Nevertheless, Ana kept on coding in 2022 (5 yeas now!)

Ana Maria Suciu — Tue, 08 Mar 2022 16:42:19 +0000

My other #shecoded piece dates back in 2019, when I was overcoming the challenges of becoming a dev and a mother at the same time. A global pandemic and another baby later, I am happy to report that keeping at it was worth it! I am a senior dev now, no doubt about it. It's clear to me from the way I approach technical problems, from doing my own research to reading others' code to asking questions to submitting clean pull requests. And I am a mom of 2 who works 4 days a week, so I can also be present and have some time with my kids!

My biggest technical goals

I think I am pretty language agnostic. That is, when I look at a problem I never think in terms of how would I solve this in Ruby/Rails vs. Java vs Scala. I try to understand the problem and find a solution, the first solution that comes to my head. And then I work to improve it with whatever tools I may use. I need to think more in terms of performance, of data structures and algorithms. Most problems in life and programming are variations of the same issues over and over again (I'm thinking game theory modelling for programming problems). So the very broad goal would be to master the fundamentals - but of course, I need to work on how that looks like in the context of my current job and interests.

My biggest technical achievements

I wanted to skip this one, but I often skip/fail to look at my achievements and today is not about staying humble and small. So yes, in 5 years I touched a lot of code, lots of different styles and languages. I did JS but agh, Groovy/Grails and Java and then Scala and Spark and now I am back to Ruby on Rails. I did a tech talk about migrations. I worked with ElasticSearch and docker and what not. I had my fair share of tech failures and they did not break me. And probably that's the biggest achievement. That regardless of the failures, I moved on and learned and got better.

I don't know how I can break the bias in tech or how to better advocate for myself. I try my best. What I can do is ask for what I want - no fear (ok, yes fear, but I'll still ask for what I want). Like the 4 days week or more money or more time off or more remote days, whatever makes my life easier, I should just go for it! And I think the best way to help others is to let them see that it is possible.

So, code! Do your thing, learn, fail, get better, get confident! Be afraid and still do it!

Of babies and code - the juggling journey of a junior dev and first time mom

Ana Maria Suciu — Wed, 06 Mar 2019 21:54:12 +0000

A bit of context

In January 2017 I decided to do a bootcamp and be a web developer! That came along with moving to Paris to be with my boyfriend. Which soon came along with a pregnancy. So here I was, a pregnant bootcamp trained dev who didn’t speak French, looking for her first dev job in Paris! Fast forward to now - I finally feel like I am not a junior dev anymore! And my son is 1 and it’s all getting better, he’s becoming this awesome little person and I contributed to that! Et on parle francais maintenant (pas tres bien, mais bon...)! And this, all of it, was not easy! It’s still not easy and I don’t see it becoming easy in the near future! Yet, I keep showing up for more.

So, I continue to code in 2019 because…

I grew out of my 2017 junior state, finally!
and because I am getting good at it!
and because I actually enjoy coding!

I deserve credit for…

overcoming the impostor syndrome,
allowing myself to fail sometimes,
being a mother,
still going on date nights with my partner(even if not that often),
well, all of it!

When you're a mom, there is no extra time to do a tutorial on your own or read documentation at night in bed or engage in fruitful stackoverflow conversations. You'll feel frustrated and down and like an impostor that you are! They were nice enough to hire you while pregnant and here you are, not being able to do anything right! I am not sure how junior devs who don't have a young baby feel, but I surely wasn't feeling good about myself, at least right after my maternity leave. Some therapy sessions later and some 1:1 with the CTO, I knew I had to allow myself to grow in my own rhythm and stop feeling guilty. So I started to actually learn at work. No one ever told me not to so everyday I took a bit of time to read a blog post, a chapter of a book, something. At the same time, I started documenting my learning. At the end of each week, I would write down what I've learned. Soon, things got a little better and I managed to see that I was actually growing, even if not at a pace I wanted. But there was a lot of improvement. Now I am slowly learning Scala and getting my hands dirty with some functional programming, so I am prepared to restart the process, as yet other challenges are coming my way!

I hope to see developer/tech community…

growing to accept parenthood as compatible with tech careers (or, in fact, with any careers)
acknowledging that everyone has different circumstances and that is good! And we also need to address these circumstances and be flexible!
unrelated, but salary transparency, without which we may never break that glass (or whatever it’s made of) ceiling

As (former) junior devs, I am sure we all have good days and bad days. When time is not on your side and, as much as you would want to do extra hours or work a bit from home at night, you’re obliged to maintain that work-life balance, you need to find ways to integrate learning in your work. Maybe you take longer to solve issues, maybe you feel you don’t contribute enough and surely you will be fired soon. At some point, I was thinking I will be fired at least once a week and once a month I would contemplate quitting and never coding again. It is not easy, but I keep on showing up. And sometimes I actually get home so excited that all I can talk about is what I did at work. And every day, it gets a little better, if you only remember to notice how much more you’ve learned since last week.

When I chose to be a developer, I thought the times of teamwork were gone and talking to people is actually rare within this job. And if that’s how you want it, it can be exactly like the stereotypes tell it. But if, like me, you actually need to learn how to become better and you need help and mentors and multiple explanations, then you need to speak up! Cause no one knows what you know, what you doubt or what you need explained, unless you ask for it.

This is the first time I publicly open up (a bit) about how hard it really was and still is, sometimes… It’s not easy to admit failure and it’s even harder to find it in you to go on, especially when you have a small baby, raging hormones and loads of emotions not code-related. Especially when you feel guilty that you leave your son to be basically raised by someone else, so that you can go feel stupid and frustrated and hurt doing a job you don’t feel quite ready for. But if you like it and know you can do it well, don’t put yourself down like that!

It is true that this is not a world made for working mothers. I wanted to write this because you may want children of your own at some point and you need to know that coding is indeed compatible with kids. And if it’s not, it’s up to us to make it compatible and make our voices heard. Cause mothers can code too and we need to include them! Without mothers in tech, #womenintech is an empty hashtag!

DEV Community: Ana Maria Suciu