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What happened to all the female developers?

blog.fogcreek.com

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Re: What happened to all the female developers?

#271

Post by blots »

marquis wrote: post #199
alexgartrell wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain what you mean by male posturing?

I don't mean it in anyway as insulting: when a group of guys are together there are in-jokes, playful physical competitiveness (especially when they all know each other well) and talk of girls. All fine things, but spending a year with a bunch of guys in the same room during the workday can get a little draining. If I'm having a bad day it gets difficult when there isn't another female around for support. To clarify:…

I have had a similar experience. I don't mind at all if they talk about the best way to catch a girl at the next party or how cool it would be to hide the word penis in the final version of their thesis. But I can't participate in that talk, though I started to appreciate sexy women now. I just can't help being aware that I'm the only girl an an all male group and feel out of place. I feel more comfortable if I imagine that I'm a guy too, I've even thought if it wouldn't be nice to have a gender change to better fit in.

Re: What happened to all the female developers?

#272

Post by sunir »

joe_the_user wrote: post #147

I worked many years ago as a substitute teacher in Oakland, CA. During that time, there was interesting pattern. The vast majority of the older teachers were black and the vast majority of younger teacher were white. At a glance, this would seem strange given that discrimination was being actively attacked. But what was happening was more socially prestiges opportunities were opening for black college graduates and s…

I believe this is the major force. The reason why medicine equalized first was that it is the highest status profession. Law, business and accounting are similarly equalizing faster.

Low status professions are losing women. Usually low status non-labour professions like teachers, librarians and nurses were done by women primarily but computer science started off early equal so now it is skewed male.

It sucks to be in a low status profession but that's the way it is.

Re: What happened to all the female developers?

#273

Post by stofu »

Lambent_Cactus wrote: post #114
saturn wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The worst physician's salary averages about $50K more than the best programmer's salary. Nurses get paid as much as programmers I was all primed with a fiery response about how good programmers in hot markets should be pulling more than 200k, lousy markets at least 100k, and anyone who wasn't is either a lousy negotiator or not good, but then I remembered where I was. The crème de la crème. Yeah, "staff programmers…

Whoa, where are good programmers in hot markets making more than $200k? Is that counting stock compensation, or actual salary? I'm seeing sub-200k salaries for Google, Facebook, and Microsoft. http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Google-Software-Engineer-San... http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Facebook-Software-Engineer-P... http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Microsoft-Software-Developme...

Outside the US you can easily make 200k USD.

160k CHF in 2000 = 88 USD

160k CHF today = 200k USD

160k CHF after US defaults = ???

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=CHFUSD=X&t=5y

Demand that you get paid in bullion today!!

Re: What happened to all the female developers?

#274

Post by lsc »

kamaal wrote: post #225
jamesteow wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Also there are studies that women tend to underestimate their skills while men tend to overestimate them which might also be relevant." In general, men have far more pressure to be confident than women do.

This is actually a very important point, I work so hard currently because I know I will have to secure my family's financial future after I get married. On the other hand, If I were to be a girl I would be a lot more relaxed in may approach because I know my earnings are not the primary source of income to my family. And husband is going to take care of it anyways.

Meh, I think most of the 'pressure to act confident' has little to do with wages and a lot to do with social mores. I have worked with many people over the years with much less confidence than I have who managed to out-earn me.

I've met more women who would prefer a relationship with a confident man who earned less than they do than I've met women who would prefer a relationship with a less-confident man who did earn more. I mean, that's all anecdotal, but I've been both (comparatively) wealthy and unconfident, poor and confident, and wealthy and confident, and as far as I can tell, the comparative level of wealth involved has little to do with dating outcomes.

On the subject of being out-earned, with traditionally male jobs falling out of favor and traditionally female jobs rising in importance and pay, it seems that us men may not end up being the primary provider for our families[1]

this is consistent with my observation both of the lower class and the upper middle class people I know.

[1]http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2015274,00....

Re: What happened to all the female developers?

#275

Post by Jem »

zerohp wrote: post #213
maeon3 wrote: post #211

Of all of the female computer programmers I've gotten to know well and worked with (maybe 4 or 5), none of them were half as good as the average male programmer I've gotten to know. Programming is, and always will be a male profession. The only thing that will change this is if we force women to learn programming, but even then you can't make them like it. I think the solution here is to realize that there is a physi…

I've had the opportunity to work with several women programmers. I don't think they were worse than average but none of them live to write software and use technology as a lifestyle. I have never met a female programmer that was self-taught. I think the answer to the original question (in the title here, not the Fog Creek post) is that the rise of personal computers, and parental influence on girls at the time drove…

> I have never met a female programmer that was self-taught.

Hi, how you doin' :)

Re: What happened to all the female developers?

