morgtheborg

> Compared to a parent who has to work 2 jobs, or who has a job that requires long shifts, or who has to be away from home for weeks or months

Yea, those are shitty for family life too.

I think it makes quite a bit of sense if you're at all interested in having children and staying home with them for any amount of years to worry about the income of your partner. That description tends to apply more to females than males. Pick your poison.

Personally, I know I've prioritized dating men who are willing to stay home themselves since I don't like the idea of being a stay-at-home mom.

Anyway, just seems rational.

What dietary changes did you make to get rid of your acne? I've experimented with a few things and have had relatively good success, but a purely dietary method seems healthier.

Agreed. I learned a lot there.

I think most people hear "Learn to be a computer programmer in 6 months!" and think "get a job coding" which was pretty accurate in my experience (and those of my friends who attended a bootcamp).

Now, of course, being a "computer programmer" is way more complicated than that.

But I don't know a single person IRL who regretted doing a bootcamp (only know people who went to App Academy and DBC); they all still consider it a) a good investment and b) the reason they have their current jobs.

I don't really think DBC promised more than that. In fact, in my cohort they were all about "will code for food"; the idea being this was the first step and the next one was to find a place to continue learning.

Huh. I went through devbootcamp 3 years ago and stay in touch with a fair amount of people who did bootcamps. Haven't really heard this one before. The anecdotes I've heard are actually the opposite direction; that the bootcamp grads hit the ground running because they know the framework and general toolset for web dev (plus are usually spending a huge amount of time outside of work leveling up) and the CS majors take longer to be productive.

Of course, as their careers go beyond "junior", the bootcamps grads need to do major lifting to catch up in other areas beyond basic web dev. But early on, I've only really heard good things.

Curious.

Not in my experience.

> take one of the most personally rewarding and edifying experiences and completely formalize one of the most exciting parts of it (if not the most). what becomes the point of your life???

Yea, so the early part of dating may be the most "exciting", but that's not why I date. I find that love goggle time period to be a huge waste of time when 6 months to 1 year later you realize you're completely incompatible on core issues. God help the people who got married during that time period.

Online dating let's you pre-screen for basic compatibility before meeting (and confirming physical interest). It keeps you from making silly mistakes with people who can't make you happy long term.

Huh, I suppose it depends on what you're looking for. Getting in depth about politics, religion, attitudes towards rearing children, commitment to finding a partner, etc. doesn't tend to be appropriate at parties (since most people are there for a good time, not to find a partner), but they are perfectly appropriate online dating chats.

I don't find it hard to find attractive, fun people who want to date me. I find it hard to find a partner; online dating it takes me usually 2-4 months. IRL it can be years.

Eh, if you're one of the few devs at a startup it's easy to get a "senior" title. It comes down to responsibility. Now whether any sane startup should be HIRING as one of their primary devs a recent grad is another question entirely.

> I've had people who didn't know the difference between an object and an array, and people who had to comment their way through implementing a function that replicates "filter" in javascript.

I don't know a single person from my cohort who fits that description...and we aren't the most selective bootcamp by far.

Or they did their 12 weeks and then studied on their own time.

I mean, I should not be senior. I should not have been the only web dev as my first job out of a bootcamp. That is insane. But, bizarrely, in this world of start-ups and feature pushing, shit has yet to hit the fan.

I think it helps I routinely push for that promised, mythical senior developer and instead they give more more classes, pair programming with senior devs of my choosing, etc. Perhaps my complete (justified) awareness I am way over my head is the prerequisite fire to keep me always drinking from the fire hose of knowledge. Who knows.

I will say that it seems baby startups who have to choose between cheap(er) bootcamp grads who know how to get a beta out quickly, cheap(er) fresh CS grads who often don't know how to get a beta out quickly, and more expensive experienced people often chose the bootcamp grad.

I said in my interview they should get a senior dev. They said they couldn't afford one. And here we are 3.5 years later.

I took on a position as the sole web dev as my first position, with promises that a senior dev would be onboarded within 3 months.

Instead, the company paid for me to pair program with experts in different areas (security, devops, general full stack) whenever I felt out of my depth; the first 6 months it meant I spent eight hours pair programming a week with the focus being on my learning rather than feature pushing. I found the people I wanted to learn from either from my past instructors at my bootcamp who really impressed me or from AirPair.

