#woman in tech

[code-es]

The women who laid the foundation of tech

EDIT: I noticed that this post ended up being reblogged by terfs. If you're transphobic this post is not for you to reblog. I want to celebrate everyone who is not a cis man in this industry, including trans women and nonbinary people in tech, and it was my mistake to only include cis women in this post when there are so many trans women and nonbinary people who have done great things in tech as well. Trans women are women and just as important.

Here you can read about trans ppl in tech, and please do:

https://www.thecodingspace.com/blog/2022-03-01-six-trans-programmers-who-shattered-the-lavender-ceiling/

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/transgender-tech-visibility-obstacles-remain/story?id=76374628

The morning of women's day i attended a super inspiring seminar about being a woman in tech at a large tech company in my city, and now I'm inspired to share what I learned with all of you!

I didn't have time to finish this post on women's day, but it's not too late to post now: every day is a day to celebrate women!

Women actually laid the foundation for a lot of the tech industry.

For example, the first computer, ENIAC, was programmed completely by women! While men were the behind the scenes engineers, it was women who did all the actual programming of ENIAC.

The women who made up the team responsible for programming it were called Jean Bartik, Kay McNulty, Betty Holberton, Marlyn Wescoff, Frances V. Spence and Ruth Teitelbaum.

I think one woman who is finally getting her overdue recognition is Ada Lovelace. She was a mathematician (also often referred to as the first programmer) who created the first algorithm in 1842, which wasn't recognized until 1953! However, since none of her machines were ever completed it was never tested in practice during her time.

She has since been celebrated by giants such as google, and she has given name to a programming language (Ada). She was also the first person to write about what is today known as AI. Back when she was practicing, computers were simply thought of as calculators. But she had an idea that if computers can understand numbers, then that can be translated to letters, and in turn that can lead to computers being able to handle words, and eventually even write, draw and create music.

Hedy Lamarr was a famous Hollywood actress in the 40's, but she was also an inventor who laid ground for what we use today for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS services.

During WW2 she wanted to contribute positviely to the military efforts against the Nazis, and she tried to figure out how to radio control torpedoes. In 1942 she patented her technology "Secret Communications System", also known as frequency hopping, which laid the foundation for the technology we use today for Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth. It wasn't until 1962 that it was first used for its intended purpose, during the cuban missile crisis.

Grace Hopper invented the first compiler, called A-0, in 1955, and was also part of the Univac team, which was the company also responsible for building ENIAC. She also initiated work on the COBOL programming language.

She was also the one to coin the term "bug" in 1947. Computers back then had lights to visualize their working process (which was also a womans idea to implement btw) and bugs would be attracted to the lights, but usually that was no issue - until a bug made its way into a tube which caused the computer to stop working. Hopper taped the bug to a piece of paper and logged what caused the crash - a bug.

Dorothy Vaughan (left), alongside colleagues such as Katherine Johnson (middle) and Mary Jackson (right), was a mathematician at NASA (called NACA when she started) who worked on the orbit for the first ever manned spaceflight and later also on Apollo 11 that would take humanity to the moon!

When Vaughan started at what was then called NACA, segregation was still prevalent in the US and she was not allowed in the same areas in the office as her white colleagues. Another department was formed for the black staff, and when the director of said department unexpectedly died, she was appointed as the new director and thus became the first ever black woman at that position at NACA/NASA. In 1958 when NACA becomes NASA segregation is forbidden, and that is when Vaughan and her colleagues Johnson and Jackson started working on programming the orbit and later also Apollo 11.

Continuing on the same track of NASA and space, Margaret Hamilton was the Apollo project's first actual programmer. Hamilton became the director of software engineering at NASA in 1965, and she was also the person to first coin the term !

In the image above, she stands next to all the handwritten code that was used to send humanity to the moon. During the early stages of the project when she would speak of "sofware engineering", software development was not taken as seriously as other forms of engineering, and it wasn't regarded as a science, either. She wanted to legitimize software development as an engineering discipline, and overtime the term "software engineering" gained the same respect as any other technical discipline.

And lastly, if you're a woman in STEM, I want to highlight and celebrate you! Being a woman in a male dominated industry is not easy, we often suffer from sterotype threat and are not seen as our own individuals, but rather "the woman" in a room full of men. But just as these women, I'm sure you will achieve greatness!!

