Accidentally in Code

Tag: women

  • Friends Don’t Let Friends… Become PMs

    Friends Don’t Let Friends… Become PMs

    Careful
    Credit: flickr / Tom T

    Recently, I heard about a school that has a mandatory “technology” class that students have to take in order to take CS classes in later years. It features: wood-working, circuit building, and Excel.

    This is horrifying. I want to go there with picket signs and stage a protest. Dress up as robots and chant things. If someone deliberately set out to design a course that would put kids off CS without them ever getting an inkling as to what CS is, they couldn’t do better than this.

    Wood work? WOOD WORK?

    And then, I’m in “training” for something (external) where old white men are telling me how to talk to high-schoolers, and describing what I do – software engineer, programmer – as “builder”. Apparently I have an “isolated” job and it’s the kind of thing that can be out-sourced… really not that high-potential a career. They seem to be saying that students should be blending a little bit of the technical with business and voila they’ll have a great career and let’s all enourage girls to do this, shall we.

    And I think, it’ll be a cold day in the hell I don’t believe in before I encourage anyone to study business period, let alone for a technology career.

    I cry a little inside because I thought I’d signed up to encourage women to go into tech, not near tech.

    Wood work starts to seem sensible by comparison.

    Thankfully after that I go back to my team of 50% woman and we keep working on creating something extraordinary. We’re trying to build something that can’t just be in the head of one person, so we have to communicate. We’re trying to build something well, so every piece of code gets looked at by 2-3 others. And later I’m stuck on something and one of them steps through it with me and I realize what I’ve done wrong and fix it. We get creative trying to do things that we haven’t done before. We have so much fun together that our visitor goes back to his office raving about how lovely we were to him and how close we are as a team.

    My isolated job, is not so isolated.

    Things I worry about with respect to girls and technology. I worry about terrible math teachers and gender-stereotyping convincing them that math is not for them, that girls aren’t good at math. Regularly I have conversations with women not in tech careers and they tell me they were good at math in school, and yet somehow didn’t consider taking it further – it just didn’t seem like an option.

    I suspect wood-working classes won’t change that.

    Then I worry about girls in university who think “I’m ok technically, but where I really differentiate myself is that I have good communication skills… I could be a great bridge between the technical and the non-technical…” who then go and become product managers. And they never find out that they were just as good as many of the guys in the class, that a technical career was an option. I know, because this happened to a friend of mine – thankfully she rethought it before she took that path and now she’s an engineer. And because it was nearly me, too.

    And so my friend and colleague complements me on my communication skills, and I quip that they would be distinctly average compared to people in any other profession, it’s just compared to engineers that they seem good.

    My point – being able to communicate doesn’t mean that a technical career isn’t a great fit, just like I don’t think there is much correlation between wood-working and software engineering skills. I’m on a mission to urge university girls – think about being an engineer before you decide being a PM is for you. It’s been four years since I finished my undergrad, and in that time I’ve come to realize – those guys who thought they were great and I figured they must be if they could be that confident? No-one is as good as those guys thought they were. Under-confident does not mean under-qualified. Really.

  • Misconceptions of What Software Engineers Do

    Misconceptions of What Software Engineers Do

    connecting the dots
    Credit: flickr / novaldiflickr

    My first proper day on my new project, and our PM says to me – “Cate, you seem to like to travel. How about you spend time in New York?” – I’m tasked with helping another team out, and being the bridge between that team and my team here.

    Initially I was a bit… thrown. Part of why I’d changed teams was because I didn’t want to need to go to California as often. Whilst I’d joked that it would be different if it was somewhere I’d actually chose to spend time, like New York, I’d also enjoyed my time staying still, and wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue making (typically – June was the first month since March 2010 that I didn’t go anywhere) a trip a month.

    Once I’d got over the surprise, two things struck me. The first, that this guy had – in a matter of days – noticed what I was good at and was working with my non-eng strengths – being a connector, and something of a nomad.

    The second, was that what I was going to spend my time doing, completely debunked a very depressing conversation I’d had with two (female) CS teachers. They’d talked about why their female students didn’t want to go into Engineering – and one of them, why she left industry for education. It was… somewhat stereotypical. Girls like to make things pretty. They’d prefer to market something than build it. Women are more interested in the big picture, how things fit together. They want to spend time with people, not machines.

    About a year ago, someone asked me if I was interested in working on a compiler team. I said, “I think I’d enjoy it for about 6 months, and then I’d start to miss humans”. He was amused and replied that my response was what he’d expected me to say.

    I suspect you have to be a particular kind of person to work on a compiler team. I am not that kind of person. In fact, many of the things these teachers saw in their female students are true of me, too. I like things to be pretty. I care not just about what something does from a technical perspective, but why it’s useful. I’m better at a system design level than at bit-twiddling. I’m obsessed with humans and how technology can improve things for them.