#276

Post by Duff »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #98
Duff wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More than that, medicine is more portable. At a typical large company, the ingress point into the company is at an entry-level position. Many women want to interrupt employment when they have children, which isn't practical for a IT person or programmer at a bank or government agency. My mother, to use a fairly typical example, is a nurse. She took 5-6 years off at various times when my siblings were born or when day…

Why should it be a big deal if you interrupt your career for a few years (whether to have a family or to travel the world...somehow I bet the second would be seen as ok in tech circles)? A good programmer can pick up a new technology in a couple of months. If you are hiring based on candidates winning resume buzzword bingo, you are going to get crappy candidates anyway. Hire for intelligence and capability and five y…

It shouldn't be, but most large organizations (corporate and public sector) have setup systems designed to avoid the appearance of discrimination or subjectivity in hiring decisions. The irony is that these systems make it difficult for people who don't have a "perfect" (from the perspective of the system) record to get in.

The problem with such systems is that it is difficult to assess someone's ability to perform a job objectively. So the systems are design around measurable facts (ie. years of experience, education), biased towards promoting from withing, with the final selection being made by rolling the dice using tools like job interviews that are at best randomizers.

Humans aren't "resources" -- they are people. But we try to treat them like commodity goods, and in the process create some crappy situations for many people.

Re: What happened to all the female developers?

#277

Post by peterbessman »

timsally wrote: post #249
lurker19 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

22.5 years after high school is age 40, not age 50. Doctors start pulling (small) salary 8 years after high school.

I'm pretty sure it's 12 years of schooling after college. 4 years of medical school plus 6-8 years of fellowship. Thus 12 after college + 3 years to pay back debt + 7.5 years to get even is age 22 + 22.5 years = 45. Of course the reality is that someone who has worked at Microsoft for as long as the guy in the comparison is going to average more than 100K a year in compensation over 22.5 years. So my figure of the sa…

Medical school is 4 years after college. Average cost is $100k-$200k.

After medical school comes residency, which lasts from 3-6 years depending on speciality. Compensation during residency is $40k-$60k.

After residency, you can get a job. At that level of training, the salary will be $150k-$250k.

Optionally, you can get a fellowship after residency. This will be another 3-6 years of training, with compensation around $50k-$70k.

After fellowship, jobs pay in the $250k-$500k range.

Re: What happened to all the female developers?

#278

Post by jamesteow »

nl wrote: post #256
dman wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the other few industries which engage in the "i'm better than you" pissing contest, EVERY SINGLE DAY?

Sales Sports I'm struggling to think of other things. Maybe a News Anchor and other media jobs?

Fashion

Other Creative Industries (i.e. Art, Design)

Re: What happened to all the female developers?

#279

Post by [deleted] »

blots wrote: post #271
marquis wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean it in anyway as insulting: when a group of guys are together there are in-jokes, playful physical competitiveness (especially when they all know each other well) and talk of girls. All fine things, but spending a year with a bunch of guys in the same room during the workday can get a little draining. If I'm having a bad day it gets difficult when there isn't another female around for support. To clarify:…

I have had a similar experience. I don't mind at all if they talk about the best way to catch a girl at the next party or how cool it would be to hide the word penis in the final version of their thesis. But I can't participate in that talk, though I started to appreciate sexy women now. I just can't help being aware that I'm the only girl an an all male group and feel out of place. I feel more comfortable if I imagi…

[deleted]

Re: What happened to all the female developers?

#280

Post by mindcrime »

marquis wrote: post #199
alexgartrell wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain what you mean by male posturing?

I don't mean it in anyway as insulting: when a group of guys are together there are in-jokes, playful physical competitiveness (especially when they all know each other well) and talk of girls. All fine things, but spending a year with a bunch of guys in the same room during the workday can get a little draining. If I'm having a bad day it gets difficult when there isn't another female around for support. To clarify:…

All fine things, but spending a year with a bunch of guys in the same room during the workday can get a little draining. If I'm having a bad day it gets difficult when there isn't another female around for support.

For what it's worth, it's the same deal if you're the only guy on an almost exclusively female team.

Wouldn't it be the same if you're a guy and your workplace is all women?

Yep. Been there, done that. I think it pretty much always sucks to be "the only one of X" where X is any significant characteristic, such as gender.

When I was one of only two guys in a 14 person IT department a few years ago (and the other guy was the IT director and he was never around on a day to day basis, so basically my work environment was me and 12 girls) there was definitely a sense of exclusion... I was obviously an outsider and nothing was going to change that. Now I don't think it was intentional on their part, any more than it's intention on the part of the men when the situation is reversed. It's just that groups of similar people tend to fall into certain patterns of behavior and a small minority group is always going to feel excluded to some degree.

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