3.5 years later I'm .5 years from vesting 4% at a company that's closing its A rounds now. I work with people I love, I learn new things routinely, I regularly get technical level ups through pair programming or classes paid for by the company, and it's pretty awesome.

I renegotiated my compensation probably every 6 months. I'm quick to give pushback if I'm out of my depth or feel like I'm being treated poorly. It's a startup so it's been a learning experience for everyone.

I'm pretty damn happy how it all ended up.

That's unfair. It's as likely that she was uncomfortable and this was a way to mitigate her concerns. I was very uncomfortable going to my first meetups around tech and most of those concerns turned out to be valid, so I can't really hold it against them.

Interesting.

I assumed that this

> chatting with other women about coding in Swift.

meant that it wasn't just a matter of learning Swift (I honestly don't know why anyone would learn a language via a meetup rather than using one of the many great resources online ) but developing relationships with women who share her interest.

A related concern could be that it's often difficult to talk about the side projects you're engaging in if they're focused on more stereotypically female concerns when men are about. The vast majority of time when I discuss my side projects, guys are downright rude about them because their target market isn't male and that often marks the idea as silly or insipid to a fair amount of people right out of the gate.

Add in that it's the rare guy who can interact with women without treating them differently which for many women automatically makes them ACT differently (for me, I go into a social, people pleasing mode) and I can see why limiting the group might be beneficial.

Super curious what that short list is, care to share?

Depends on your degree.

I have a MA in Global Affairs and Management and getting a job in DC meant pulling all sorts of connections, being willing to do internships that paid close to nothing, and networking my rear off. I once sent out over a three month period over 20 applications for paid positions a week (so not internships) and got, I kid you not, zero responses. It was connections all the way. Even once I had made my way in the pay was pitiful and it remains a connections game.

After I did the bootcamp, easily 20% of resumes I sent out at least got a response. All in person interviews led to job offers. That's a pretty different experience than hunting for a first job out of school if you have a non-technical degree.

I did three years ago. Basically spent three weeks reading books and doing exercises available online for about 3-5 hours a day and then nine weeks of M-F 9 AM - 11 pm and probably 4-9 hours each day of the weekend doing curated exercises intended to get you to the point at the end of the bootcamp where you could get a functional web app up and knew how to teach yourself anything you were missing. Which, obviously, was a lot.

Everyone who did the program with me now makes six figures in the Bay Area or decent salaries if they left. All of us who stuck with it (rather than moving to project management, etc) are working alongside people who got 4 year CS degrees and getting paid in the same range.

If you like coding, it's a pretty sweet deal. My brother-in-law recently went through the program (six months ago) and landed a job that more than doubled his salary back in Arizona, so it's not like it's only useful if you want to do the start-up SF thing.

Your argument is that it would "stressful and hostile to everyone equally" to casually use sexist language or not provide maternity leave?

I'm not suggesting an "all women" situation here, but I am claiming all three examples would be significantly more stressful and hostile to the average woman than the average man.

> There are plenty of pejoratives for men too, they are likely using those to refer to each other.

The words I listed were the ones they were primarily using to put down one another. I cannot even imagine the man who would use those terms in the workplace in America aimed at a woman and expect to keep his job. With men, it's often apologized for and then hushed under the guise of "harmless joking". I'm not in a frat house. I'm at work.

> Did you ask about the paternity leave?

Yes. I made the point that in order to not create incentives to hire men over women we needed to create an equal workplace where the business "harm" caused by a pregnancy in someone's family was equal regardless of gender. Otherwise, honestly, there's quite a good business reason to hire a man over a woman, all other things being equal.

> You don't think plenty of men would have been uncomfortable in the same situation?

Do I think that I was turned down from the job partially because of their assumption a woman would be less comfortable in that environment than a man? Yes. Considering the gender ratios in those environments, I'd consider that a reasonable assumption.

I'd find it difficult to believe the average man's discomfort rivals the average woman's discomfort in that setting.

> It can be stressful and hostel to everyone equally. I believe that is the case.

