It doesn't matter what gender you are as long as you do your job well and enjoy it. This is also proven by the development of the IT sector. Nobody perceives IT as exclusively male appearance employment. So, in companies with well-thought-out HR processes, the question gender equality it’s not worth it: recruiters think about the abilities of the future employee, and not about his belonging to a certain gender.

If we talk about Ukrainian IT companies, the total number of women in them is gradually growing. According to rabota.ua, 19% of resumes of IT specialists are from women, but this positive dynamics. In 2009 this figure was 13%, in 2014 – 17%. Mostly girls work as testers and business analysts.

In the process of discussing the problems of gender equality in the IT field, many questions and assumptions arise as to why the percentage of female programmers still remains low. Among the stated reasons: features emotional background, the difference in male and female thinking, upbringing or social stereotypes. However, if you pay attention to the actual state of things, it turns out that now girls are actively going into IT and achieving success there.

The editors of the website rabota.ua talked with girls who successfully work in the IT field. Our heroines talked about their path in IT, the attitude of others, their goals and how to be a girl programmer.

Maria Naida, Software Engineer, Ciklum

Experience: has been working as a programmer for more than 10 years, six of them in IT

As a programmer, I started my career in the department of automated non-destructive testing at the Institute of Electric Welding named after. E. O. Paton. It sounds unpresentable, but I am proud of this work to this day. We made very cool and high-quality equipment there, which is installed in world factories for the production of gas pipes and railway wheels. The software we wrote was in many ways superior to its analogues. It was an exciting job, with interesting business trips and first successes as a developer.

My first IT company was EPAM. I graduated from the Faculty of Electronics of the KPI. In my resume it was written about work experience at the IES named after. E.O. Paton and there was one more freelance project. That says it all. They don’t want to hire people from state-owned enterprises, because it is believed that they do not keep up with technology, do not know the processes, do not know how to communicate with business, etc. But, despite this, I was hired for the position of Middle .NET developer. This is where my career in IT began.

It seems to me that there is no prejudice against female programmers. In IT, girls mainly occupy QA (quality assurance) positions. Auto.). But there is a great demand for programmers - if you have the desire and ambition, you can get any position. For me personally, there is only one difficulty when looking for a job - self-doubt and fear of failure, but over the years this goes away.

One day my team leader told me: “I don’t take girls at all,” so I became an exception. He also said: “Girls don’t know how to stop and simply put off a task if something doesn’t work out for them.” And I agree with him, this is our problem. On the other hand, persistence is a good trait when it comes to achieving a goal. In general, a girl can understand the code, it’s just that the methods are different. Perseverance, attentiveness, scrupulousness. The girl will sit an hour longer, but she will figure it out.

At work we have more and more more girls-programmers. Although I know companies that don’t have them. But I don’t specifically encourage anyone to join the ranks of programmers, I just tell my friends who are not in IT how cool it is.

I like IT because, first of all, it is interesting. At the same time, whether you will be interested, whether you will be “driven”, often depends on you, because there is a choice. Now there are many companies and projects, the technologies are different and something can always be changed. The people around you are broad-minded, have seen and know a lot. Also, IT in Ukraine allows you to honestly earn good money.

In the classic definition of the word, I am not a geek. But I am interested in gadgets, science fiction, science, and I love science museums where you can touch everything.

Having a child affected my work - it became much more difficult. But, fortunately, the company allowed me to work half-day and remotely. I often go on business trips and take my mother and child with me. Mom helps me.

I would love to work with Sebastian Thrun. He founded the learning portal Udacity and worked on Google's self-driving car development. The smartest man, who simply explains his thoughts perfectly. I think working with him would be very interesting and comfortable.

Besides work, I enjoy snowboarding and kitesurfing. I have been playing table tennis since childhood.

For those who want to become a programmer, I would suggest this plan:

1. Take courses on Coursera, any: web design, algorithms, databases, development computer games, machine learning.

2. Understand what is interesting and try to do a small project.

4. Go to interviews and not be afraid of being rejected.

You can also go from QA or QA automation specialist to programmer.

I realized that I could become a programmer when I figured out pointers in the C programming language. In general, just listen initial course in a programming language and write tic-tac-toe.

