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 😊

Hi everyone 👋

This thread is amazing and so inspiring reading all the comments!
I'm a Lead Service Designer in Digital Services within the Civil Service!
Absolutely love my job and I've worked on some of the governments biggest digital service!
For those looking for entry roles, I'm currently Workstream Lead on a DDaT project delivering a Digital L6 Degree Apprenticeship Academy in my agency with roles in Software Development, Data Analytics and Cyber Security due to launch at the end of Sept so keep your eyes peeled on Civil Service Jobs and LinkedIn 🙂
Feel free to DM me if anyone wants to know more!

Nice to virtually meet you all 👋

What makes you think that much of a target audience exists in the first place? That's not a dig. Genuinely curious.
By definition, organisations have a pyramid hierarchy. Few people reach executive level. Even fewer reach it by the average 'childbearing' age (30-mid30's) for a woman. And out of those, even fewer will be women!
Those who do reach that level by a young enough age are also highly likely to be driven, well paid enough to afford childcare and so unlikely to give up on their careers.

It's the same as the 'women in technical roles'. About a decade ago the gender balance was extremely heavily skewed towards men. That's changing slowly (https://www.bcs.org/articles-opinion-and-research/women-choosing-computing-degrees-in-record-numbers/) , but the devs of 10 years ago are the senior developers of today.

Management's baffled as to why we don't have many senior technical women.... well because 10 years ago we didn't have that many juniors.

There are of course other things you can try, specialist recruiters. If you are a big org keep an eye out for women underselling themselves and applying to more junior roles.

But it's not surprising that you're not getting many applications with the usual channels.

Btw my company also ran a very successful returners program but it was women at 'middle management' level. Within a few years of returning they managed to step up to senior management. Bearing in mind that the jump from middle to senior is usually a matter of politics + role availability rather than who can actually do the job you may be better off positioning it that way.

*10-20 years ago that should say!

Oh I will join you. Senior programmer but on extended parental leave. Got to go back this year really

This is genuinely a great point!

As stated in my intro, I'm in consulting, and the firm has a typical consulting career model. As such, we tend to progress through the ranks at a faster pace than people in other types of companies, so it's not really that unusual to have execs in their mid- to late 30s.

That said, you are, of course, spot on! I had never considered it (neither, apparently, had the designers):

The implication is, really, that the target audience would either have to be returners with a pre-break consulting career (and they will typically not need dedicated programs as they already have the contacts if and when they want to come back) or a different age bracket, seeing as it typically takes longer to reach exec level in industry.

This is genuinely very helpful input! I also like the idea of perhaps targeting women a level or two below and coaching them towards an executive promotion instead.

This thread is yielding results already!
Glad to be of help :)

Such an inspiring thread - almost like being at a Women in Tech event, only I can stay in my PJ bottoms while networking 🤗

I feel almost a fraud when saying I'm a woman in Tech. Technically speaking I am as a Head of Digital Product Management in FS, focussing on Financial Crime tech but I have amazing teams who do all the clever bits while I seem to spend my life in governance meetings and project / programme boards. Am late 40s now and, while I still love my job, am finding the relentlessness of it a bit harder to cope with especially coupled with my mum needing more support and my teens being in full drama mode.

While the industry is still very male oriented, I'm fortunate to work for an organisation with many female leaders and it's keeping me there for longer than I anticipated. A decent pension scheme helps as well - oh how my drivers have changed lol.

Nice to meet you all

I'm wondering if we work for the same org actually. It sounds very similar with lots of women leaders and the pension.
If you are wondering we engineers think you are marvellous, after all we can't do any 'clever' bits if nobody will give us the funding or resources! <3 You are, absolutely, a woman in tech.

Afternoon all, Please can I join! I'm mid 40s and a Head of Engineering at a small software firm in the UK. Lots of different challenges to those of you in large organisations, would be interested if any of you are in the same boat.

Have the week off and DD is at her grandparents for a sleepover so instead of relaxing and trying to free my brain from all the work crap by eating cake and drinking iced lattes, I decided to wallpaper my bedroom and put up new blinds today.

Doesn't matter how many tech manuals you read, why do instructions for installing blinds always leave you confused, frustrated and with slightly wonky blinds?

Most tech manuals leave me the same way. I rely on StackOverflow, fiddling with source code and actual deployment to help me make sense of it.

Why is there no DIY forum? Maybe I should start one

Not in the same boat, but would you mind sharing your career path? What sort of firms have you worked for before?
And most importantly what do you like and dislike about customer feature requests :D

I'm with you @CyberCritical. I was proud of myself for fitting my own windscreen wipers earlier this week (after looking at the indecipherable pictures on the box they came in). I think I'm just too used to telling people what I want and then having them make it happen. 😂

@CyberCritical, if they're anything like furniture assembly instructions: I highly recommend telling yourself its not so much of a rather mundane task but a really fun puzzle game.

Doesn't make any difference whatsoever for all practical intents and purposes (I still won't know which part "slat A" is that I'm apparently meant to join to "knuck B") - but it's a lot less frustrating when you pretend figuring it out is the actual goal!