    Yes, I love to write code, and that is a big part of my job. But – it’s not all that I do. To say that being a software engineer is like X, and girls won’t like it because they don’t like X is a mistake.

    In this case, I think the thing about girls not liking X is a massive over-simplification and generalization. But my point – even if it is accurate – it doesn’t mean that being a software engineer isn’t a good fit. Being a software engineer is not “like X” – that’s far too simplistic. There’s so many different kinds of things you can work on, and they require different skill sets. I would be unhappy and not very good at compiler work, but the kind of person who would excel at working on compilers would likely be unhappy and not very good at the kind of work that I do.

    I don’t just write code. I also think about user interaction – working on features, I will say, I think this flow is more consistent. I work on the design of components from a perspective of the overall system – and testability. I work with other people who have less experience on the codebase or in the language to get them up to speed. I write up patents, and get to explain what I’ve come up with to lawyers. I put myself in the perspective of the user and think about what will be most important to me as a user. And I’m a connector – sometimes the most useful thing I bring to a discussion isn’t what I know, but that I know who will know about it.

    Of course, there are things that I’m terrible at. I can’t see pixel differences, in fact if you show me one UI and then another similar one I will be pushed to see the difference between them, and certainly not in a matter of pixels. I’m not great at convincing myself that something is programmatically correct – probably why I love testing. I can’t “hack”, it makes me nervous when I don’t know why something works. I can’t write assembly. When I need to optimize, my preferred plan is “write it in Haskell”.

    To take a narrow view of what you need to be good at in order to enjoy being an engineer, is crazy to me. All over the world, software engineers are building an unimaginable number of wildly different things. I’m incredibly lucky, but I think if you work at it you can often create the flexibility to make it whatever you want.

    So what if girls want to make things pretty. There’s too much ugly software out there, and I say – go for it. All I think matters is – do they want to solve problems? Build cool things? Can they think logically and break down a problem?

     

  • Should all women aspire to be entrepreneurs? In OSBR

    Should all women aspire to be entrepreneurs? In OSBR

    from Mary Oliver's "The Summer Day"
    Credit: flickr / academy of american poets

    My article is out in the OSBR, in the issue on women and leadership. I was trying to make a point about how we should take a broader view of what leadership is, and be supportive of quieter forms of leadership, as well as talking about why I personally don’t want to be an entrepreneur.

    The word “entrepreneur” comes from the French word entreprendre, meaning “to undertake”. While all women should aspire to be someone who “undertakes”, they should not all aspire to be someone who creates and runs a company. Not every woman’s skills, interests, and ambitions are well suited to this task.

    Read the rest of it here. As ever, feedback welcome!

  • Secret Lives of Superheros

    Secret Lives of Superheros

    Superhero's ..... (198/365)
    Credit: flickr / Steve Tolcher

    The wonderful Serena invited me to join her for a panel at a women/tech conference in October. We’re still working out the details, but essentially we’ll be talking about role models – our own personal superheros. if you will.

    Some points that I’m thinking about:

    • It’s great to see really successful women in tech, I adored Sheryl Sandberg’s commencement speech and the WSJ had an article about women at Google recently which was encouraging.
    • But what about the superheros you know who not only inspire you, but you can call in a crisis?
    • What about the superheros who call you in a crisis? I know a lot of awesome people, many of them women. I know all of them have setbacks, periods of doubt. I know all of them have failed. Knowing this, doesn’t make me think they are any less awesome, it makes me appreciate what they achieve all the more.
    • There’s always a flip-side. Failure. Weeks living on Cherios. Days with too much wine/vodka (what’s your poison?). Mornings where getting out of bed is just too much. Mostly, we don’t see them – and so being a superhero looks easier than it is.
    • Recent talk I gave, someone fabulous gave me quite an introduction. Honestly, I didn’t think I could follow it. She says, “here’s this amazing thing about Cate” and for each one I think about how that was really the result of me screwing up in some way (the flip-side).
    • So what’s your super-power? My friend Maggie called it on mine. She said, “I think the main thing you got out of grad school was learning to make the best of a shitty situation”. It’s true, my super-power might be the pursuit of an interesting life. Good things have come as a result of that – and bloody hard work.

    Core messages:

    • Superheros are everywhere (and, actually, they are human).
    • Get to know as many superheros as you can.
    • Don’t underestimate yourself – being a superhero doesn’t mean that it’s not hard, or that you won’t fail.

    Looking for feedback and ideas. Particularly, I’d love to know:

    • Tell me about your superheros. What do they do that makes you think they are extraordinary? In what ways have they struggled? What have you learned from them as a result?
    • What’s a key piece of advice you’d like to tell you at 20? (or at any point?) For me: those arrogant boys are not as good as they think they are, and you are doing better than you think.
    • What’s your super-power?