There are several paths to the top of your programming career. The first way is that you do something cool together with people who are just as cool as you. For example, you write algorithms at NASA to process data from the Hubble telescope, or you simply “open source” it, and your algorithms are used at NASA.

Secondly, your experience as a programmer allowed you to bring your business idea to life. If the first two options are not for you, then your top option is a good experienced developer, architect, or team lead.

I'm still thinking. I try to communicate more with business, so that I don’t just write code, but understand why I’m doing it. Perhaps in the future this will help move to the second option.

Yulia Shibun, .NET Developer, BETLAB

Experience: more than 3 years

I was a little interested in programming back in school, but I didn’t think about taking it seriously. I was more interested in economics. But when I entered the university, just in case, I also applied to the Faculty of Informatics and Computer Science (FIVT) at KPI. And when I entered both faculties, for some reason I chose FIVT. I still don’t regret this spontaneous decision.

When I was in my first year, a friend advised me to study database management systems and suggested a place where he freelanced. I had an interview there and in the summer after the session I also started freelancing a little. I am very grateful to my friend: if before that I had some uncertainty about what I was doing in my department and where to move next, then after that more specific goals appeared.

The main difficulty is to be a programmer, and not a “girl programmer”. There is a bias towards girls, but it is positive. But here, as in many other things, everything depends on the person. Often, on the contrary, the team is happy to hire a female programmer. And I believe that any a smart girl can program if desired.

Sometimes at the beginning of acquaintance, my profession produces a “wow” effect. Once I was even asked if I had been treated favorably at my former job.

When female programmers meet, no matter what they start talking about at the beginning, they will end up talking about programming. Personally, I don’t call myself a geek, although I may be somewhat similar to a geek, because sometimes it’s difficult to completely switch gears after work. For example, in everything that concerns feminine logic– this is usually not about me, I’m quite logical. Also, on days when you program and/or read something about programming more than 10 hours a day, you begin to discuss everyday situations in programming terms.

There are stereotypes about unkempt and unathletic introverted programmers. According to this stereotype, they are nothing but code and comics." Star Wars” or “Star Trek” are not interested, and only such people have the ability to program or the desire to do it. Probably, girls are simply afraid to take on this, because they need to study a lot and constantly. But the situation is definitely changing. It becomes obvious that programmers are very versatile personalities with a wide range of interests. And girls are increasingly going into technical fields. Probably, the financial component also plays a role, and girls decide to learn programming at least for the sake of a good job.

What interests me in IT is programming. This is enough creative process, how to create a constructor, how to solve a problem, how to search best solution. Although there is a routine, of course. And I really like the people I work with. There is always something to learn from them, it is interesting to communicate with them and not only about work. On this moment I have a dream to become an architect. And role models are work colleagues. We have a very cool team.

I read, watch films, go to exhibitions, theaters, cinemas, hikes, the gym, and meet with friends. Most of all I love traveling, but who doesn’t love it?

Alina Turanskaya, Middle .NET developer, Playtika

Experience: more than 5 years

At the age of 14, my programmer parents showed me the basics of programming and I was amazed at how much you could do. I walked around and imagined how I could program a microwave, washing machine and even a little cat. Therefore, when choosing a university, I no longer saw other options for myself: I graduated from Dnepropetrovsk National University railway transport in the specialty " software automated systems."

I got my first job quite unexpectedly, through an English teacher. During one of the classes, she said that her friend was looking for a programmer. I called and it turned out that this person is a teacher on courses at SoftServe. After them they took me.

Many employees are amused by the very idea that they have a girl programmer. There were several cases when employees were initially suspicious, but then they were still classified as “people”, and then everything was fine.

If employers had doubts, I don’t know about them. But three out of four interviews for me resulted in a job offer.

There was a funny case when two people were interviewed for the same position - a guy and me. The interviewer then told the team that he didn’t care which of us to choose, because the level was approximately the same, but the team shouted that we would take the girl. They took me.

There is an impression that you are building your own little world in code, and there you are a god. I like my job because it's simply interesting. In addition, there are many around nice people who think the same way as you.

I can't call myself a geek. Rather, in everyday life I just want everything to work.

