By Celine Bowen
Many a times, in my different peer groups where in most cases we share just one or two mutual friends, we’d discuss the advancements of different technologies, and some guy would suggest to our mutual friend, “Tell her to learn about development, she’ll be a woman in tech.” Then our mutual friend, smiling widely with excitement, “She’s a woman in tech!” A software engineer.” And I would smile both inwardly and outwardly because of how proud they are and the confidence bestowed to me by them which I sometimes lack. Afterwards, we’d continue with the questions of which stack do you use, what you’ve build and how you’re finding it so far. You may ask ‘why the tagline – woman in tech’? What is woman in tech all about? And what are the experiences encountered by a woman in tech?
Woman in tech is an introductory factor for most of us, it gives us a sense of community for the growing female population in the tech industry, as you may have come across, ‘women in tech’ or ‘women techmakers’ communities.
But to each woman in tech, there are numerous experiences unique to an individual, and here’s mine – (industry related).
As a young female software engineer, I’ve always been well aware that the industry is male dominated-though this is changing as I’m continuously seeing efforts to create balance, but one thing I have never believed is for the industry to be intimidating because of obvious factors. Instead, I’ve always seen it to be a motivation to learn more, to do more. Sitting on my dev desk everyday, encountering different code related challenges, creating bugs- unawares of course, fixing them, picking a project and seeing it to completion, getting stuck on road maps or implementing a feature and asking for help from any guy in the office – that already tells you how helpful and friendly they are, they also want to see you grow, makes me even more confident in the industry.
I wouldn’t say that I have never shed a tear as I work, or gotten the urge to just scream my lungs out(but there’s no sound proof office for that) because I’d be lying. But those are things experienced by most if not all people in tech regardless of the gender. Yes, the number of hours I am usually sitting on my desk as I code, catch up with deadlines, debugging and constantly researching and learning new technologies is a lot! If I’m not careful, I might forget that I have to balance life. The number of times I’m in jeans and a hoodie is numerous, but I try to squeeze my few dresses and heels there once in a while.
I’m just getting started with these experiences, I have a lot more to come, but one thing I know is that I’m in the right field.
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