     

  • CCWESTT Conference

    222[365]23
    Credit: flickr / tankgirlrs is Back!

    Among the (many) reasons I haven’t been blogging lately, is the conference I attended at the weekend – CCWESTT, which stands for Canadian Coalition of Women in Engineering, Science, Trades and Technology.

    It was great – amazing speakers, enlightening talks, and the chance to spend time with some of the other execs from WISE.

    I left, exhausted – it had been a long week even prior to the conference – but feeling inspired by and immensely grateful to all the women that paved the way so that I have such an easy time of it by comparison, today.

    It is not always that easy, being one of few women, but I cannot imagine how much harder it must have been to be the only woman. People have doubted my abilities, but no-one has ever come out and said to me that I couldn’t code because I was a girl.

    Our generation is so fortunate, and we should recognize that.

    Starting my internship, the launch of the Awesome Foundation and 6am bootcamp have reduced my blogging, but normal service will resume soon I hope. Apologies!

  • I Love Love Love Being a Girl

    AN AMERICAN GIRL in YOKOHAMA
    Credit: flickr / Okinawa Soba

    I’ve been in a couple of situations recently where I felt I had to apologize for, or justify my emotions.

    I contend that’s unfair – I don’t make decisions as a result of my emotions, but I do react emotionally to events. I cry – at the news, at movies, books, at TV shows. I get upset when people I invest in disrespect me or otherwise behave badly or unfairly. I think we should! I saw on Twitter lately, someone saying that people mistake kindness for weakness. It’s true. I expect the best of people. I expect them to show up, to behave honorably, to be loyal. This has backfired on me, more than once. But having that faith in people – being an emotional creature – is what makes it possible to invest in them.

    The other day, I was having a conversation about this person who I encountered who thinks you can buy people. That’s bullshit – every healthy person knows that. I do think you can invest in people though – with your time, with your energy, and with your faith in them as human beings – and that that’s how we build relationships.

    And so I absolutely adored, and was moved and inspired by this TED talk by Eve Ensler, embedded below. It is provocative, and… and true. Why do we judge people for crying? Crying is not a sign of weakness, it is a sign that you have been emotionally affected by something. Emotions are how we connect with one another. If we don’t cry, if we aren’t affected… doesn’t that makes us unconnected islands?

    Anyway, I’m done apologizing for my emotions. I hope the video moves you, too.

    Hat tip – Kayla who has some interesting commentary on her blog.

  • Closing Doors, Opening Windows

    Credit: flickr / David Reece

    Graduating is another word for ending. The ending of your time at university, and the commitments associated with. It’s also another word for beginning – the beginning of your next adventure, your next challenge. The next chapter of your life.

    On Wednesday, I had to go to Kanata to fill in some paperwork for my next chapter – the internship I’ll be doing from May to August. I ended up having lunch with some people, including the guy leading the project I’ll be working on and we talked about that a little. I’m excited for my next chapter, these new challenges.

    Then in the evening, it was the last WISE Inspiring Women event. We had a wonderful speaker, Dr Mona Nemer, who gave an informal, inspiring talk. She talked about balance, and confidence, and underestimating yourself (and gave an amusing example of a time when she’d underestimated herself). She talked to us about not over-planning our lives, but being open to opportunities. I really enjoyed it – she was so warm, and open, and definitely inspirational.

    I’d decided that after her talk would be a great time to say goodbye because this would be my last formal event as president, and thank the girls who have worked so hard with me to make this past year a success. I talked briefly about how WISE got started, and what we’d achieved over the last year. And then, I thanked the other girls and gave each of them a small gift (the previous day, I’d been rushing about trying to pick out something different and thoughtful for everyone).

    It was funny, because we were all secretly planning things and hiding them. Because after everyone was standing at the front, I was kept there and Rachelle talked about what I’d done and they gave me a card, a giftcard (can’t wait to go buy some new books!) and some flowers, which was really lovely. She said some really nice things about me, and I was so moved. And there was hugging, and tears.

    I thought that perhaps I would just fade away and that would be it, no-one would notice how hard I’d worked, or that I was gone. But I was wrong.

    I was noticed. I made a difference.

    But – I couldn’t have done it on my own. So thank you – first and most of all to the other girls who’ve worked with me this past year, but also to every speaker who has generously donated their time, and to everyone who came to one of our events. Thank you.

  • Do We Need To Be Jerks?

    hope
    Credit: flickr / alicepopkorn

    From “A Rant About Women” by the awesome Clay Shirky (emphasis mine).

    And it looks to me like women in general, and the women whose educations I am responsible for in particular, are often lousy at those kinds of behaviors, even when the situation calls for it. They aren’t just bad at behaving like arrogant self-aggrandizing jerks. They are bad at behaving like self-promoting narcissists, anti-social obsessives, or pompous blowhards, even a little bit, even temporarily, even when it would be in their best interests to do so. Whatever bad things you can say about those behaviors, you can’t say they are underrepresented among people who have have changed the world.

