How hard is it to find another woman to collaborate with in the IT sphere.

[Tigerzmum]

This is not a job advert, it's just that I'd love to work with, or loosely collaborate with a like-minded woman, who likes being involved with IT, but I find this only to be natural amongst men working with men, but not us women. Am I type casting or maybe I'm expecting too much, without the legwork?

Everyone on here is using IT. Do you mean computing?

This is quite vague Tigerz but I am intrigued, what kind of collaboration are you seeking?

(I work in IT)

Have you tried going to meet-ups like ladies of code, women in tech, big data ones etc? Or posted on github? Create your portfolio then draw others to it?

Yes, I do mean computing; At a senior level.

There's a ton of women in tech organisations out there. But computing is a wide world, so it depends what sort of skills and what sort of collaboration you're after.

Computing is very vague, can you be more specific?

BunkbedPeople No I have tried none of these and definitely will follow these leads shortly -Thank you.

As computing types are often quite literal (not always) you may find it easier to hookup with women in computing if you were a little less oblique about what you're trying to do.

Why don’t you start a Facebook group for women in tech? I’d join it and so would my female colleagues. We love to discuss what it’s like to be in a minority and how to help other women.

I feel the way forward in this day and age is to be multi-skilled or at least have a broad knowledge of all areas; skills for work packages can be bought from places like fiverr, services can be scaled up and bought through containers in the cloud. It's the dream(objective), collaboration and support from a like-minded person whom would spur each other on to build an IT solution/service.

You've posted about this before, haven't you? I remember the thread.

I work in software development. Out of 150 in my office 10 are women. Out of which 2 are business analyst. 2 are developers and I think I’m the only QA. The rest are doing admin roles

@GunungBatur
Some say computer types are just not literal enough; I've deliberately kept what I seek vague because, I feel that when you have been around IT departments long enough, you learn of most of the roles, and there is now software to make each of the role feasible by anyone who can use them, enabling one to functionally perform most roles.....

Yeah... still can't work out what you want.

@GunungBatur
No, not at all! -but it's interesting that someone has before!

What exactly is your role? If you're a developer I'm very surprised you've never heard of "women who code" type meet-ups. I still don't really understand what you're looking for but I would like to so please do try and explain again

I've been working in It departments for nearly 25 years, mostly in technical roles. There's no way I could do a lot of the other roles, not without training, anyway. I have collaborated with women and have been seconded to another department as a result. But they knew what they wanted. You are being very unclear, which makes collaboration a bit of a challenge. You are expecting too much of you aren't clear about what you want.

@IrvinaYalom
I'm usually a data architect, 10 years ago I was an Oracle DBA;
No I have Never heard of women who code, but now I have .
Thank you.

Look up ADAs List on google , also there are many slack channels for women in this space

Not sure I understand the specifics of what you need either but there's also womenhack.com - they run virtual events atm

Deffo try meet-ups and don't be restricted by geography.

I’m not quite at your level of experience - more STEM
person looking to get into the field.

I’m well up for doing a tech start-up at some stage , though not this year.

Must say I do think although I’ve found women’s tech groups very helpful, starting a new profitable business is so challenging I wouldn’t restrict myself to collaborating only with women? (Unless there’s some really pressing reason like you’re trying to access a particular source of funding?)

Pick the best person for the job who you get on with as a human being and who you intellectually bounce off well.

You can give talks to ladies who code when the business is going well and you’re loaded

Ok - I do understand, at work there are a couple of v experienced database people - but they get given so much work, they don’t have time to explore new skills and technologies. V smart and could pick up other languages easily though.

Never been, but have heard of codebar. There is a gender minorities ai meet up in London usually. I guess exploring containerisation as applied to databases is quite specific though. Happy to chat about it (but I’m v junior and probably know less than you).

@Namenic
Thank you for your candid response. I have found that those of us in IT, who are open enough to attest to what we do not currently know, are those who open their sphere of knowledge -and as things are changing, even as we speak now, are those who can do keep growing in the varied areas that spring up over time. -Let's talk further.

@Bunkbedpeople
I know you are right! -but I thought, I'd like to start with familiarity -and casting my net wide to pick those particular women, who you find in IT, we are not typical women, rather androgynous by nature. , being able to muck in getting the outcome through passion.....

@Livingthroughcrazy
Thank you! -Another lead, I will follow up on.