Top 10 Women in Tech Groups and Resources in Austria in 2026

Table of Contents

• Arriving in Austria’s Tech Scene
• Nucamp
• Female Founders
• Women And Code
• WomenTech Network
• Women Techmakers Vienna
• FEMtech
• Work in Austria (ABA)
• For Women in Science Fellowship
• WomenHack Vienna
• FIT and University Women-in-Tech Programs
• Choosing Your First Station
• Frequently Asked Questions

Nucamp

For many newcomers, Nucamp is the first “line” worth boarding: an international online bootcamp that lets you move into AI, data, or software engineering without quitting your job in Vienna, Graz, Linz, or Salzburg. Its cohorts are part-time and community-based, combining self-paced modules with evening and weekend workshops plus local study groups.

Key AI and coding tracks

The AI-focused programmes are designed to get you from theory to shipped projects quickly. The flagship Solo AI Tech Entrepreneur Bootcamp runs for 25 weeks at about €3,660, focusing on LLM integration, AI agents, prompt engineering and SaaS monetisation. AI Essentials for Work (15 weeks, ~€3,300) targets practical generative AI skills for your current role, while Back End, SQL and DevOps with Python (16 weeks, ~€1,950) builds the Python, SQL and cloud foundations many AI/ML roles expect.

Beyond AI, Nucamp offers Web Development Fundamentals (4 weeks, ~€420), Front End Web and Mobile (17 weeks, ~€1,950), Full Stack (22 weeks, ~€2,400), Cybersecurity (15 weeks, ~€1,950) and an 11-month Software Engineering path (~€5,200). That puts most tracks in the €1,950-€3,660 range, well below many European bootcamps charging €10,000+.

Outcomes and student experience

According to student outcome reports, Nucamp’s employment rate is around 78%, with a graduation rate near 75%. On Trustpilot it holds roughly 4.5/5 stars from about 398 reviews, with around 80% rated five stars; reviewers consistently highlight “affordability, a structured learning path, and a supportive community.” Community-based learning spans more than 200+ cities, meaning you can find peers locally while aiming for roles at employers that, as the WomenHack Austria career guide notes, are actively recruiting diverse tech talent.

Layered on top are 1:1 career coaching, portfolio support, mock interviews, and a European-focused job board. For women balancing work, study, and caregiving, that mix of flexible schedules and concrete outcomes makes Nucamp a realistic first station on the journey from “curious about AI” to shipping production code within a year.

Female Founders

In Vienna’s startup ecosystem, Female Founders is the line you board when you’re serious about building something of your own - whether that’s an AI-powered SaaS, a robotics spin-off from TU Wien, or a fintech marketplace serving the DACH region. Headquartered in Vienna, the organisation has grown into one of Europe’s fastest-expanding communities for women in tech and entrepreneurship, frequently cited in overviews of the best women founder communities in Europe.

FFX Vienna: your founder hub

The flagship Female Founders Experience (FFX) Vienna 2026, running 19-20 May, is designed less as a glossy conference and more as a curated “safe space” for ambitious women and non-binary founders. Sessions dig into funding bias, burnout, childcare logistics and cap table politics - the topics that rarely make it onto main stages but shape whether your company survives.

• Curated matching with angels and VCs who are actively seeking diverse founding teams
• Roundtables with experienced operators from Vienna corporates and scale-ups
• Workshops on storytelling, term sheets, and data rooms tailored to first-time founders

Funding express: Women TechEU, AWS, FFG

Where Female Founders really stands out in Austria is its focus on funding navigation. Community resources and partner sessions walk you through EU-level schemes such as Women TechEU, which offers around €75,000 plus mentoring for women-led deep-tech startups, and national grants like AWS PreSeed and FFG, which can provide up to roughly €200,000 for innovation projects in areas like green and deep tech. Current overviews of Austrian startup grants emphasise how critical these instruments are for early-stage runway.

Who it’s for - and how to plug in

Female Founders is built for women and non-binary founders, aspiring VCs, and intrapreneurs inside enterprises - as well as researchers from TU Wien, TU Graz, JKU Linz and IST Austria who are considering a spin-off. You can apply to the FFX Vienna cohort, join online community channels, or volunteer as a mentor if you’re already further along. For many in Austria, this is the line that turns a half-formed AI side project into a venture that investors take seriously.

Women And Code

When Women Who Code announced its global shutdown in 2024, a lot of Vienna-based developers suddenly lost a familiar “home line.” In practice, the gap didn’t stay empty for long: Women And Code quietly became one of the city’s most active, hands-on spaces for women and non-binary people who actually want to sit down and write code.

Run by local volunteers, Women And Code is a Vienna-based nonprofit focused on practical software development. Instead of keynote stages, you’ll find laptops open in meeting rooms at companies like A1 Telekom or WienIT, with mentors walking the room, helping debug Python, JavaScript, or SQL.

