The Women who left their jobs to code | Hacker News Reader

The Women who left their jobs to code

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10 pointsadrian_mrd9 comments

My frank experience with women in tech is that I see absolutley no difference with men except women tend to be more organized (I am a mess so what do I know).

But a pattern I keep seeing is women become unhappy in roles that are not very socially engaging. And this isn't because they are women but because of social expectations and upbringing. Women who just do the job because they like it just like male counterparts do great (or not). My point is that even though there are many women interested in STEM at the outset, how they see themselves matters a lot when talking about job satisfaction.

I've met multiple women over my career that were just brilliant but they set themselves up to be in management or other roles that aren't very technical but require social skills and all the while I want to ask them why they want to do that when they can just be a rockstar in technical roles and this is the only explanation I have.

Just to be clear, I am only talking about the majority I have seen. Perhaps everyone just leans into their strength and it is easier for women to be socially succesful? I feel like in tech at least, there is a competition to get women working in your team and management wins a lot.

As someone with excellent social skills in a technical field, I constantly get pushed towards management. In terms of upward salary momentum, I understand why a lot of women go that route. Investment of time to return is high if you are successful there. If you are constantly being told that you'd be a good fit for management, it makes sense that most people would gravitate towards it as a career.

I like to say that I am happy to be a leader in a technical role but have zero desire to be 'in management'. Interfacing with other teams and departments is critical for the long-term success of my work, but the bulk of my time is spent on heads down technical stuff. I wish there were more opportunities for everyone to try out having direct reports without it being a path of no return (or path of difficult to turn back). My experience with being a supervisor 10+ years ago was very valuable in that I found that while I was moderately good at it, the constant required social interaction for 90% of the day was massively draining and left me a blob after work.

I unfortunately also have had the experience of being pushed towards management, even though I'd say I have only slightly above average social skills. At a former job I was told I could be promoted to a senior software engineer in "3-4 years" (this was 8 years into my career after multiple years of "greatly exceeds expectations" reviews at this company) or I could become a manager. I held off for awhile since I had no real desire to manage, but I could talk to people and organize things so eventually that felt like my only way up. I did it for a year and hated it, then quit to be a technical founder at a startup, which is actually less stressful and way more enjoyable. I guess it worked out for me in the end (though I should have left way sooner), but I know I am not the only woman who had similar experiences at that company which makes me sad.

> And this isn't because they are women but because of social expectations and upbringing.

How do you know that? I think this is coded into our genes and caused by our brain wiring and hormones. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

I agree by the way. I never saw any females in a technical role beyond "senior engineer", as they usually seem to disappear into team lead / SM / PM / PO roles.

I know that because I do see women in certain EU countries (Poland or Romania for example) or from countries where coding and office work hasn't had a strong "only boys allowed" history (only russia and india come to mind, maybe china?) do as well as male counterparts and stay as long in technical aspects. This is from my limited experience in non-tech multinationals.

I also see men who are as much social and organized as women and there are polar opposites like myself and the common denominator is how we view ourselves fitting into the world which is a product of environment, culture and upbringing.

> this is coded into our genes and caused by our brain wiring

If this were the case, you'd continue to see relatively few women in highly technical roles, despite a half-century of scorched-earth attempts to change that... which is what we do see. Is there an alternate explanation?

I wonder how fast they'll return to teaching/biomedical jobs.

> "I began to think 'what do I have to lose?' So decided to do a 14 week coding bootcamp which taught me the foundations of python and SQL."

14 weeks is barely a semester. "Some python" with SQL will soon be in the realm of what ChatGPT can do. How long until the industry doesn't need a lot of coders with basic grasp on the language and no domain specific knowledge? Remember all the people coding simple HTML websites and customizing PHP templates in the early 00's? How many of them were replaced by Shopify/SquareSpace/Wix?

What I hate about these articles, is that it conflates "coders" with little more than in intro class at a serious university with professional software engineers. In the current environment I would not sell the idea to someone that a 3 months course can lead them into a viable career long term (from what I've seen, if they meet the hiring bar they typically leave the industry not long after).

I've noticed that women are much less aggressive when it comes to salary negotiations. Even the bottom-bucket male engineers are more aggressive and persuasive than the more talented women.

The reason? I'm not sure. Maybe it has something to do with testosterone and confidence. Maybe they (male engineers) spend more time on researching salaries, talk among themselves, or whatever.

The general consensus is it is at least somewhat due to socialization and gender norms for women, which strongly encourage agreeability, friendliness, and deference to authority (at least in the western world), which are not advantageous in negotiation. When men are aggressive, they're seen as assertive and commanding, but when women exhibit the same behaviors they're often seen as pushy, shrill, or difficult. Anecdotally, women do research salaries, they do talk to each other (though often their networks are not as deep and their comparison point may be other underpaid women), but even talented, confident women can struggle to balance advocating for themselves aggressively while avoiding being seen negatively for doing so. It's hard to fight against an environment which says you should act a certain way to be accepted whether you buy into it or not.

So how do we make things more fair? IMO, pay transparency, narrow well-defined pay bands, explicit job duties and expectations, mentorship for women entering the field, and generally reducing the effect of good negotiation skills in roles where negotiation skills aren't critical to the job.

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