Most of all, I would like to apply my knowledge in an area that will be useful in “ real world” and will improve the ordinary routine that we face every day. For example, optimizing the queue at the hospital, bureaucratic procedures, automation for cars that monitors the condition of the road and gives some recommendations on the trajectory, etc.

Besides work, I enjoy a little bit of everything. I like to go somewhere where I can take a lot of photographs, skiing, and I enjoy skydiving.

You can try to become a programmer if you are interested in looking for some patterns in things, spend a lot of time understanding something, and be happy for a long time that after three days continuous operation You finally managed to solve logical and mathematical problems. And most importantly, you must be prepared for the fact that what you know is constantly becoming outdated, and you need to constantly learn something new.

Receipt higher education IT turned out to be a waste of time for me. It seems to me more the right way in IT - go to some one-year or two-year courses, and use the “freed up” time to gain experience.

Oksana Azarova, Software PHP Developer, Zfort Group

Experience: in IT – more than 1.5 years

I never thought about working as a developer, because I thought that this required at least a specialized education. After spending 7 years on economic Education the feeling of responsibility for the energy and time spent motivated me for several years to find myself as a specialist in this field. Certain successes in work and advancement career ladder brought temporary pleasure. But the thought that this kind of activity could become my way of life forever brought me more and more melancholy and a feeling that I could not realize myself in life.

That decisive moment came when I completely lost my enthusiasm at my next job. From friends and acquaintances who had already worked in IT in various positions, I learned about the specifics of the work and, in general, about the opportunities in this area. I decided to try it.

I studied absolutely everything myself. I started with HTML, CSS and working with Photoshop. The further I delved into the intricacies of development, the more I wanted to understand more and more deeply the algorithm of operation of web applications and sites. And then the idea came to try to learn PHP as well. I studied at home, combining everything with my job as a content manager.

The period of my self-study was quite long - more than a year with breaks. A big role was played by the support of my loved one, people close to me, friends in the IT field, who tried in every possible way to help me understand unfamiliar technologies and instilled confidence when I gave up after another attempt to solve some difficult problem for me.

I got my first job not “because”, but “in spite of”. I constantly sent my resume, tried to fulfill test tasks, went for interviews. All of them ended in failure, but more and more they helped me understand what knowledge I was missing. And finally, one fine day, a small Kharkov web studio opened its door for me, where they were ready to take on a novice developer and grow him to suit their requirements. I was fortunate to be teamed with a smart and experienced technical leader who believed in me and helped develop my technical skills.

I have nothing but respect for girls from IT. I had this opinion that the IT field, and in particular development, is a world of men, where there is a prejudiced attitude towards girls, right up until the moment I got into this field. From my own experience, I am convinced that the attitude towards a candidate for a position or an employee depends on his level of professionalism, level of responsibility and others. human qualities. I myself strive to always be perceived from a professional point of view.

There are more and more girls among my friends and in my company: QA, FE developers, web designers, project managers. I don’t publicly advocate going into IT, but when possible I share my positive impressions about work and give an example of this area of ​​​​employment as a good option self-realization.

I had a dream - to find myself in life as a specialist, and I am very happy that it came true. And now I only have goals – new ones every time, related to mastering new technologies and improving my skills. So, if we talk about web development, I believe that the pinnacle of a career is having sufficient knowledge and experience to manage a team of developers, technical supervision and architectural design of high-load projects.

I'm interested in sports. Since the specific nature of employment implies a mostly sedentary lifestyle, it is imperative to perform physical exercise to strengthen muscles.

If you decide to become an IT specialist, it will not be enough to simply complete some courses or learn the material at home. You need to try to create something of your own, for example, write at least a blog. Your code may be far from perfect, but it is important to finish the work and feel whether you enjoy what you are doing, how you feel when what you worked on starts working too.

You will have to put aside your usual activities, spend less time with friends, especially at first, and, no matter how it sounds, reduce and distribute household responsibilities. Be prepared that not all friends and loved ones will share and understand your desire. Because now it will be more useful not to bake pies, but to read technical documentation :).

