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Women's History Month
In Conversation with
KATHERINE KING
A Techronicler interview with Katherine King, Founder & CEO, Yarris Technologies.
Welcome to a very special Women’s History Month edition of Techronicler. Today, we are speaking with Katherine King, an executive whose career path has been less of a straight corporate ladder and more of a fascinating “seismograph.” From her early days as an audio engineer handling live bands to her current work untangling convoluted legal and claims workflows, Katherine has built a career on asking the awkwardly practical questions that actually drive innovation.
She specializes in translating tech jargon into plain English and politely pointing out when a new system fails to make work genuinely easier. In this interview, she shares her refreshing perspective on why “sharp-elbowed” leadership should be penalized, how she manages the delicate balance of AI security, and why her ultimate dream tech product has everything to do with reducing the invisible mental load.
Techronicler: Thank you for joining us, Katherine! Well, everyone has an origin story! What was the first piece of technology you ever broke, built, or fell in love with?
Katherine King:
My father visited Japan and brought me a miniature Sony transistor radio, about half the size of a phone. I was instantly, madly in love, and listened all day and late at night, changing from station to station; music, news, talk, weather. The world was my oyster! The radio, my pearl! I transitioned through cassette Walkman, CD Walkman, iPod, and iPhone to Mac. But secretly, I long to find that tiny radio now.
Techronicler: A lot of careers look like straight lines on LinkedIn. How was yours different? Was there a pivotal moment or ‘happy accident’ that actually steered you toward your current role or niche?
Katherine King:
I’d prefer to be frank. My career trajectory resembles a seismograph in an earthquake. I’ve been a photographer and a musician, and worked in a variety of roles in electronics, banking, health, and tech. Most decisions revolved around a currently available role and the exponentially increasing requirement to feed my family.
Working in a variety of industries, I’ve come to understand what customers want and need. Simple, cost-effective, practical solutions to complicated problems. Our customers, and our customers’ customers ideas are the focus of all of my work now.
Techronicler: What is the one problem or project that is taking up 80% of your brain space this month?
Katherine King:
Security is taking up my brain space, and comes in many forms. Everything from customer contracts and security audits through to security strategy, planning and execution for our AI products. Legal and regulatory requirements change constantly, and customer expectations are maturing. I lean toward conservative, ring-fenced AI products that protect the customers’ data, even if it is a little boring. Our AI assistants are practical and time-saving, and dare I say, cute. Our new assistants under development now will be more expansive and formidable, but they, too, will be security-conscious. And cute.
Techronicler: Many women still find themselves as the ‘Only’ (only woman, only WOC) in the room. When that happens now, how do you use that visibility to your advantage rather than letting it be a weight?
Katherine King:
When I was young, I worked as an audio engineer at live band performances. One night, a man came up to me and gently pushed me away from the mixing console and said, “The man will be here soon”. My response? “I am the man.”
I’m older now, and I’ve led technical teams for many years. The solution is to require extensive diversity in the company, and in every team: sex, age, race, culture, religion, working style, neurodiversity and combinations of all those. The customers are very diverse. So if we want to sell software to them, we need to represent the customer’s voice. Many of our potential decision-making customers are women. So we have senior women decision makers in our teams as product owners, heads of operations, senior developers and accountants. And the bonus? You have a diverse team to lean back on, roll your eyes, and share a conspiratorial whisper later.
Techronicler: Are women in leadership still penalized for being too direct or ‘sharp-elbowed’? Have you ever had to consciously unlearn the habit of being ‘too nice’ or ‘accommodating’ to get a project across the line?
Katherine King:
Actually, I think we should be penalizing anyone who is too direct and sharp-elbowed. I think we should all learn the habits of being nice, kind, accommodating, collaborative, cooperative, inclusive, celebratory and open. The world would be a much better place. I don’t think you need to be cruel to get the job done. If you hire brilliant people with pride in their skills, doing interesting work, you don’t need to berate them.
Techronicler: Tell us about a time you had to make a deeply unpopular technical decision (e.g., killing a feature, swapping a tech stack) that turned out to be the right call. How did you handle the pushback?
Katherine King:
Looking into the ‘way back machine’ it was an agonizing choice to move from a private cloud to the AWS public cloud. Howls of anguish greeted the suggestion, “No one is going to see it,” “The customers need other functionality first,” “It’s too much work for too little return.” We talked about it for a number of months, came to the fatalistic conclusion that we’d give it a go, then hired an enthusiastic, competent person to lead the project. It took an age to complete, it did create anguish and agony, but it was an amazing team effort. We couldn’t believe it when it was all done. We partied like there was no tomorrow.
Techronicler: If you were given $10M to start a company today in a niche outside of your current field, what problem would you solve?
