Early in her career, Natalie worked with the communities at Digg and Yahoo!
"[4] From 2008 to 2009 Natalie consulted for the Institute for the Future where she co-led the Signtific Lab, an open source massive multi-player "thought experiment" platform for scientists and technologists to help forecast future disruptions in their fields.
[5] After working in this role for a couple of years she saw a need to support women in technology and improve their visibility and contributions at their developer conferences and events.
In 2013 the position Head of Global Programs for Women Techmakers[1] at Google was created at her request.
[7] After joining New York Times as Vice President of Inclusion, Villalobos came under fire on April 3, 2023 for asking LGBTQ staffers not to raise workplace concerns on a Slack channel dedicated to employee concerns.