Here are some additional resources if you'd like to learn more:

https://www.history.com/news/coding-used-to-be-a-womans-job-so-it-was-paid-less-and-undervalued

https://digitalfuturesociety.com/programming-when-did-womens-work-become-a-mans-world/

And this was mainly my source for this post, but it's unfortunately only available in Swedish:

Thank you for reading ✨

[zzzzzestforlife]

Software Engineer Diaries: Project Completion Day 🎊👩‍💻🎊

after much struggle, my second project ever coordinated in my short career is now complete!! 🚀 (give or take a few items, but i need to think of this as finished NOW or else i will lose all the sanity i have left)

❤️ breathwork meditation

👩‍💻👩‍💻 fight with the same last two lines of code for basically the whole day until it finally deploys successfully + document all the struggles so that it will be easier for others in the future

👩‍💻 send success metrics for my manager to report to the Big Boss Manager

👩‍💻 got our mascot intern to represent the team at company-wide meeting and demo the project

👩‍💻 internal testing meeting

👩‍💻 organize + plan remaining tasks to officially close out the project for good

🥰🥰🥰 physiotherapy exercises + leg day pt. 3 + went for a walk

🧠 lo-fi + study!!

❤️ journal

📝📝 Chinese lessons

🦷 the reward for my hard work today is a visit to my dentist, lol

💌: i skipped two meals today because i was so frustrated and rushing to meet our deadlines, but from now on (or at least until my next project) i want to remind myself that i do not code for life or death situations like these engineers do 💀

bonus: how to code in Korean (a totally unserious step-by-step guide with pictures)

step 1 (left): whisper 제발 (please) under your breath while it runs, step 2 (right): whisper 좆됐어 (it's fucked) under your breath when it fails, step 3: repeat until step 2 no longer occurs 🐰

[angystudiesstuff]

Quick life update:

I’ve finished training and now I’m a cloud engineer!!! I used to watch those “how I got into tech with no CS degree” videos and I thought it looked cool so I gave it a go and now I’m a gal in tech!

I had to return my training laptop and I didn’t realise how unsuitable my personal laptop was until it was all I had. It was great for uni because I only needed it for coursework and watching lectures but now I actually need a Thinkpad or MacBook Pro 😭. I bought the same model of Thinkpad I had during training from eBay because definitely I’m not earning enough to just buy a new laptop for £1.2k.

Now that training is over I have some time to upskill so I’ll start posting my studies and linking the resources I’m using because I feel like lots of people want to learn how to get into tech but it’s hard to do it on your own.

[brumadeavalon]

256th day of the year

then happy programmer day for us 👩‍💻

[realtsceline]

I’m just a pretty trans princess, sitting here asking to have her sucked for Valentine , is it really a lot to ask for? 👸🌹💌

[konivae]

[papanowo]

good luck kiss :]

[theambitiouswoman]

How To Network 🤝📱💬

Have a Plan: Because everyone is important, it's really important to know what you're good at. Before you go to any networking event, figure out what you're good at – like things you can do well, what you know, and the people you know. Plan what you want to talk about, especially how you can help others, either now or later on.

Start with Who You Know: Talk to people you already know, like friends and colleagues. Ask if they can introduce you to others.

Go to Events: Attend conferences, seminars, workshops, industry meetups, and social gatherings related to your field of interest.

Use Social Media: Make profiles on websites like LinkedIn or Instagram to meet people in your niche online.

Elevator Pitch: Create a concise and engaging intro that highlights who you are, what you do, and what you're seeking. This way you can make a strong first impression.

Ask Good Questions: When you talk to someone, ask questions that show you're interested in what they're saying.

Provide Value: Networking is a two-way street. Offer your expertise, assistance, or connections to others whenever possible. When you start paying attention to what people can do, you might see that one person could help another person. Try to introduce people who you think have something valuable to share. When you make these good connections, you're helping the networking event go well. This will help you establish a good reputation and create strong relationships.

Say Thank You: After meeting, send a message to say you enjoyed the talk.

Follow up & Follow Through: If you said you would talk to someone later, make sure you actually do it and let them know you're still happy to help. If you promised to introduce one person to another, take a moment to make that introduction.These small things really matter to people, and just one introduction could make someone's life better.

Meet Different People: Don't just talk to the same kind of people. Meet people from different jobs and places.