Having said that, I thank my good fortune that I happen to have a very handy relative who genuinely enjoys such stuff. When the "game" stops being fun, all it takes is a call: "hey, George, I've an impossible ... oh, you'd love to? Brilliant! I'll buy you dinner!"

On a somewhat related but altogether more stressful note: client has rolled out a similarly puzzling and undocumented procurement solution. Submitted my first offer using it today. The damn thing has a doomsday countdown clock for the submission deadline and possibly the most useless error messages I've ever come across ("there are 3 errors in the form" - not a single hint as to where and what precisely is wrong). I genuinely feared I might be unable to submit a >1 mio offer due to bad UX design for about 20 minutes today before eventually reverse engineering it with some 10 minutes left on the clock.

Speaking as a former BA many years: who designs this kind of horror???

Business User A has been trying to get a core high risk process for his team automated for years.

But this never gets done, because Business User A does not have enough clout to get it ok'd by the tech prioritisation board.

Business User A does, however, have authority to sign purchase orders.

Business User A has, therefore, signed an multi-00k per annum contract with a vendor for software that is not even built yet to solve the problem.

The software requires tech work to integrate.

Business User A's project is now top of the priority queue.

I think Business User A is my new hero.

I have started a new role in data if that counts as tech? Doesn’t feel very technical as my team barely understand how to use excel let alone BI

Morning Red, fairly straightforward career path for me, degree in unrelated engineering field, then graduate training scheme for a UK retailer. Mostly same employer through my career, moved around either internally or externally approx every 5 years or so. Been treading water career wise due to family, but kids are older now, so increased my hours. Was asked to step up by current employer.

Customer feature requests.. hmmm... interesting question. I don't really like or dislike them as they are part of the job tbh. Some of them are not well thought through tho, and sometimes it takes a bit of digging to understand the underlying issue so we can deliver something that actually works.

How about you? What do you like and dislike about customer feature requests?

@xkcd1883, brash, very nice!

I like a little occasional "creating facts on the ground". Sometimes, it's the only method to get past a stalemate type situation. E.g., I will regularly force junior colleagues upon a project lead, stating "they're yours, your project pays, if you can't make them client billable, make sure you get some other benefit out of it." Surprisingly, "impossible to staff" has a strange tendency to turn into "client is happy to pay for this super-talent" when the bottom line is at risk!

Morning all! Just found this thread. Mid 40s, started life as a COBOL developer, via BA roles and now in Product at a FinTech organisation. Particular interest in Agile methodologies and how they are adopted/implemented.

Argh! Todays the day I really have to decide if to leave my current comfy senior PM role and move to a new org in a Programme Manager role. I’m flip flopping. Any Programme Managers on here?

I'm a Programme Manager (in FS if that matters?)

Do you enjoy it @HundredMilesAnHour ? Were you a PM previously? Was it quite a jump?

Yes, I do enjoy it. I did the 'classic' route of BA > PM > PgM. I think the jump depends on the scale/breadth of projects you've been previously involved with and the responsibilities demanding stakeholders you've had. Actually my first 'official' role as a Programme Manager was my biggest to date - with a $70 million/year IT budget for a 4 year programme being delivered into 56 countries. I was in consulting at the time and my employer sent me to interview with the client as a IT BA (not actually a role I'd ever done but no-one bothered to ask me!).🙄 After my interview, the client decided he wanted me as the Senior IT Programme Manager leading a team of Programme and Project Managers (plus BAs/scrum teams etc). 😂

Another BA > PM > PrgM (> now portfolio lead) one here.

I didn't find any of it too scary - but then, I mostly "organically" grew into all of them over time before being given the actual title.

BA: was actually hired as a graduate software engineering trainee, ended up being "the one with a knack for getting the functional bit" on my first SE team, worked more on design and req. eng. than on actual coding, was "officially" made BA.

PM: was the lead BA and the PM's right-hand woman. PM was gunning for a promotion and taking on a lot of extra responsibility left and right in order to get it. Which resulted in increasing amounts of the PM's work being delegated to me. PM got promoted and left for a role with more responsibility - I was the obvious choice for a seamless succession plan. "Officially" became PM.

PrgM: by pure accident, same former PM, now a PrgM, very similar story.

Portfolio Lead: this time, it was myself who wanted a promotion. I was tasked with "lending a hand to" struggling portfolio lead by the partner I asked for some extra work. Lead eventually left as he was unsuited to the role and desperately stressed and unhappy - at that point, I'd been running the majority of his business for quite some time and, again, naturally succeeded.

I've found having done a good part of the role before actually having it in any official capacity has been really helpful in terms of adjusting to a new position. It was still a learning curve upon stepping up to be "the name on the org chart", but I didn't have to learn the entire thing all at once.

Superstars both of you @HundredMilesAnHour @HeidiInTheBigCity that’s really helpful! (I already love this thread!) and I’m absolutely doing the role currently as a senior PM, so in know I can do it’s just the jump! Thanks again