• Monthly coding meetups that centre on building small but complete projects
• Themed series like “Intro to Python,” “Frontend with React,” or “APIs in Node.js”
• Occasional hack nights and mini-hackathons for trying out new stacks

The community is deliberately mixed: TU Wien and FH Technikum students, career-changers from non-tech fields, and junior devs already working in Vienna. Events are typically free or low-cost, with a Slack or Discord space to ask questions between sessions. Many members say it’s where they made the leap from tutorials to “real” projects that they could later show to employers in interviews.

For visibility, Women And Code encourages first-time speakers to give lightning talks, which is a low-pressure way to practice explaining your work. You can discover upcoming sessions on the group’s Women And Code Meetup page, then use those projects as portfolio pieces when applying to roles at Viennese companies and AI startups. If you’re new in town and bigger conferences feel overwhelming, this is a local line that helps you find your feet and your first collaborators.

WomenTech Network

Once you’ve outgrown purely local meetups and want your work in AI or engineering to be visible beyond Austria, WomenTech Network is the line that takes you onto a global grid without leaving Vienna.

A global network with an Austria chapter

WomenTech Network is an international community for women in technology with a dedicated Women in Tech Austria presence and local ambassadors from companies like IBM and OMV. Members range from senior ICs and engineering managers to product leaders and founders, all using the same platform for talks, mentoring, and job opportunities. The Austria chapter plugs you into cross-border conversations with peers in Berlin, Zurich, and beyond via virtual events and Slack-style communities, as outlined on the Women in Tech Austria hub.

Conferences, awards, and leadership visibility

A core milestone each year is the Women in Tech Global Conference, a multi-day online event whose current theme, “Inclusive Innovation & Sustainable Leadership,” foregrounds generative AI, cybersecurity, and robotics as tools for a more equitable future. The network also runs the Women in Tech Global Awards, where technologists from Austria are regularly nominated, giving you a platform to showcase work from TU Wien labs, Vienna fintechs, or industrial AI teams in Linz and Graz.

Structured mentoring and giving back

WomenTech’s structured mentoring programmes are a major draw for mid-career professionals navigating promotion to lead or head-of roles. Mentors and mentees frequently highlight the impact of personal storytelling and candid career advice; in award citations, organisers emphasise how standout mentors leave participants “inspired and empowered” and “feeling identified” with the journeys being shared.

If you are already reasonably established - senior engineer, data scientist, tech lead, or founder - WomenTech Network is where you test your profile against international peers, practise public speaking, and start being seen as part of the broader European AI and engineering conversation rather than just your local team in Vienna.

Women Techmakers Vienna

Some conferences are all branding and buzzwords; Women Techmakers Vienna is where you actually see architectures, failure modes and security incidents picked apart on stage by the people who built or fixed them. It’s a Google-supported community run by local volunteers, and its annual conference has become a fixed point in Vienna’s tech calendar each March.

Deep dives, not just diversity slogans

The 2026 edition carries the theme “Break The Pattern”, continuing Women Techmakers Vienna’s tradition of challenging stereotypes with talks from under-represented technologists in AI, cybersecurity, robotics and information security. The official WTM Vienna 2026 conference page highlights multiple tracks that span hardcore engineering, UX, and leadership, so you can move from a session on threat modelling straight into one on inclusive product design.

• Full-day, multi-track programme anchored in real production case studies
• Speakers from Austrian institutions like TU Wien and companies such as Microsoft Austria, AIT or high-growth startups
• Space for topics that rarely make generalist agendas: incident post-mortems, data governance, ethics in ML pipelines

From attendee to speaker

WTM Vienna actively encourages first-time speakers, offering mentoring on CFP submissions and dry-runs for accepted talks. That matters in a European landscape where women remain under-represented on technical stages, pushing initiatives across the continent to highlight conferences that focus explicitly on inclusive innovation and sustainable leadership, as seen in the Digital Skills and Jobs Platform’s coverage of women-in-tech events.

If you’re an engineer, SRE, or security specialist in Vienna, Graz, or Linz, Women Techmakers Vienna is the station where you can both learn from senior practitioners and start building your own public technical portfolio - without getting lost in the anonymity of mega-conferences in Berlin or London.

FEMtech

If your career runs through labs, industrial R&D centres or innovation units at places like AIT, IST Austria, AVL or voestalpine, you eventually need more than meetups - you need the system itself to shift. That’s the role of FEMtech, a flagship programme of Austria’s Federal Ministry for Climate Action (BMK) aimed at changing how research and technology organisations hire, promote, and fund women.

What FEMtech actually offers

FEMtech isn’t a single grant, but a bundle of measures embedded in Austria’s research and innovation policy. As summarised in the national Research and Technology Report 2024, it supports gender equality plans and targeted initiatives across universities, non-university institutes, and industry.