Never dismiss anyone as unimportant: Don't think someone is not important just because of their job title. They could know important things or have helpful friends you wouldn't know about if you didn't give them a chance.

Join Groups: Be part of clubs or groups related to your work. You can meet more people there.

Be Yourself: Just be you. Don't pretend to be someone else.

Learn New Things: Keep learning about your interests. It helps you have better conversations.

[chrollohearttags]

NAIL TECH MIKASA

[niobiumao3]

Loving how we post Phee hate in the Tech tag like that's just the grossest most juvenile nonsense.

Anyways she's amazing, every episode she's in is improved by her presence, I hope she's the key to de-programming a CX-Tech so everyone can die mad about it. 😊

[zzzzzestforlife]

Software Engineer Diaries: Holiday Horror Story 🙀💀

a series of unfortunate events, but i won't be defeated 😤

how my morning went 👁️👄👁️

*checks my messages, expecting a pretty uneventful day*

my senior colleague in gc: 👋

me: huh? 👀

my other colleague: huh?? 👀👀

me: oh my god. he's been let go. (we've had so many layoffs at this point)

my other colleague: oh sh— 💣

our manager: yeah, he's been let go.

everyone: ....

"there's too much work, we need to shuffle things around"

it's like a bad Uno game where i put down one card (a.k.a. Jira ticket) and pick up 3 🃏

how my afternoon went 🏎️🏇🏃‍♀️

*rushing to get my newly assigned work done so that it's ready for demonstration at the company-wide meeting*

my manager: hey zesty, here's the project that fired colleague was working on, please get up to speed and take over

me: 😶

*starts messaging a bunch of people who were also working on the project to try to piece it together*

my other manager was super helpful in answering all my questions and figuring out the beginnings of a solution together 🙏🙏🙏

*firing off more messages to annoy everyone and their team mascot intern*

demo at the company-wide meeting and i am shitting myself 💩

because it's all on my local dev environment and so, so, so much of a work in progress and also someone interrupted me while i was talking but whatever 🙄

how my evening went ❤️‍🩹

meet with engineering department-head who liked my demo 🥰

*more coding noises* 👩‍💻

internal testing meeting for the thing i demo-ed and spent so long stressing over working on 😮‍💨

it's still so broken 💔

but at least it looks pretty ✨

*ignore my continuous stream of incoming messages as i write this post because that is a tomorrow problem* 😴

i can't wait for my vacation 😅

❤️ like to save a piece of zesty's sanity, lol

[angystudiesstuff]

01/12/2022

Happy December guys!!! It’s my birthday soon and I’m looking forward to taking the day off and having a ridiculous amount of cake and sparkling wine. 🥂

Study update:

I’ve decided to get the AZ-104 qualification before the new year, I got the AZ-900 a few months ago and this just feels like most logical next step.

I’ve scheduled 4 hours of study every work day so that I don’t need to study on the weekends and will have done 64 hours of study by the end of the 23rd. After Christmas I plan to do practice exams before I take my exam on the 28th.

For my AZ-104 prep I’m using the full course from exam pro - you can see the full video on YouTube for free, it’s 11 hours long though. I paid for the course extras so that I could get access to the cheat sheets, practice exams and flash cards. I also got the official Microsoft practice exam and will be using YouTube for more example questions.

No one prepared me for how expensive these exams would be though 😭 I need to pass first time so that I don’t have to spend more money. If I find any ways of earning a voucher for this course I’ll definitely make a post about this because I’ve spent about £250 on the exam and all the materials that I can’t access for free.

Keep an eye out for a post on the cheapest way to prep for and sit both the AZ-900 and AZ-104.

[negrete1]

What would you do

If you have me right now 🌹🍆

[al1ie56]

🍓❤️🍓

[ineffablejaymee]

phee: dont leave me for some hoe go running off with some other pirates or smugglers while youre out there

tech: sure

tech: *dies

phee:

[nebulouscoffee]

"My name is Nyota. I'm the communications officer, I- I was born in Kenya- I used to have a cat, named Kamili. My first memory is watching my dad play the piano. I'm real."

Okay but I was wholly unprepared for how much it would mean to me to see more of Uhura's African identity actually being canonised by this show. The "I'm real" especially got to me; just a throwaway line but it really made me think of the Ben Sisko/Benny Russell parallels! Nyota, born in the 23rd century, is exactly the sort of person Benny Russell dreamed could exist in the future. She is real! She exists!