Marianne Marck, senior vice president of technology for online retailer Blue Nile, is a high-ranking engineer in a field traditionally dominated by men. (Dan Schlatter/PSBJ)

Marianne Marck has been immersed in everything from databases to online video in her wide-ranging technology career. But it all started with some good old-fashioned metallurgical chemistry.

Marck spent part of her formative years in the lab of her dad, chemist Paul Kruesi, a noted inventor in areas such as metal refining and recycling. Marck was influenced by her dad’s scientific leanings, but she ultimately decided not to follow directly in his footsteps.

“You’d have to sit there and something would have to be stirred for three hours,” Marck said in a recent interview, laughing at the memory. “I wouldn’t say I found chemistry to be incredibly exciting.”

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Math and computer science were a different matter. Marck’s passion and aptitude for those subjects led to a career that has evolved along with the technology industry. She started as a programmer at IBM’s Almaden Research Center and then became an engineer and engineering manager at the Sybase database company.

From there, she transitioned into online media, working as a technology executive at CNet Networks before becoming vice president of engineering for Disney Interactive Media Group, based in Seattle. She worked there from 2003 to 2009, helping to lead the transition of Disney and its online properties into advanced online video and ads.

In January, Marck became senior vice president of technology for Blue Nile Inc., the Seattle-based online diamond and fine-jewelry retailer, leading an engineering team of about 40 people.

Among other things, the job plays to Marck’s experience in databases. Because each diamond is unique, it’s considered an individual product stock-keeping unit, or SKU, requiring sophisticated back-end systems. Blue Nile uses a combination of proprietary, open source and homegrown technologies to run the site and its business.

The engineering team’s first big project, upon Marck’s arrival, was to roll out new technologies for making purchases in international currencies in 22 markets to support the online retailer’s global expansion.

“It touched everything, through the whole system stack -- our pricing, search, all of the back-end systems,” Marck said, citing the importance of the international rollout to Blue Nile’s overall strategy. “Making it really easy for people to buy in those countries is a key thing.”

More recently, Marck and others at the company have been exploring the concept of using social networking, mobile applications and other innovations to enhance Blue Nile’s online experience. The company doesn’t currently have an application designed for the iPhone or other mobile phones, but it it’s considering those types of possibilities.

Marck declined to go into details about Blue Nile’s plans but said there’s “plenty of room for new opportunities” in the mobile market.

“We think about, what would be the most useful app we could build for our customers?” Marck said. “What would really help them?”

Longer term, Marck said she sees additional opportunities to improve the buying experience to help even more people become comfortable making big purchases online. For example, she wants to explore ways to make the images of diamonds on Blue Nile’s site look even more true-to-life, relying in part on her experiences with online video.

Blue Nile is unusual for having women in key leadership positions, starting with Diane Irvine, the company’s chief executive officer. Elsewhere in the technology industry, men dominate engineering and executive positions, despite efforts by companies and industry coalitions to interest more young girls in careers in computer science.

In general, Marck said, the country needs to put more emphasis on math and science education for young boys and girls.

Marck credits a number of influential science and math teachers for helping lead her to a technology career. Marck went to high school in Colorado and received a degree in math from Mills College in California. She also studied computer science in grad school, leading to the initial job in software development at IBM’s Almaden Research Center.

She has two children, a boy and a girl, ages 14 and 12. Her husband, Neil Marck, a former financial analyst, is a stay-at-home dad. Having that kind of support at home is a big help for anyone, she said.

Marck acknowledges the gender imbalance in the technology industry but said she doesn’t focus on it in her own career. She mentors other women in the field, but she also mentors men, keeping in touch with people who have worked for her in the past.

“Someone said to me once, about the glass ceiling, ‘There’s not a glass ceiling, there’s just a lot of men up there,’ ” she said. “I think that’s really a good way to look at it. Generally in technology what you’re really focusing on is figuring things out, making this better, getting things done, meeting a deadline. That’s really been my approach to it.”