Eh, none of the men seem particularly perturbed by the term bitch, slut, whore, etc until I point out it makes me uncomfortable. None of them seem particularly disturbed by the subpar maternity leave until, again, I bring it up. None of them seem particularly concerned that they are assumed to be technical, and I am assumed to be administrative.

I wonder why all of these things do not seem to be equally stressful to them? Can you think of any reasons? /s

I literally was turned down from a job I later learned routinely had business meetings at a strip club. I highly doubt any of the men were uncomfortable and I highly doubt you're confused as to why I would have been.

> I've been working on an initiative to encourage more of my male peers to do more to make their organisations more diverse and was recently criticised by a female software engineer who told me that I shouldn't "come into a feminist space" where "women are already organising, telling stories and advocating for themselves".

I think that is the silliest thing. It sucks but men follow men. I hate that reality, but a key element of my happiness at my current position is that I DON'T have to be the advocate for change or the enforcer. I had to at the very beginning, but once it became clear what my standards were (pretty basic things like don't call people 'bitch') the co-founders began to enforce it. That was fucking awesome. It made me feel supported and as if I wasn't being 'that women', but rather we all were acknowledging it was inappropriate. Not inappropriate because I was there, but simply not okay in a professional environment.

I often think the feminist movement would be doing a heck of a lot better if we had some Navy Seal as the figurehead giving most of the speeches. The point of sexism is that people don't respect women, so broadcasting "women are people and deserve the following" from a woman is clearly not going to do as much as having it broadcast by some alpha male.

Or perhaps I'm too cynical.

> Also - I am not totally convinced it is because of the rhetoric we as females are exposed to.

A lot of the guys I know seem to have gotten into tech while modding their computer games. I myself got into it while creating websites for computers games I played (Petz and Creatures primarily) that had very active online communities I wanted to play a greater role in. You can accomplish or support stereotypically feminine goals/interests with tech and, when presented within that context, it can inspire girls who are stereotypically feminine to want to jump in if given support.

But I think tech is not often presented as a means to an end that little girls are not at all interested in and the "natural" path of computer game modding (I have no idea how common this is in reality, but it seems most of the guys I run into Sf have it in their background as an entry point) that so many men seem to fall into isn't one as many women follow.

Do I think this means the world is ending and we all need to freak out? Not really. But I do think this statement

> Women and Men are different and are drawn to different things.

Is too flippant as an explanation for why women aren't in tech. Because tech is a tool and it isn't limited in use to male interests. People learn to cook not because they necessarily enjoy throwing ingredients together (though some do), but because the final product is worth the effort. Why women aren't actively learning and using such a powerful tool is an interesting question that I think isn't answered by innate differences in male/female interests.

> Bottom line is many women just don't want to do this and for reasons that have nothing to do with it being a male dominated industry...

Personally, I think a much larger issue than the pipeline "issue" is that male dominated fields tend to create environments that are hostile to women or, really, any person with professional standards of behavior. I was turned down for a position with a whole bunch of bizarre reasons; I later learned that company routinely had business meetings and events at the local strip club and their CEO routinely handed out cocaine. Clearly I was not a culture fit.

That's an extreme example, but, to a lighter degree, male dominated fields normalize behavior that would make the average woman deeply uncomfortable in terms of casual sexism. The company I work with right now supported me when I requested we put a halt to casual use of words like bitch, slut, etc. as derogatory words thrown about the workplace. But the fact that even needed to be brought up as unacceptable is insane and they could easily have pulled a "we're all happy this way; YOU'RE the one with a problem".

I care more about why women leave the field and don't come back despite loving the work itself than I care about why Suzie chooses to major in English rather than CS. And that is an issue of a male dominated field. One of my friends is a male nurse; he's surrounded by women. And he's happy as a clam. I don't know many women who feel the same when the situation is reversed.

1. Did you have [what shouldn't be] atypical interests as a girl?

Sort of? I read a LOT as a kid. I bought a book randomly as a third grader on interesting sites for kids on the net; this led to my Dad teaching me how to get on the net and my older brother helping me set up my first web page for my "online pets" via AngelFire. It's a website, so one might think atypical interest for a girl. However, I soon was teaching myself basics (aka copy pasta) so my site (moved over to Geocities :P) could be the prettiest in these online communities...which were dominated by girls. The USE of our technical knowledge was very typically female (caretaking games of animals, story-telling, community driven, pretty-all-the-things, etc).