Katherine King:
I’d create an application that brought all of the services that I buy and use into one app: consumer services management. I would include scheduling, reminders, invitations, links to socials, banking and payments, bringing all of my responsibilities together in one place. For example, childcare, shopping, birthday parties, holiday programs, parent care, vaccinations and doctors’ visits. I could go on and on.
Techronicler: From your seat, how do you see the rise of AI tools changing the trajectory for women entering engineering today?
Katherine King:
On a Pacific island, a New Caledonian crow named Betty dropped a straight wire into a tube but couldn’t reach the food. She bent the wire into a hook with her beak, lowered it again, and lifted the food out, like fishing. It was one of the first recorded cases of a bird making a tool on the spot. I see AI tools changing the trajectory for everyone entering engineering today. Those who master the tools will be the masters.
On a second, possibly more important note, I’m looking forward to when robots help us with the cooking, cleaning, shopping, laundry and garden maintenance. That will change the trajectory for women entering engineering today, unless, of course, their partners finally pick up their fair proportion of the work at home. And we all know how that’s going. Bring on the robots.
Techronicler: What is the single best piece of advice you’ve ever received about negotiating—whether for salary, headcount, or project timelines?
Katherine King:
Ask, don’t tell, listening carefully to the answer before you reply.
“Can you tell me about our current budget challenges.”
“What are your thoughts on our current headcount.”
“How’s the project going for you?”
“What upcoming obstacles do you see that might blow out our target date?”
“Are you ok?”
Techronicler: What is the one book every woman in tech should read this year?
Katherine King:
Women in Leadership by Julia Gillard and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala explores how women in leadership roles think and make decisions. Julia Gillard is a former Prime Minister of Australia and an inspiration to many. The main point of the book is that women shouldn’t wait for systems to become fair before they pursue leadership roles. You can be aware of bias, but don’t be afraid. Plough on through!
Techronicler: What is a piece of ‘common wisdom’ in the tech industry that you completely disagree with?
Katherine King:
I disagree that “Everyone should come into the office.” I live in a big city with a time-wasting commute. Many of our people live far away from our designated office. We have polices for flexible hours, child pick up/drop off time meeting bans, work from home, tag work onto your holiday, or work from anywhere in the world. Some people may occasionally take advantage of the process but the vast majority of people for the vast majority of the time, never do. We all see it as a privilege to never abuse. We go to kids’ performances, school sports, parents’ bedsides, appointments with the vet, a walk at lunchtime, a workout, or a mental health break. We get to see our children grow up. Daily standups and detailed Jira boards reveal a lazy underperformer within days.
Techronicler: If you could change one thing about how we interview and hire in tech to make the process more equitable, what would it be?
Katherine King:
We make sure there are women in the recruitment team and in the interview panel. People need to be aware that women frequently undersell themselves, assuming they are not yet up for a role because they can’t do everything specified in the position description. Some women are very understated when they describe their experience and qualifications. Many men wouldn’t dream of looking at their prospects in this way, assuming they will learn on the job, and making the most of their career history to date. Interviewers need to be briefed on this difference between the applicants when they are making their hiring recommendations.
Further, we ask scenario-based questions to give women an opportunity to describe their thinking processes, actions, activities and outcomes rather than open-ended questions. For example, “Tell me about a time when you disagreed about the approach to a problem with a team member. How did you respond, and what was the outcome?” This type of question elicits a different, more nuanced response than “How do you manage a problem with a teammate?”
Techronicler: The ‘broken rung’ (the first step up to manager) is a bigger obstacle than the glass ceiling. How are you personally helping junior women make that specific leap from individual contributor to lead?
Katherine King:
We hire brilliant junior developers and technical leaders right out of university, then nurture them in a team that supports their growth with an articulated development plan. We assign a manager/mentor who genuinely cares and checks in weekly. I also check in frequently to make sure they’re happy, and then promote them as soon as they demonstrate capability. We all need to make damn sure they’re paid as much as the men doing a similar role. An absolute non-negotiable.
“The customers are very diverse. So if we want to sell software to them, we need to represent the customer’s voice.”
That practical, grounded perspective from Katherine King is exactly why she is so effective at building systems that work for real people. Her rejection of the idea that leaders must be “sharp-elbowed” to be successful is a vital reminder that kindness and collaboration are actually competitive advantages in the tech industry.
Katherine King, Founder & CEO, Yarris Technologies, works at the technical intersection of law, technology, insurance, and construction. Usually, somewhere between a strategy deck and the moment someone realises the process was the problem all along. She spends her time untangling legal and claims workflows, translating tech jargon into plain English, and asking the awkwardly practical questions that tend to arrive just after the big “innovation” announcement. Her main professional interest is systems that make work genuinely easier, and her main professional skill is politely pointing out when they don’t.