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Published on Leave a comment on Monthly’s alright, right?

Whilst I hope this blog will be helpful to others, primarily it is a record for myself.

Anyone who happens to be following it so far will be aware that I’m still not managing to post weekly, but I’m OK with that, I hope any unknown readers out there are too.

After a month of a complete break from coding, I have completed my first month in my new role. I’m loving it so far, but obviously I’m still in the honeymoon period!
I’ve been using my Pluralsight license on the train to become familiar with underscore.js and typescript.

Other than that, my day-to-day has been focussed on learning the development processes as they have been defined within the business, understanding the business domain language and getting up to speed with the systems, their architecture and getting to know my team, the other teams, our users/customers and who the key contacts are throughout the business; Plus compliance… let’s not forget compliance!

Hopefully there will be more from me next month!!!

TFC

Published on Leave a comment on The Elephant in the Room

This will be a blog about the things that I have learned primarily, but before that happens I felt I should address the elephant in the room:

Why “The Female Coder”?

Well, because at it’s simplest, that moniker resonated with me the most. It reflects who I am, and it’s something I’m proud to be. My husband refers to female developers as “rocking-horse poo” because we’re (to date anyway) so rare, and that makes me feel special. Lets face it, who doesn’t want to feel special?

Starting out, I didn’t feel like I was somewhere I shouldn’t be. I recognised I was surrounded by guys, but that wasn’t a problem. I’ve not knowingly been paid less than a male counterpart just because I’m a girl, and even when I found out I was being paid less than a male colleague of my seniority, I didn’t put it down to discrimination, rather that my colleague was able to negotiate a better salary at that time for any number of reasons.

In fact, I haven’t knowingly encountered discrimination in the majority of my 18 years of service across various sectors and companies. There was only one organisation where I didn't feel equal. I didn't think that I was being treated differently simply because I am a woman, but male colleagues that I spoke to were certain that was the case.

In 2018, gender, race, sexuality and other ‘defining characteristics’ shouldn’t matter, but they do. We all have unconscious biases. Most of them are potentially harmless, but because they are unconscious, by definition, we don’t even recognise we have them. They shape our world-view, our perceptions and can ultimately shape our actions.

Recently there was an article in the Guardian that said women’s code was rated more highly than their male counterparts – but only if the reviewer doesn’t know it was written by a woman.

I’ve found myself reading technical articles thinking the author is male, and registered my surprise when I find out it’s a woman. This is one of my unconscious biases at work. I found I was impressed, which is also kinda strange, because it simply shouldn’t matter. But when something is unusual, it’s noteworthy.

I’m noteworthy. And not just because I’m a female coder.

TFC

Published on Leave a comment on Well, that went well!

For a blog that I intended to write weekly, so far it’s been a bust! Unfortunately life got in the way of my best made plans!

The week after I set everything up, my boss announced he was making my role redundant. My attention naturally had to shift to negotiating my exit (a challenging prospect with such short service) and finding another job.

This was no easy feat; managing communications with agents and completing job applications was a full time job, which I was trying to do on top of my already full-time job. Thankfully, my boss was reasonable enough to allow me to take paid time off to do this, I just had to keep the day job ticking over. Since the main reason my role was being made redundant was because there wasn’t the capacity to define and test the features I was required to deliver, this wasn’t too much of a challenge.

I was really worried that I wouldn’t find something quickly, especially when I had an interview where the “nice guy” interviewing me said that I had ‘no right to command [the salary I already earn] with [my] skillset... If you think you can; good luck to you’. I left that conversation feeling that I was being given a harsh but realistic and objective assessment, that it was just down to luck that I landed my current role and that it was a fluke that I was unlikely to repeat in the current job market. Then I spent some time thinking about everything he said and his general attitude throughout the conversation and I suddenly realised he was not realistic or objective, but rude and arrogant.

Of course, it’s possible I didn’t present myself in my best light, that the agency had oversold me or irritated him in some way, or that he was simply just having a bad day, but ultimately I’ve proved him wrong by landing another job that seems to have everything I was looking for (including genuinely nice people) less than 2 weeks after that conversation.

So what I have I learned from this experience?

Firstly, there are suitable roles and companies out there. I started this journey with one company I wanted to work for, and that didn’t work out. However, the more people who contacted me, the more interesting roles I was presented with. In fact, there were so many opportunities that I was able to stick to my values and job goals rather than apply for everything that was vaguely in my wheelhouse; I was able to reject some roles after the telephone stage and even had multiple job offers to choose from.

Secondly, I discovered that I can and should trust my instincts (most of the time). As with many other skills, it needs to be developed over time but I can see how far I’ve come. Previously I’d have to pursue every possibility to ensure I didn’t miss “the one”, but these days I have a better idea of when to stick and when to quit. I also have a better idea of what I’m looking for and what I need. I can ask the questions that identify whether a role is likely to meet these needs.

Thirdly, I began to accept that it’s OK to not always be great at technical interviews. I often know more than I think I do, or can at least give a convincing talk, but when I can’t, it’s OK. Moreover, I’m not alone, and that is a comfort.

Finally, I discovered that my go to sites for jobs aren’t as useful as they once were. A lot of the most relevant and genuine leads came from LinkedIn, and more employers advertise on Indeed than the job sites I usually subscribe to. Glassdoor is on the rise and numerous roles are advertised on StackOverflow but I’d also forgotten about public sector job boards such as the one for the NHS and resources I was familiar with as a student such as jobs.ac.uk. Roles advertised on these sites weren’t coming up in search engine results that were filled by agency and other job sites.

I'm hoping to not have to refer back to these links for the next 5 years or so, but hopefully they can help someone else.

TFC

Published on Leave a comment on Hello world!

It’s what we all start with, right?

With each new language, framework, platform or technology we start with “Hello World!”, so why should this be any different?

I’ve been developing for more than 18 years, and so I’ve written a fair number of “Hello World” applications in that time, and I have absolutely no doubt that I’ll be writing more in the future. Technology never stands still, and neither do I.

I have decided that I want to chart my progress as I take on skills that are new to me. It will serve as a reminder about how far I have come, the tips and tricks I have picked up along the way, the struggles and successes, help people who are trying to achieve the same things and maybe get some advice from people who are more expert in the areas I’m looking at than I am.

I will probably also touch upon my experiences as a female in a STEM profession. It’s a topic that seems to be talked about more and more regularly, so if I can add my voice and encourage someone to believe in themselves, be a role model, a mentor or a peer, I only see that as a positive thing for everyone involved. To that end, I’ll probably tell you a bit about myself, my career history and how I arrived here in a bit more detail, but right now I have learning to do!