Tuesday, January 13, 2009 3:10 PM

Well, actually, I am a programmer wife
Where to start... I didn’t like the article - the idea is good, but the implementation is weak - there is no depth of understanding of the problem... Apparently the authors (women) did not experience working as a female programmer

In principle, I agree with all of Vitalik’s statements, he didn’t lie or exaggerate anything

What I would like to add is that it is too serious a statement that there are few women in IT companies. There are not so few of them, if, for example, we take the testing department, then, strangely enough, women are in charge here; a male tester is a rarity. And testing, as you yourself understand, is not always just dumb pressing of keys, for example, autotesting is essentially programming, which also requires brains. For example, in the last IT company where I worked in Kyiv, there was, and still is, a girl test lead who also worked as a release manager and partly as a business analyst. And the male programmers on the team respected, appreciated and recognized her work and skills!

“Women are less self-confident...” I think it depends on the person, not on the gender, there are a lot of insecure men too, well, about myself, then yes - I admit and agree with this statement, BUT I try to work on myself

As for the salary, then sooooo controversial issue, as practice shows (not just my salary level), if you collect statistics on the salaries of women and men, there may be pleasant surprises for women

I also liked the example in the article “male colleagues and male managers constantly “rubbed my nose” and demonstrated their professional superiority...” - in my experience this did not happen, or the men were, in principle, normal. Although some caution among men when communicating at work could be observed, the terminology is not so strict or anything like that

"Advertising and media suggest: computers are for men!" - nonsense, you can’t take any advertising related to a computer (Internet provider, software...) everywhere it’s 50/50 women and men. On the contrary, this emphasizes omniusability.

Regarding blondes, I certainly have to read a bunch of jokes on this topic, but I don’t take all this humor into my light, curly head. Hee hee hee

Alenka

Thursday, June 4, 2009 7:43 PM

“a male tester is a rarity” I don’t quite agree
Men often make excellent testers. but here there is a long-standing stereotype that a tester is an underprogrammer, so the boys try not to linger in these positions and migrate further

“Women are less self-confident..” is generally a ridiculous statement. " Women programmers less self-confident.." and that may be closer to the truth. BUT, again, what did you want? throughout for long years chuckle and reduce the contributions of female programmers, chuckle and joke and at the same time have confident team members? - nonsense. It won't work that way.
If all the men laughed at him for saying that by becoming a programmer he became a sub-man, then the same effect would have happened.
That is, companies themselves cultivate this uncertainty in employees.
Again, a competent manager is obliged, knowing such specifics, to support and strengthen the role of a female programmer in the company and the mentioned “poking his nose” is a Mega-slap of a male manager, his own attempt at self-affirmation.

“if only all men laughed at him for saying that by becoming a programmer he becomes less of a man” - by the way, this is the case! The stereotype of a programmer as an unkempt, unhaired and unshaven antisocial element with a stooped back and the remains of a snack on a sweater has not yet become obsolete. However, boy programmers not only are not embarrassed by this stereotype, but in some cases they even vigorously follow it

Natalia

Monday, June 17, 2013 7:43 PM

I'm a programmer, a Linux girl, and besides this I do a lot of " men's work" (lay a cable, set up a network, etc.). Regarding discrimination, I will say that in my practice I encountered the following phenomenon: they refused to hire me because I am a woman, and the team is male. That I will be there do???

I wasn’t the least bit upset, I went to another company, where they took me with their hands.
Modern companies prefer to hire women, explaining that if a woman does not succeed in something, she will not rest until she achieves her goal.

The employees themselves prefer to work with women, because... Nowadays, women also have to master computers (learn for users).
And the woman (user) herself would rather turn to a female programmer for training than to a man, because the latter may simply ridicule them. Here's a "snake's nest" for you.

Conclusion: discrimination still occurs (no matter how you deny it), but much less.
Yes, and regarding writing websites, now it is better to turn to a woman than to a man (design development is much more interesting).

It’s a lie, women, due to the natural specificity of their thinking, do not have a systematic understanding of objects. Therefore, if a woman is a programmer, then she is most likely a transvestite, or if someone is a programmer, then she is not a woman. Author's opinion interested person biased and cannot be taken into account. So this whole article is nonsense. Q.E.D.