However, I also I played Diablo online and other video games with my siblings and Dad which is not considered normal for girls I believe. Comic books were also big in my house, so Batman was my favorite thing ever as a kid. Barbies and him had many a storyline together in my backyard.

2. If yes, did other girls discriminate against you because of those interests?

No. Not at all.

1) do you think there are more men in engineering exclusively as a result of men being prejudiced against women?

Definitely not. Humans are complicated beasts, so it'd be pretty impressive if there was an exclusive reason. I do think, however, that EVERYONE is prejudiced against feminine behavior (with "women" just being used as short hand), not just men. I actively am aware of my prejudice against feminine presenting women or men and when I interview people I go out of my way to mitigate my biases through objective assessments.

On the other hand, at the end of the day I want to work with people who will have the same values when it comes to the company culture and similar ideas as to what good code looks like. We're all looking for allies at work and it's impossible to know whether someone 100% fits your idea of a "good" co-worker, so we use shortcuts...like how similar they are to us. And gender is one variable of similarity, so I'm sure it plays an important role in hiring decisions.

2) do you think your male co-workers are less qualified to be engineers because they were hired for their gender?

Slightly. It's not about being hired "for their gender", it's about tendencies in terms of they represent their abilities. A woman says she can do something, she usually has the relevant background/skill-set. A man says he can do something and he's likely to mean "I can teach myself this though I don't know the language or the relevant framework. I may also not have set up my environment yet..."

So. That's an uncomfortable trend with new male hires.

3) one of the engineers in this article said she felt uncomfortable being aware of being the only female. Can anyone explain what causes the discomfort?

If I'm in an all male group that I haven't been in before or that I know sometimes wanders off into unacceptable behavior, I'm readying myself (which is uncomfortable). I'm readying myself to keep talking after being ignored, to call out someone who repeats one of my ideas as if it's their idea, to call out a sexist comment or a boorish joke (I swear to god the amount of men who think the words bitch, slut, whore, etc are just dandy every day insults is insane), to politely decline to go open the door/get coffee/leave the room to perform a menial task, etc. It's uncomfortable.

At my work, I don't feel this way; I'm the only female engineer but it's really borderline irrelevant at this point. I'd be hard to replace, and I established very early on what makes me uncomfortable and the cofounders police that behavior now so it's nearly non-existent. Which is wonderful; I don't want to be a kill joy, I don't want to mother anyone, I don't want to be lone person complaining as everyone mocks me behind their back (aka being established as "that" girl; the very idea behind the statement being YOU are the problem for wanting to be comfortable at work and treated respectfully) I just want people to act like adults in an professional environment and to treat me as an equal who deserves my spot at the table. And I get that. But it took time and effort and support from the leaders of the company.

As a women who would love to have my future husband raise the kids, let me tell you it's not easy to find an intelligent man in a big city who is willing to stay home and raise children.

100% agree. At the start-up I work at when I brought up we needed to set a maternity leave policy, I made a point of saying we should match it with a paternity leave policy.

I'm a woman, but if I was hiring and it came down to someone I had to give x weeks of paid leave to if they had a child (aka a woman) or someone with the same credentials and skills who I wouldn't need to give that leave to (a man), you bet your ass it would impact my hiring decisions. Particularly at a small company.

Matching maternity leave with paternity leave removes at least one rational incentive to hire men over women.

> Small parties with friends who are verifiably not loud and obnoxious are good, and so are dinner parties.

Seems reasonable. I'm all about being as committed to my personal life as my work and I make those dating apps WORK for me. I am talking 1-2 dates a week when I'm in search mode.

But I met my current SO after I went climbing with my friend and he invited his housemate along. Within a day I knew I was at least somewhat interested, but there was another man partially in my friend group I was interested in. Within three weeks the other man had done something that killed my interest and the climbing man had consistently impressed me.

So I made a move. Tada, two years later we're living together and happy as clams.

There's something to be said for the pre-filter of friends that I find can't be matched yet with online algorithms.