June has marked the celebration of Pride Month in the United States for decades. With history dating back to the Stonewall Riots in 1969, Pride Month honors LGBTQ+ voices and experiences, but also draws attention to the issues members of the community still face.

At Skillz, Pride is a part of who we are each and every day. Our team at Skillz is composed of diverse, inclusive, welcoming, and talented individuals who are on a mission to level the playing field, making gaming better for everyone. Together, we are fostering a sense of community and belonging through our competitive mobile games platform, running billions of esports tournaments for millions of players each year. In making the mobile gaming experience better, we also hope to improve our industry by fostering an inclusive workplace where all people can thrive, grow, and express their individuality. Skillz is committed to continuing to advance diversity and inclusion in gaming and technology, and that starts by setting an example for others to follow.

This past month at Skillz, we have been dedicated to celebrating Pride Month and honoring LGBTQ+ trailblazers. We celebrated leaders making a difference in the lives of others – including our very own Chief Technology Officer, Miriam Aguirre. She advances the Skillz mission of “esports for everyone” and ensures that this principle thrives internally as well. She believes that cultivating an inclusive and diverse workforce is critical to creating balanced teams that produce high-quality work – and that’s how the best products are created. This month, Miriam was recognized as one of Fast Company’s Queer 50, as well as San Francisco Business Times’ Outstanding LGBTQ Leaders in the Bay Area.

Throughout June, we let our Pride shine in ways big and small! We kicked off the month by sharing a special Zoom background for everyone to use throughout their remote meetings, job interviews, brand partner conferences, and more. In collaboration with Caroo, we also sent snack boxes to our employees across the U.S. and Canada. For each box delivered, a portion of proceeds were donated to The Trevor Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to saving the lives of at-risk LGBTQ+ youth, and meals were also donated to Feeding America, a network of 200+ food banks that feed more than 46 million people across the U.S. 

Given how rapidly our company is growing – doubling our employee population in about six months, in conjunction with Pride Month, we launched our first employee resource group (ERG) for our queer employee population. This group was established to provide additional resources, support and mentoring to our LGBTQIA+ Skillzians, as well as further our commitment to building an open, compassionate, and welcoming environment for all of our employees to work in every day.  

If you are interested in joining Skillz in building a better future, we’d love to have you join us! Check out our careers page for open opportunities.