The Women of Toward
I attended the online conference Women in Tech, hosted by the IGPP. With a variety of speakers, the day was filled...
8 March 2022
Being a female developer
I’ve been in the web development game since 2011, and every step of the way has been challenging, exciting and daunting at times.
This post is over two years old, so the details may be out of date.
On #IWD2022 I thought back to how it all started and why I went into this world, and why more women aren’t doing it.
The world of Developers
Sadly, even to this day, there still isn’t a huge majority of women who have taken web development as their career.
According to a global survey taken in 2020 female developers amounted to only 8% of all respondents, showing that it’s still a male dominated industry.
Becoming a developer
Like most women, I studied design over computer science. My degree was in Media Arts in which the only bit of code I touched was ActionScript.
After leaving university I joined a large corporate company working as a Junior Graphic Designer. I’ve always prided myself in my ambition, but in this job I just felt lost. It wasn’t that I couldn’t do the work, I just didn’t enjoy it, not one bit.
Part of this job required me to do basic HTML and so the company sent me on a Dreamweaver course (god I’m old). Those few days using code were more exciting than the two months I’d spent designing. That’s when I knew what I really wanted to do.
I left that job shortly after and ended up doing multiple internships. I wanted to learn, and at the time this was the best way I could do it.
These were smaller companies, so they could spend time showing me the ropes and helping me up my skill-set. I wouldn’t be where I am today without those opportunities.
Latest few years
After spending years making my way from intern up to a middleweight developer, I joined Bluegg in 2020 and was thrown (literally) into the world of Backend Development.
Was this daunting? My god yes. Learning new languages, and new procedures was difficult.
However it’s a damn blast!
Even though I’m the only female developer, I don’t feel like there is a gender gap. We’re a team and gender doesn’t change that.
Sadly that hasn’t always been the case in all my roles. While I’ve faced sexism and discrimination, I’ve never let that stop my ambition from growing, and nothing will.
Why should more women choose development?
- Demand
There is a huge demand for web developers as of late. It’s a growing industry with many different routes so you don’t have to limit yourself to just one. - The challenge & reward
Development is an ever evolving world. You’re never going to know everything, but that’s fine as no one else is either. You’ll face challenges, but solving those is incredibly rewarding. - Online resources
With Development growing in demand this means more online courses are available, many of which are free like CodeAcademy. You can also find blogs a plenty to read and learn from.
Who runs the world….
With the development industry growing every year, I’m holding onto hope that more women will join.
I honestly couldn’t recommend it enough.
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