Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years • Hacker News Board

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#261

Post by glitchc » Wed, Jul 10, 2024, 5:27 PM UTC

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #98

glitchc wrote: post #69

Running out of money is a common cause of business failure, non-profit or otherwise. Seems like their donations dried up with the economic slowdown. I'm sure they'll be back up and running once things pick up. Orgs such as these are easy to restart.

What/which economic slowdown?

COVID of course. And then once the economy recovered circa 2022 given all of the stimulus pumped into it, markets became soft again due to escalating interest rates in an effort to curb inflation. Just have to look at the long term trend for DoW Jones, NASDAQ and S&P. You can see the patterns reflected in the curves. If I could attach annotated screenshots to the message, it would become very clear. In lieu of, if you look at the 5 YR S&P value [1], you'll see the drop in Mar 2020, followed by a recovery until Jan 2022, and then a cooling effect as interest rates start ratcheting up. 2024 is looking better, but that ~2 year soft period from Jan 2022 to Nov 2023 is enough to tank any business operating at margin.

[1] https://www.google.com/finance/quote/.INX:INDEXSP?sa=X&ved=2...

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#262

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 10, 2024, 5:27 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#263

Post by scottyah » Wed, Jul 10, 2024, 5:29 PM UTC

dangus wrote: post #199

Melomololotolo wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I look around my peers, not a lot has changed in the last 10 years for woman in tech

Who are your peers and where do they work? What I’m getting at here is, maybe they're at stagnant companies that aren’t making a positive change. What I’ve noticed is that there are companies that care to be inclusive. It’s an active undertaking, not a passive one. I started my career working with all men in a toxic echo chamber, and now I’m on a team that is almost completely balanced. It’s also on me to not join te…

I've heard a lot of women say they won't join a team with only men. Not exactly the most productive feedback loop.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#264

Post by marcosdumay » Wed, Jul 10, 2024, 5:30 PM UTC

taylodl wrote: post #74

Rinzler89 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like easy tech careers that pay big from the get-go after a bootcamp are imploding. Those workers with a lot of experience and those with the skills, passion and patience, willing to push through the rough tides will be rewarded in the end. However, SW dev is still a tough career, requiring constantly learning the new things in your free time if you want to stay employable, that's not to be understated, especial…

I've been developing software for a living for 40 years now (even longer if you include when I wasn't developing software for a living) and I feel that the pace of change has dramatically slowed down in the past 10 years: - We've stabilized web front ends - Mobile application development has stabilized - Architecture patterns are well-known and there are plenty of (now legacy) products with which to implement them -…

Alternatively, we are in a lull period and tumultuous times will come back as soon as somebody makes something good in a higher layer than we use now.

Personally, I think we are due for some collapse of the fundamentals.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#265

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 10, 2024, 5:33 PM UTC

cultofmetatron wrote: post #90

next_xibalba wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have seen data presented multiple times showing the relation between a country’s wealth and/or economic freedom and women’s participation in stem fields. It’s a negative correlation. I often wonder if we should just be focused on maximizing individual freedom and let the chips fall where they may. This will result in some professions with extreme sex imbalance, and we should accept that outcome.

> I have seen data presented multiple times showing the relation between a country’s wealth and/or economic freedom and women’s participation in stem fields. This lines up with my experiences as well. I know plenty of eastern european women, asians and latinas working as programmers. on top of that I've talked to many that didn't know how to code but would ask me to teach them as soon as they heard I was a programmer…

[deleted]

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#266

Post by thrownaway561 » Wed, Jul 10, 2024, 5:35 PM UTC

newsclues wrote: post #179

Good, less gender division! Hopefully in the future programs to encourage the future generation of tech workers won’t be prejudicial and will help anyone with interest and talent regardless of their gender.

