If you don’t speak about what you’ve done, someone else will fill the silence, often with their own work. Or worse – with yours!

2. You can be 100% right and still lose the room

Engineering decisions aren’t pure logic (despite what many leaders will tell us); they’re human dynamics shaped by personalities, seniority, politics, and comfort zones. Many women learn (after a few blindsiding experiences) that technical correctness isn’t enough. Influence is a skill in its own right.

3. Boundaries are professional, not personal

A lot of us learn the hard way that being endlessly helpful leads to being taken advantage of. You don’t get points for over-functioning. You just get more work. Have a look back over the Office Housework post from a few weeks ago for more details on this.

4. You must manage perceptions as much as performance

Men are often assumed competent until proven otherwise. Women experience the reverse. Learning how to navigate that without burning out is an unspoken chapter in the curriculum. And it’s so much easier in many ways to burn out as a woman. Because you feel like the fault is yours. “Everyone else” manages work stress so much better. But look around: think of all the things you deal with that they aren’t.

5. Confidence isn’t internal — it’s behavioural

Women frequently believe they must feel confident before they look confident. Meanwhile, men learn to project confidence regardless of internal uncertainty. This gap changes careers. And sometimes in women, that confidence gets rejected as arrogance. Learn for yourself how it feels to be confident. And try being arrogant a few times, just for practice. Knowing the difference will help your career.

These are not lessons we should have to “earn” through exhaustion, embarrassment, or frustration. They’re lessons we should be taught, explicitly, from day one.

Why the Hidden Curriculum Matters

Because the hidden curriculum shapes careers in ways technical skills never will.

It determines who gets

✅heard.
✅promoted.
✅stretch assignments.
✅mentored.
✅forgiven for mistakes.
✅second chances.
✅seen as “leadership material.”

When women don’t have access to the unwritten rules, we spend years reinventing the wheel. And our male peers simply walk a smoother path someone quietly cleared for them.

And the worst part?
We often think the struggle is our fault.
That we’re not confident enough, assertive enough, technical enough, strategic enough.

But it’s not a personal failing.

It’s a structural information gap.

So How Do We Make the Hidden Curriculum Visible?

We talk about it.
We teach it.
We bring it out of the shadows and into the onboarding process, the graduate programme, the early-career coaching sessions.

A visible curriculum sounds like:

• “Here’s how meetings actually work around here.”
• “Here’s the level of pushback that’s normal.”
• “Here’s how senior engineers expect you to communicate.”
• “Here’s how to respond when someone interrupts you.”
• “Here’s how to claim credit without apologising for it.”
• “Here’s the informal decision-making chain nobody writes down.”
• “Here’s how to spot politics before politics spots you.”

Imagine if women entering engineering were handed that list on day one.
Imagine how much confidence, clarity, and energy we’d save.
Imagine how quickly more women would thrive, not survive, in technical environments.

Because women aren’t lacking ability.

We’re lacking access.

My Hope for the Next Generation

My hope is that we build engineering cultures where nothing important is hidden behind unspoken rules. Where women don’t have to decode behaviour like archaeologists brushing dust off ancient artefacts. Where the lessons we learned the hard way become lessons others learn the easy way.

And let’s be honest here. For those who are female AND neurodivergent, female AND a person of colour, female AND not cis, white, straight, from the right part of town, affluent… whatever! The intersectionality makes everything worse.

As women, we are often held to represent all women; our failures representing all women, in ways men’s failures don’t apply to all men. And it’s worse for other minorities.

So please remember: if you’re a woman in engineering reading this, you are allowed to ask for the rulebook. You don’t have to stumble in the dark. You don’t have to “figure it out yourself” to prove anything. And you don’t have to wait until someone finally decides to mentor you.

The hidden curriculum becomes a lot less hidden the moment we start talking about it.

And that’s how things change.