Going into my second job in tech, as a self-taught programmer, I found myself in a really crappy situation. The lead I had insisted that I should switch from my software developer role to a technical writer role because I was able to string together two coherent sentences.
He asked me on numerous occasions if I even liked coding, or if I just didn't like challenges. On top of that, my lack of formal education was also brought up privately a handful of times in a really condescending fashion.
I am a self-taught programmer and I have numerous side projects that I work on outside of work; I stay up to date with tech news, and I recreationally complete tutorials to learn about things I haven't had the chance to use at work.
There was such a lack of collaboration on that team that I was actually told at one point that whenever I asked a question, they thought I was implying something and insulting them.
I'm extremely lucky that my requests to moved to another team before the end of my probation were heard. My new team doesn't have weird aggression issues and it's super collaborative.
I almost quit tech completely because of that lead, but I'm so glad I insisted on making a space for myself and I'm thankful that the company I'm at was willing to empower me.
I wish I had more advice other than to ask him if Grace Hopper or Ada Lovelace sucked.
The truth is when people have a determined bias in their heads I don’t know how much we can do to change it other than thrive, and make their reality living with women and Black programmers and queer programmers unavoidable. I don’t know that I ever think they come around on their own, but I do think they eventually have to respect the power structures they interact with.
In a way I realize that’s shitty advice because for underrepresented people to gain power they have to be damaged all the time by people around them on the way up 🙃
I don’t mean to be too doom and gloom. I would never turn my back on this field or what I’ve accomplished but I guess I think we have a sustained effort ahead to make sure no one is getting comments like those that you are getting ❤️
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Going into my second job in tech, as a self-taught programmer, I found myself in a really crappy situation. The lead I had insisted that I should switch from my software developer role to a technical writer role because I was able to string together two coherent sentences.
He asked me on numerous occasions if I even liked coding, or if I just didn't like challenges. On top of that, my lack of formal education was also brought up privately a handful of times in a really condescending fashion.
I am a self-taught programmer and I have numerous side projects that I work on outside of work; I stay up to date with tech news, and I recreationally complete tutorials to learn about things I haven't had the chance to use at work.
There was such a lack of collaboration on that team that I was actually told at one point that whenever I asked a question, they thought I was implying something and insulting them.
I'm extremely lucky that my requests to moved to another team before the end of my probation were heard. My new team doesn't have weird aggression issues and it's super collaborative.
I almost quit tech completely because of that lead, but I'm so glad I insisted on making a space for myself and I'm thankful that the company I'm at was willing to empower me.
Ugh, I'm so sorry to hear this happened to you! I'm glad you got out to a good environment
Same, thanks! Another golden quote from him was "all female programmers suck"
Not sure if you've encountered that one yourself, or something similar, but would you have any suggestions on how to handle that kind of behavior?
I'm still pretty green in terms of experience, but I found that staring at him with my mouth agape didn't do much 😂
I wish I had more advice other than to ask him if Grace Hopper or Ada Lovelace sucked.
The truth is when people have a determined bias in their heads I don’t know how much we can do to change it other than thrive, and make their reality living with women and Black programmers and queer programmers unavoidable. I don’t know that I ever think they come around on their own, but I do think they eventually have to respect the power structures they interact with.
In a way I realize that’s shitty advice because for underrepresented people to gain power they have to be damaged all the time by people around them on the way up 🙃
I don’t mean to be too doom and gloom. I would never turn my back on this field or what I’ve accomplished but I guess I think we have a sustained effort ahead to make sure no one is getting comments like those that you are getting ❤️