Dear Hanibal. I can’t even believe that in 2013 someone could have such a primitive, I would even say cavemanlike, opinion like yours.
If you have nothing to do with programming, I don’t see the value of your statement on the issue under discussion.
If you have anything to do with programming, then you have probably already looked at objective statistics from open sources about the number of female programmers working in the world's leading companies: Google, Microsoft, or any one worthy of your respect (if such exists). If you express doubts about the femininity of these women, then this is more a matter of taste than exact numbers, but most of these women are married and raising children, which for me personally is a fairly objective sign of femininity.
This means that your entire comment is an empty, unsubstantiated, and therefore unworthy set of words. QEF

Women programmers are like Atlantis: they are talked about a lot, but no one has seen them. Although, who am I kidding? They exist, and there are many of them, but men deliberately avoid talking about the female part of the IT world. Personally, I know several representatives of the fair sex who cannot imagine their life without code, sitting at the computer around the clock and having bosom programmer friends (guys, of course). AND similar cases- not uncommon.

Desperate programmers. The first programmer was a woman. But for some reason, few people know about this, which, however, is not surprising: we often use a finished product without really delving into the details - who, when and why created it.

So, Augusta Ada Byron(1815-1852). She is the daughter of the famous English romantic poet George Byron. Augusta Ada became famous as a mathematician, the author of the description of the first computer, the creator of which was Charles Babbage, a professor of mathematics at the University of Cambridge. Ada apparently inherited her passion for the exact sciences from her mother, also a mathematician by vocation, who even received the corresponding nickname from her husband - “the queen of parallelograms.” According to history, Augusta Byron, at the age of 13, drew flying machines in an album, although she also tried to write poetry. The girl was shy about her poetic abilities, but her love of music was her second passion after mathematics. Combining these 2 frankly different elements, Ada suggested that in the future the analytical engine will learn to create music.

And now, actually, because of which Ada Byron was awarded the title of the world's first programmer. She translated into English and added detailed comments to the description of Babbage’s calculating machine, which had previously been prepared by the Italian scientist Manibera.

It was with her light hand such terms as “cycle”, “work cell” appeared, and she also contributed to the fact that the world saw the terms “library”, “subroutine”, “index register”, etc. In the time of Ada Byron, it was considered obscene for a woman to issue her own scientific works, and even sign them with yours full name. This explains why many women scientists remained in the shadows at that time.

At the age of 36, Ada died of cancer without seeing the fruits of her work. Charles Babbage, although he lived 20 years longer, still could not start his machine. Their endeavors were continued by English scientists only in 1991. And in 1975, the US Department of Defense decided to develop a universal programming language and call it “Ada”.

However, Augusta Ada Byron is not the only female programmer who should be remembered when diving into the history of programming. In the 1960s Cosmopolitan magazine published an article dedicated to such an interesting tandem at that time as programming and women:

“20 years ago, a girl could be a secretary, a teacher, perhaps a librarian, social worker or a nurse. If she were truly ambitious, she could compete professionally with men... and usually this would mean working harder and earning less. Today, when there is a computer, many different professions for women in the direction of programming... You can say that such work does not sound like a woman’s job, but it is so.”

Here's what the girls of the 60s themselves thought about programming:
“I had the idea of ​​standing next to a big machine and pressing buttons all day,” says the girl who works as a programmer at a bank. Los Angeles. “When doing the work, I won’t get lost: I just give the computer a task, and it decides how to complete it.”

“It’s like planning dinner,” explains Dr. Grace Hopper, a research scientist in systems programming for Univac (she helped develop the first digital computer, the Eniac, in 1946). "You must make up detailed plan and think through everything down to the smallest detail so that everything is ready when you need it. Programming requires increased attention. Women in this field are like natural gems.”

And more thoughts about women in programming from the same article:
"Inclination is one of important qualities a girl who goes into programming. She must also have intelligence and logical thinking. This is the age of the geek girl."

The female “expansion” of the IT world continues in our time (although it is still dominated by men).

Interesting data on Russia is provided by CNews. As it turns out, although there are few female developers, they are found on the staff of many well-known companies. In Rambler itself there are 10% of them, and in Kaspersky Lab - as much as 18%. In Yandex they are represented in several divisions:

• development department - 17%;
• Operations Department - 8%.

Surprisingly, who do you think runs the main system administrators of the largest Russian search engine? That's right, the woman is Tatyana Bakharevskaya.