• FEMtech Expert Database: a searchable platform of women experts in STEM, frequently used by companies, conference organisers, and media
• FEMtech Research Projects: funding lines for R&D projects that integrate gender aspects into technology development
• Support for equality and diversity measures inside organisations, from recruitment processes to promotion criteria

Why it matters for your AI or engineering career

For individual researchers and engineers, FEMtech can indirectly finance your position through project funding, make you more visible for boards or advisory roles via the Expert Database, and push your institution to hard-code gender equity into evaluation and hiring. The programme is also recognised in broader European funding overviews, where analyses on FEMtech’s role in EU-aligned R&D funding highlight it as a best-practice model for structurally anchoring gender in innovation policy.

Practically, your next steps are straightforward: register yourself in the FEMtech Expert Database, talk to your institute’s equality officer or HR about ongoing or upcoming FEMtech Research Projects, and make sure these credentials appear in your CV and grant applications. For women who want to stay in research or complex industrial tech rather than leave for startups, FEMtech is the line that changes the rules of the game, not just the networking events around it.

Work in Austria (ABA)

For many international women in tech, the first Austrian “station” isn’t TU Wien or a coworking space in Neubau - it’s a government website trying to explain the Red-White-Red Card. ABA - Work in Austria exists to make that step less opaque, especially if you’re following a partner to a job at Microsoft Austria, AVL, Red Bull or voestalpine and building your own career in parallel.

Your institutional ally for relocation

ABA is the state agency tasked with attracting international talent. It’s not a women-only organisation, but in recent years it has become notably vocal about female entrepreneurship and STEM careers. In an International Women’s Day update, ABA highlighted that roughly 46% of new solo businesses founded in Austria in 2024 were started by women - evidence that the country’s startup and freelancer landscape is shifting, even while women still make up a minority of the tech workforce, as noted in broader ABA - Work in Austria communications.

What ABA can actually do for you

For EU and non-EU professionals, ABA offers guidance on navigating residence and work permits such as the Red-White-Red Card, employer matchmaking with companies open to international hires, and information events - often in English - about working, founding, or studying in Austria.

• Individual advice on visa categories and timelines
• Orientation on salary levels and shortage-occupation lists
• Pointers to regional hubs beyond Vienna, like Graz and Linz

The agency effectively acts as a translation layer between you and Austrian bureaucracy. You can reach out via their online contact forms, attend online or in-person info sessions, then plug into women-focused communities - Female Founders, Women And Code, WomenTech Network - once you’ve landed. In contrast to looser ecosystems like Berlin, Vienna can feel more rules-driven but also more predictable; ABA helps you understand those rules so that your energy can go into your AI or software career rather than paperwork alone.

For Women in Science Fellowship

Not every AI or engineering career is headed for a startup or product team. If your path runs through labs, PhD theses and conference papers, the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science fellowship is one of the most visible “express lines” available in Austria.

A national fellowship with global backing

The programme is part of the worldwide For Women in Science initiative and has a dedicated Austria 2026 call focusing on basic research in STEM disciplines, including AI, data science, physics, life sciences and engineering. The Austrian call, described on the official For Women in Science challenge page, targets outstanding young female researchers whose work is scientifically rigorous and internationally competitive.

Who it’s for - and what you gain

Typical recipients are early-career scientists at Austrian institutions: late-stage PhD candidates, postdocs, or junior group leaders. The fellowship usually combines financial support with substantial non-monetary benefits:

• National-level recognition that strengthens tenure-track and promotion cases
• Media visibility that raises your profile with hiring committees and industry R&D labs
• Entry into an international alumnae network of women scientists across Europe and beyond

Why it matters in Austria’s research ecosystem

Austria, like much of Europe, still sees a sharp drop-off in the share of women between PhD level and full professorships. The EURAXESS Austria “Women and Science” overview flags this persistent under-representation and aggregates programmes designed to counter it, with For Women in Science highlighted among key opportunities.

Practically, you’ll want to check the current eligibility rules and deadlines, talk to your supervisor or research office about institutional backing, and coordinate with other initiatives like FEMtech when planning your CV and publication strategy. If your long-term goal is “Professor of AI” or “Head of Research” rather than “Senior ML Engineer,” this fellowship is one of the clearest signals you can add to your profile inside Austria’s research-heavy ecosystem.

WomenHack Vienna

When you’re ready to turn new skills into an actual offer in Vienna, WomenHack events are like an express line: one evening, multiple interviews, and a concentrated look at who is really hiring women in tech.

A focused job fair for women in tech

WomenHack is a global organisation running women-focused tech career fairs, with Vienna among its regular stops. Its events routinely appear in roundups of the 10 best tech career fairs for women in 2026, thanks to a format built around short company pitches followed by rapid-fire “speed interviewing” rounds. In a single session you might speak with hiring managers from banks, industrial R&D labs, SaaS scale-ups, and fintechs like Erste Group or Bitpanda.

