Women in Tech

[MaryQueenofSocks]

As promised, a new women in Tech thread!

This is a space to talk about our industry, celebrate our successes without apology and moan about anything we want to!

We can swap stories, ideas or just shoot the breeze.

Guidelines for this thread:

We are supportive
We encourage each other
We celebrate each other
No judgement on what we earn or what we want to earn/achieve.
If we are working mothers, then no judgement.
If we are child free, no judgement.
Ignore any derailing or goady posts

If anyone wants to add to the above list then feel free.

Come on in, grab a virtual coffee and park yourself on a comfy sofa 😊

@amybumble does it have to be remote? Because the pendulum is fully swinging back towards in-office presence, fastest of all with tech companies, because their own data is showing them the negative impacts of fully remote.

You can just look at LinkedIn for roles, or you could look for apprentice jobs doing Level 4 Data Analysis if you don't currently have analytics skills.

@amybumble and in addition to that, very few companies would be keen to take on a fully remote position at entry level. You need entry-level people in the office so they can learn the softer surrounding stuff. An experienced individual contributor is different.

May I join?

41, Senior Delivery Manager in Tech Consulting. Background in Requirements Engineering and Custom Dev.

... as for "entry level, fully remote": I'll have to admit I'm not a fan!

There has been a noticeable slowing down of the learning curve amongst our COVID intake. While I'm not a work psychologist or anything of the sort I suspect it has a lot to do with a lack of just being exposed to how experienced colleagues do it. When I recall my graduate hire days, I'm mostly reminded of how I felt out of my depth when seeing my managers essentially magic solutions up out of thin air - but all that time, I was watching, absorbing and learning! It's a lot harder to do when you only ever connect on concrete points and have little to no opportunity to generally work shadow by the by.

I'd recommend some 2-3 office days alongside senior colleagues to any new joiner.

I see you there and assume you're busy capturing the bespoke dev requests from prospective/new clients that were offered to secure the sale 😂

@kittykarate I went to a CyberSec conference a couple of months ago, the dearth of women in the industry was very very obvious!

They had a women in CyberSec session in the smallest conference room away from the main floor, the panel were great but it was only women in the room hearing about how hard it is for women and how we tend to get into the industry via a more wiggly path rather than straight from Uni. Would have been much better to tell all the men there why that is and how they can stop being arses.

Would love to join. Was there a previous thread? Interested to see it if so.

I’m a software engineer (JavaScript), been doing this for 5 years after a career change, 40.

It’s been great, I love my job.

Also to add re fully remote junior roles: I am so grateful I got my first 18 months on the job in an office before the pandemic. I think I would have really struggled to progress as quickly had I been remote as I had knowledgeable colleagues on tap to answer my endless questions. Would recommend hybrid at least.

Hi 👋🏻

First time I’ve spotted this thread in active, lovely to find you all.

I’ve been in the tech industry for about 15years now, currently account director for a large software company

@donkra Thanks so much for the feedback, it's very useful. A remote role is not essential, and I will definitely look on LinkedIn once I have honed my skills. I agree with you and @HeidiInTheBigCity regarding the benefits of starting out in the office when you're learning a role, I see that in my current role when we have new starters.

You can stay as long as you don't start quoting the 27K controls at us.

But feel free to keep the group RAID log 😂

love a good process map (Ssshhhh)

I almost spat my tea out at this!!

Literally had this conversation this morning, along with the ' you sold it at what price to secure the sale??'

Hi, I'm 39 and lead a technical delivery team in a large data department.

I came in very randomly having had an office manager/telesales background previously before moving gradually into data, did some more technical roles and then management realised my natural organisational abilities (aka bossiness) were well suited to getting shit done

Ooo can I join?

I'm in my early-mid 40's and an IT Account Manager for a Managed Services Provider.

@MaryQueenofSocks even I'm sick of hearing about 27k controls, we're mid transition to the 2022 standard and trying to convince people they should care (or at least pretend to and document the fucking thing) is exhausting.

My view on entry level roles is that honestly it's not where it should be.

Companies are awful for advertising Entry Level roles, while simultaneously asking for 2-5 yrs experience which is a direct contradiction.