As for the western segment, the situation is similar here. We are hot on the heels of recent events and find ourselves in YAHOO. Recently CEO this company - Marissa Meyer, former vice president of Google, computer scientist by education.

Marissa joined Google when she was just 25 and became its 20th employee. During her entire time working at the search giant, Meyer grew to the level of a successful manager and was in charge of geolocation services and maps. Marissa is called one of the most influential women in the IT industry and a Silicon Valley geek. She was highly regarded at Google, and YAHOO is counting on her experience and knowledge to revive the company.

Another IT woman - Katerina Fake. Yes, yes, at first glance the surname seems unusual. But its owner is much more unusual. Let's start with the fact that Katerina is one of the creators of the large photo hosting site Flickr. Although, first of all, she is an artist, and at the same time a financier.

“Girl programmer? No, have not heard" In what qualitative difference It’s hard to say between a female programmer and a male one. There is an opinion that modern programming is closely tied to the qualities that prevail in women: attention to detail, to some extent pedantry, accuracy, perseverance, focus on the needs of the customer. It can be assumed that these factors alone already promise girls considerable success in the IT field.

But for every “yes” there is sure to be a “no”. Seeing a woman as a programmer is strange, to say the least. We are all accustomed to the idea that a woman’s main mission is beauty, family, comfort, children... And then suddenly a computer, bugs, updates, admin panels... Prejudicial attitudes towards programmers seem to me frankly far-fetched. “There is nothing unusual about this,” I want to tell the men. And I want to express my admiration and respect for female programmers - not every one of us is capable of spending days on end, sacrificing weekends and vacations, to deal with code as skillfully as you do. You can look at this issue through the eyes of the client: who cares who made the website? The main thing is that it works, right?

There are no female developers in our company. Only men :). Maybe they are on staff at other IT companies? In order to find out this, we turned to our colleagues in the shop with the following questions:
- Do you have female programmers on your staff?
- Do you think that between male and female programmers? female there is a difference? If so, what is it?

Today I want to touch on a “sore” topic for me. What kind of girl should a girl be in order to be able to tolerate all the shortcomings of the program? And what kind of girl do computer geeks want to see next to them?

It seems to me that a girl should be simply perfect. No disadvantages: pleasant appearance, fabulous character, acceptable interests... It’s difficult to find such a girl, it’s much easier to create a virtual soulmate for yourself. Remember how two teenagers “blinded” beautiful girl in the movie “Miracles of Science”?! It's a pity that these are just fairy tales...

But seriously, let's try to create a portrait of the ideal lady.

1. Appearance. I won’t talk about hair color, eye color, height and skin color - taste and color... The main thing is that the girl should be beautiful. Beauty should be recognized by everyone around. Why? Can you imagine how a programmer can post photos of a girl on the global web and not get 5 out of 5 points for them?! Well, who needs this?! So, the programmer's girl is the standard of beauty.

2. Character. Again, we will not consider all character traits in detail. In general, a programmer's girlfriend should be calm and balanced ( creative people once again there is no need to injure you), pliable (so as not to get into a pose from the phrase “Manka, pour me some coffee”), smart, or at least be able to pretend to be so (in other words, talk about your creative plans and ideas will simply be uninteresting), cheerful (so that she can still drag her Miracle away from the computer). We could go on and on, but in my opinion, this is the main thing.

3. Interests. There must be hobbies - definitely. If only simply because it is unbearable to live next to a programmer without a hobby - you can go crazy from boredom, because a programmer cannot constantly entertain - he must sit in front of a monitor all day. It should also be noted that interests should be quiet. This means that passion musical instruments, cat breeding and litrball are not considered. Something like embroidery, knitting, drawing and writing poetry is suitable here, or better yet total - complete immersion in household chores!

Well, that's all... We got a peculiar picture, didn't we?! I've never met such girls, have you? In fact, no one needs such an ideal lady. To truly love means to love not the merits, but the shortcomings of a person and accept him as he is. This is why my programmer has a harmful and capricious girl, constantly demanding attention, taking away his computer and interfering with his work in every possible way. This is probably why he loves her! =0)

Programmers, good luck to you! I believe that if you want, you will definitely meet your unsurpassed girl for a programmer! 😉