• Company intros that highlight real teams and tech stacks
• Timed 1:1 conversations with multiple employers in one evening
• A mix of startups and larger corporates recruiting for engineering, data, UX and PM roles

The target group is broad but focused: software engineers, data scientists, UX designers and product managers; bootcamp and university graduates; and women returning to tech after a break. Compared with generic job fairs, organisers emphasise a stronger commitment to diversity and inclusion, aligning with broader women-in-tech hiring trends where companies increasingly compete for under-represented talent in AI, cloud and cybersecurity.

“The local startup scene is seen as a welcoming environment actively recruiting diverse talent in fintech, edtech, and sustainability.” - WomenHack, Austria & Vienna Guides

To get the most out of a WomenHack Vienna evening, apply in advance, prepare a concise, metrics-driven pitch of 2-3 recent projects, and bring a clear idea of what you want next: backend in a SaaS scale-up, data science in a bank, ML ops in an industrial company. Treat it as condensed market research as much as a job hunt: which companies show up, which teams feel like a fit, and who actually follows through after you send that follow-up email the next morning.

FIT and University Women-in-Tech Programs

For school pupils stepping off a train in Graz or Linz, the map of Austria’s tech ecosystem often starts on campus, not in a corporate HQ. That’s where FIT - Frauen in die Technik and university women-in-tech programmes quietly do the heavy lifting, long before anyone applies to an AI role at Microsoft Austria or a robotics lab at TU Wien.

FIT initiatives in Styria and Upper Austria - for example at TU Graz, FH Joanneum, JKU Linz and partner institutions - are designed to move girls and young women from “I’m not sure tech is for me” to actually enrolling in computer science, AI, or engineering degrees. They combine outreach into schools with support once you’re a student, often in cooperation with Austria-wide activities like the annual Girls’ Day (Mädchen-Zukunftstag), where universities and companies open their labs to school-aged girls.

• Orientation days and trial lectures that demystify CS, AI and engineering programmes
• Mentoring schemes pairing students with researchers or industry engineers
• Workshops on study skills, impostor syndrome, and navigating male-dominated classrooms
• Invitations to campus career fairs and employer days targeting technical roles

In Vienna, universities such as TU Wien and Universität Wien complement this with equality and diversity offices, women’s forums, and structured mentoring for early-career researchers. These efforts sit within a broader national framework for gender mainstreaming in research and higher education, described in the Austrian legislative background on gender equality in academia, which pushes institutions to treat equal opportunities as part of their core mission.

If you’re studying AI, informatics, or mechatronics in Vienna, Graz, Leoben or Linz, your practical next steps are simple: find your university’s gender equality or women-in-engineering office, sign up early for mentoring and Girls’ Day volunteering, and use their career events as low-friction practice for later interviews. For many women, these campus programmes are the “home line” on the map - the support that makes every later transfer into industry, research, or startups far less daunting.

Choosing Your First Station

Back at Karlsplatz, nobody stands in front of the U-Bahn map debating every possible connection; they glance, choose a line, and step on. Austria’s women-in-tech ecosystem works the same way. You don’t need to solve Vienna, Graz, and Linz in one mental pass. You just need one first station.

If your immediate gap is skills - you want to move into AI, backend, or security - that first stop is usually a structured learning environment. For many, that’s an affordable, part-time Nucamp bootcamp or a Women And Code study night where you finally ship a small project instead of another half-finished tutorial. Think of these as the U-Bahn line that simply gets you moving in the right direction, evenings and weekends, while you keep your current job.

When your priority is founding or leading, the route looks different. Female Founders and national schemes like FEMtech, combined with EU instruments, are the “express” lines into funding and R&D-heavy careers. If you’re aiming for visibility and leadership beyond Austria, WomenTech Network and Women Techmakers Vienna pull you onto the European grid, with conferences, awards, and speaking slots that position you alongside peers in Berlin, Warsaw, or London. Commentary from senior leaders gathered by WeAreTechWomen’s International Women’s Day features repeatedly underlines the same point: careers accelerate when you combine competence with community and visible contribution.

If you’re relocating, ABA - Work in Austria helps you decode visas and contracts so you can actually say yes to that offer in Vienna or Linz. If you’re still in school or university, FIT programmes and campus women-in-tech offices are your home line, giving you mentors and practice opportunities before the stakes feel high.

The only real mistake is staying on the platform. Pick one next stop this month - a Nucamp info session, a Women And Code meetup, a Female Founders event, a WTM Vienna talk - and step onto the network. Once you’re in motion, the transfers you can’t yet see will start to appear.

Frequently Asked Questions