Although you'll probably be flagged for such a statement on HN, you're absolutely right. If there was an organization such as "Men in Tech", it would be criticized and shutdown in a week. the fact that even such organizations like "Girls in Tech exist" is biased.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#267

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 10, 2024, 5:35 PM UTC

petsfed wrote: post #239

Jensson wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and encouraged to move into less prestigious roles like product, design, etc Women tend to seek out such roles all on their own, there is no encouragement needed. Just adding "design" to a job title massively increases how many women applies, even if the job itself is unchanged. Just rebrand software engineers to software designers and suddenly you get many women, even though they do the same thing.

I wonder if the perception of engineering as a "men's field" factors into that. Like "every engineering role I've ever had, I was condescended to by some other engineer who though he knew more than me because he was a man, maybe the culture is different around 'designer'". Likewise for "technologist". More broadly, it seems to me that a lot of engineers' perception of inequity within their field basically devolves to…

[deleted]

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#268

Post by _dzsv » Wed, Jul 10, 2024, 5:36 PM UTC

petsfed wrote: post #239

Jensson wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and encouraged to move into less prestigious roles like product, design, etc Women tend to seek out such roles all on their own, there is no encouragement needed. Just adding "design" to a job title massively increases how many women applies, even if the job itself is unchanged. Just rebrand software engineers to software designers and suddenly you get many women, even though they do the same thing.

I wonder if the perception of engineering as a "men's field" factors into that. Like "every engineering role I've ever had, I was condescended to by some other engineer who though he knew more than me because he was a man, maybe the culture is different around 'designer'". Likewise for "technologist". More broadly, it seems to me that a lot of engineers' perception of inequity within their field basically devolves to…

>I was condescended to by some other engineer who though he knew more than me because he was a man In my experience this isn't "because he was a man" but because he was an engineer. And from what I've seen it also has nothing to do with you being a woman. Engineers tend to be condensing, and will do so indiscriminately. Or said different being "condescended to by some other engineer" means they are treating you equally, if you're not then you are getting preferential treatment.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#269

Post by elric » Wed, Jul 10, 2024, 5:39 PM UTC

This is such a difficult topic. When I started my undergraduate in CompSci, the department of 300 students had exactly 3 women. The faculty had way more female instructors than it did students. The Commucation Sciences department, which was on the same campus, had the inverse student population.

I'm all in favour for letting students making their own study (and career) choices, but when the imbalance is this great, I can't but help think that valuable perspectives are lost. And that's just looking at the sexes, that doesn't even take into account what could be gained from interacting with folks with different socio-economic backgrounds, who were equally underrepresented.

Trying to keep barriers for entry low seems worth while. Organizations which help people break into non-traditional fields (for their background/sex/whatever) also seem to be worth while. Funding them seems like a no brainer. This isn't limited to girls in tech. Also boys in nursing, poor kids in law school, brown kids in politics, whatever.

Re: Girls in Tech closes its doors after 17 years

#270

Post by taylodl » Wed, Jul 10, 2024, 5:43 PM UTC

vdqtp3 wrote: post #194

taylodl wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been developing software for a living for 40 years now (even longer if you include when I wasn't developing software for a living) and I feel that the pace of change has dramatically slowed down in the past 10 years: - We've stabilized web front ends - Mobile application development has stabilized - Architecture patterns are well-known and there are plenty of (now legacy) products with which to implement them -…

> it's easier than ever to develop software I agree that there are a lot more solved problems, but I find it much more complicated to develop software now than in the past. You used the example of web front ends, but how large is that toolchain? How many different steps and tools do you need to be familiar with to take a project from concept to end user?

I do wonder how much of my finding everything so simple today is a function of my having done this work for 40 years? OTOH, there are solutions that can be easily built today that would have been nigh impossible to have built in the past.

I think the problem now is a pedagogical problem. I don't think we need nearly as many computer scientists as we do people who are practiced in the craft. We need more tradesmen than experts, more blacksmiths than metallurgists, so-to-speak. But I don't think the typical "software bootcamp" is a good trade school. We need some kind of trade school and apprenticeship solution where after a couple of years you're a solid developer with real-world experience.