The Women of .NET

Quite recently, where I work we've taken on a young woman as a new hire for the role of junior developer. While there are many women working for the same firm, she is the first woman coder. As it turns out my supervisor lent her to my project until she gets tasked with responsibilities of her own. This was a big help as I'm tasked with a project that is easily 300 hours short of what it needs. My first thought upon receiving her as a resource, was to fob off on her the monkey-at-the-keyboard (data-entry) tasks so that I could focus on pounding code and completing my project in time to meet its aggressive deadline.

In writing my first blob post for the new year, I wanted to reflect on working with women in .NET over the last week, and my career. I had started an internship program at one employer quite by accident. A good friend and alumnist had graduated a few semesters after me, but couldn't find work because graduated before the .Com bubble popped and he a few semesters after. I had him come to my office after hours and write workflow and other diagrams for all of the code I was generating, and then add comments and do debugging on my work. Within a few months, it not only gave him enough enough experience to get his first IT job, it helped him get a far deeper understanding of how to write software. That experience launched his career, and launched my internship program.

When I had officially started my internship program through the Shriver Center at UMBC, most of the candidates where male. I say male and not 'men' because most were not grown up enough to be considered men. The few who seemed to know anything were arrogant, others were completely unreliable and the one I brought on board was use than worthseless. I was however fortunate enough to have one young woman apply who saved my fledgling internship program, Kristine Evangelista. She became the poster child for my internship program. Although lacking any kind of practical experience, I found her to be bright and hard working, so much so that I added a second intern because Kristine required such little oversight. Others followed, all excellent young women.

Months later, when the semester and her internship were drawing to a close and we were diagramming out a process on a whiteboard together, she confided in me that she wasn't even considering taking a job in technology upon graduation because she didn't think she understood it well enough. She said I had changed that for her, and I had (unintentionally) convinced her that she could thrive in technology. She had also impressed my boss and we had offered her and another intern job upon graduation, but when I received an offer I couldn't refuse at another firm, their job offers were rescinded.

Once I arrived at my new job, I had immediately began an internship program. When contacting the Shriver center, I let them know in no uncertain terms that I was giving preference to women. Fortunately, the person at the Shiver center wa also a woman and helped me in my efforts (off the record) by sending me excellent candidates. I convinced Kristine to (once again) be an unpaid intern and within a short period of time, I was able to convince my employer to take my two former interns on as employees. While my responsibilities grew and my time to mentor her had all but vanished, Kristine continued to impress. So much so that by percentages, she got the highest raise of any of the 400+ employees in the firm. All of that potential would have been squandered if she hadn't been encouraged by someone. I have had other interns who used that opportunity to launch their careers, and I am pround of them all.

I think as technology professionals, it is incumbent upon us to encourage and mentor women in technology when ever we find them. This is not to infer that men are naturally superior. My first tech boss, Sujatha Kumar most likely can still crush me intellectually. IT needs women far more than women need IT. Men may be predispositioned with certain characteristics that attract them to working with technology more, or perhaps they are given more toys as children that imprints them the desire to build things and problem solve. I'm not about to offer opinions as to why my field is so male-dominated, but only that it should be more gender balanced. I have seen this imbalance in the workplace, at conferences, and courses that I've taught. As the father of two bright young women, I hope for them a future where every occupation is open to them.

I'd like to challenge the men out there who find this article to start an internship program where they work or to single out talented young women at their place of work to foster their career growth. Any women who read this, I encourage you to find your voice. Contact your local jr college or university and offer to guest speak at a technology classroom so young women can see one of their own thriving.