She Left Big Tech After 25+ Years (Google, Apple, LinkedIn) to Pause | Sarah Clatterbuck
In this engaging and insightful episode of the HumanizeHer Podcast, we sit down with long-time tech leader and advocate, Sarah Clatterbuck. Bringing a rich history of engineering leadership from top tech giants including Yahoo, Apple, LinkedIn, and Google - Sarah shares stories from her multi-decade career and her passionate work driving diversity, inclusion, and web accessibility.
As a senior engineering director who spent nearly three decades building the internet's biggest platforms, in Sarah’s most recent role she helped build YouTube's creator economy from the ground up that grew into multi-billion-dollar businesses. In 2019, Forbes named her one of the Top 50 Women in Tech in the world. She builds with intention and is a champion of accessibility with the belief that products designed for the margins end up serving everyone.
In 2018, she and her husband chased a long-held dream and moved to Zürich on a work visa. Now seven years later, she has her permanent residency, yet still not a citizen. She has learned, firsthand, what it feels like to be an immigrant and build a life where you could still lose the right to stay. And now, she's doing something even bolder. She is taking a pause and fully stepping away with no set timeline or plan to return to the corporate world.
Episode Highlights:
Building Playbooks for Inclusion: Reflecting on her time at LinkedIn, Sarah details how she co-founded internal Women in Tech initiatives,establishing structured high school trainee and apprenticeship programs that created lasting pathways into STEM for underrepresented talent.
Importance of Accessibility: Driven by early experiences working alongside visually impaired colleagues, Sarah highlights why accessibility isn't an afterthought. From fixing improper UI code to leveraging auto-captions, she emphasizes how designing inclusive products ultimately creates a better experience for everyone.
Global Tech Perspectives: Sarah discusses moving her family to Zürich in 2018 to lead engineering teams at YouTube, offering key insights into navigating multi-cultural work environments, adapting to non-US markets, and experiencing life as an immigrant.
Innovating the Creator Economy: A look behind the scenes at how YouTube developed multi-billion-dollar monetization channels for creators, including memberships, merch integration, and affiliate shopping programs.
Embracing the "Pause": Sarah opens up about recognizing when it was time to step back from the intense demands of corporate tech leadership, sharing her perspective on mid-life career confidence, testing personal boundaries, and intentionally taking time off for family, outdoor adventures, and new analog or digital explorations.
"Accessible products make everyone's life easier. To me, that's what makes a great product: it's usable by everyone, and everyone benefits from those additional features and functionality." - Sarah Clatterbuck
Special Shoutouts in this Episode:
Follow Sarah’s journey on her Substack: https://girodichatterbox.substack.com/
Listen in and join the conversation with host, Erica Lockheimer and co-host, Elizabeth Wendorf-Bloesser.
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Timestamps:
00:00 – Welcome Sarah Clatterbuck
02:15 – Early days at LinkedIn, Grace Hopper Celebration memories, and co-founding Women in Tech
04:30 – Signature inclusion programs: High School Trainees, Apprenticeships (REACH), and INVEST
09:10 – Open-sourcing DEI playbooks on GitHub and stepping out of Silicon Valley
10:45 – Moving to YouTube in Zürich, language barriers, and global office culture
13:20 – Becoming a permanent resident in Switzerland and the perspective of being an immigrant
14:50 – Building YouTube’s Creator Economy: Channel Memberships, Merch, and Affiliate Shopping
18:10 – Advice for growing YouTube channels and long-form vs. short-form content
21:05 – Transitioning from software engineer to engineering manager and early career mentors
23:15 – The decision to step away from corporate leadership and taking an intentional career pause
26:40 – The power of mid-life career confidence and testing time off
28:30 – Deep dive into accessibility engineering, inclusive UI design, and AI captioning
33:20 – Paying it forward: Cycling heroes, former trainees, and Swiss venture capital partners