Candidates (particularly female ones) are crap at critically assessing their experience and applying it to the job description. For goodness sake, sell yourself, recognise your value and don't be so literal when it comes to a job description. If they want someone who's good at data analysis and you haven't had a job that explicitly has data analysis in the job description, then what have you done? Budget sheets in payroll, survey results in a people management role... have you been in receipt of large data sets that you have then had to validate to make sure the answers make sense, break down into understandable findings that can be communicated to other people, present in visual format, identify trends........

Remote roles are more prevalent in Tech, I'm 100% remote, but I do think there is value in starting out in an office based role, you learn so much just listening to what's happening around you, being able to turn round and get help, seeing how other people do their job.

@CyberCritical, I feel your pain!

I'm mostly in account/portfolio level delivery management these days. And while I genuinely love most aspects of my job, I could honestly do without all the "people don't find compliance / policies / other rules fun" escalations that I get to deal with on an almost daily basis!

I'm naturally a bit of a wild child, so "stickler for the rules" doesn't come naturally to me! This would all be really simple and barely any effort if everyone just played along nicely!

Does anyone else work with teams in multiple time zones? How have you found it?

Yep, half my immediate team and my manager are in the US, split across East, West and Central time zone but I work globally. Worst timezones to work with are Middle East and APAC, I particularly hated having to deliver a 6am training session to the sales teams out in those areas on how to address Data Privacy and Security queries from clients. I'm a 4 cups of coffee before I'm human person so explaining Encryption Standards and Data Loss Prevention programmes to people who thought I was speaking a foreign language at the ass crackers of dawn was not fun.

On a day to day basis my diary is chocka-blocked 3pm-6pm because that's when the US/UK timezones cross over.

Not so much right now but oh yes. It's roughest on APAC and the US West Coast really, they took the brunt of early and late. You just have to try and spread the pain around a little. I also much prefer working early to working late, so if I have to stagger out of bed at 0530 and do a call in my dressing gown, so be it if it stops me having to do one at 2030.

👋 Been a programmer/engineer/analyst for around 30 years.

Heyyyyy Mary! you made the thread!!!

late 30s working in business planning and ops but also run external programs

I work across a few time zones i have some of my team in europe so 1 or 2 hours out, EMEA and NYC are fine broadly.
East coast is the one that drives me CRAZY from a logistics viewpoint as they all seem to block out time / book all meetings 9-11am local time so you cant get a meeting before 10pm within a fortnight...

The disconnect is real, we try and make it work via real clear workstreams / minimal overlap and regular syncs.

The other weird complication is there is competition and jealousy that our director is in london... its felt london team get more access/ better bonuses. I was told the only reason i had Data science support for my program was because the director "got it for me" and that everytime the NYC team want it they have to putch and advocate for it with data science... i was like yup.... me too!
The previous director was SF so i know how they feel. To some degree.. its hard having restricted access to someone who essentially controls your promotion and success.

Hello! This is great timing, our ‘women in tech’ slack channel at work was closed due to some ‘what about the men’ complaints 😩

I’m a Senior Project Manager, I’ve generally worked in SaaS delivery for the past 10 years or so and on on prem systems before that. I’ve done much more than PM for the past few years and have been looking to step up for a while, just been offered a Programme Manager role at a company I’d been eyeing up but now I’m bricking it a bit! Anyone made a similar move?

Can I join. I am a functional consultant working on a cloud deployment.

Do spend most of my life having imposter syndrome as feel like I don't actually know that much!

@Fluffycloudsfloatinginthesky that has been me for the whole of my career and the 'new breed' of women in tech that I have come across seem so confident!

Just spotted this on active as well and would love to join! I’m 38, currently in a cloud engineering role at a financial services company, have been in the industry since joining an investment bank as a grad application developer.

Imposter syndrome is my middle name here! I'm the boss of some 70 people and responsible for contracts worth >10m pa.

I basically have no idea how come they're batshit enough to let me do this. I feel I'm winging it 90% of the time - and people seem to be applauding me and thinking I'm doing a stellar job. Genuinely scares me sometimes.

What helps me is radical rationalisation and the occasional cold, hard look at my peers and bosses - not all of whom convince me all that much either!