    …

    It’s tempting to imagine that women could be forceful and self-confident without being arrogant or jerky, but that’s a false hope, because it’s other people who get to decide when they think you’re a jerk, and trying to stay under that threshold means giving those people veto power over your actions. To put yourself forward as someone good enough to do interesting things is, by definition, to expose yourself to all kinds of negative judgments, and as far as I can tell, the fact that other people get to decide what they think of your behavior leaves only two strategies for not suffering from those judgments: not doing anything, or not caring about the reaction.

    …

    Part of this sorting out of careers is sexism, but part of it is that men are just better at being arrogant, and less concerned about people thinking we’re stupid (often correctly, it should be noted) for trying things we’re not qualified for.

    He’s right. I am afraid to go out and put myself out there. I don’t want to be arrogant, and I don’t want to be a jerk. Are the downsides in missed opportunities worth it? Maybe not – but can we find a better way?

    This post by Tom Coates gives some perspective – from the beginning of his article [talking about Shirky’s post] (emphasis mine).

    I’ve been reading responses to this piece on Twitter and elsewhere, and I’ve become increasingly horrified by what I’ve seen. Generally, it’s being viewed as a call to arms to create a new breed of women who are as self-important, self-promoting, shameless and arrogant as some of the worst (and most celebrated) men in the industry. This attitude is being viewed as the ‘way to get ahead’ for any individual wanting to make their mark in the world.

    … he finishes – and I like this –

    The right thing to do is to get it into the heads of our VCs and companies that a hunger to win at any cost is not the main attribute of a creative or productive person. That the ability to be intelligent, think through problems, work with other people, develop ideas effectively – that all of these traits are better indicators of success than how big they tell you their testicles are! That the person who comes to you with the biggest pitch is not necessarily the person you should be listening to.

    And while encouraging people to spot the talented and the creative, we should also be considering how we shame those people who self-promote without creating. The financial collapse has taught us that rhetorical bubbles divorced from reality are a danger to us all. We’re already approaching this point – our industry has become venal, insular and dominated by marketing. We have come to value the wrong things. And if we want a continued vigorous, creative, free, open and equal environment, that’s something we have to fix. It’s not something to aspire to.

  • Of Snap Judgments and Sexism

    Fascinating post today in CopyBlogger – Why James Chartrand Wears Women’s Underpants. It’s a female writer outing herself; she’s been writing under a male pseudonym for the last three years. She’d tried under her real name, but started working under a second name because she didn’t want her own name to be associated with a failing business. Inadvertently, she started an experiment, because the name she’s picked was a man’s name. Finally she started having more success, which she attributes to people thinking she was a man. That’s such a brief overview, and I recommend you read the whole article, because it’s good.

    Anyway, I tweeted this with the comment “It’s not always overt, but sexism is still alive and well :'(“. And I continued to think about it.

    Her situation – working as a freelancer, often for one off, seems like it would be one of many quick decisions about whether or not to hire her. Perhaps even, snap judgments? Malcolm Gladwell wrote about this in Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (Amazon), in car dealerships. In an experiment, car dealers were found to offer women (and black people) higher prices than they offered white men.

    Credit: Flikr / myoldpostcards
    Credit: Flikr / myoldpostcards

    As I write this, the article has been tweeted 1866 times and has 463 comments. And I think it’s a good thing, because it’s good that we’re having this conversation. How long ago would this kind of discrimination, overtly done, not generated any comment? Not that long. And this isn’t, I don’t think, overt. It’s about snap judgments. We’ve been proven to be discriminatory in our snap judgments, against women and against black people (more thoroughly discussed in Blink). But – we’re not as discriminatory in our long term relationships anymore. The response to the article shows how far we’ve come.

    As a women in tech, I’ve seen this. The look on someone’s face when you walk into a room of men I think it says, “is she lost?”. A guy I know (and like!) on meeting me started telling me the difference between a computer scientist and a software engineer quite recently. But – I also see that it’s a quick perception, and for most people it’s immediately changed by saying, or showing that no, you’re not lost. By speaking fluent geek, or making or doing stuff that demonstrates you know what you’re about.

    I think there are two lessons we can take from this. In our treatment of other people, we can learn to be aware of our snap judgments and consider our biases before we act on them. (Note, the only thing they found effective to reduce bias was reading or watching positive things about the group that you’re biased against – so instead of complaining about sexism we should put out and promote great stories of women doing awesome things).

    Lesson two – for ourselves – if we take from this that all things being equal, a man will beat out a women in perception… let’s strive to make things unequal instead. This doesn’t mean complaining, it means demonstrating our value better, educating ourselves so we perform better, and beating out on our capabilities, instead.