Humans That Code : Neha Chriss (Part II)
An Interview for Bitscademy
“Knowledge is power in technology, your value and worth is based on what you ‘know’, but the art of technology, as with many fields, is in how one applies their knowledge. As a trans person of color, I had to learn how to navigate this world early — I was working professionally as early as 16, though I didn’t come out until nearly a decade later, and I have worked in the field as a trans-woman another 10 years on top of that. You have privileges as a male in the tech field. Your experiences of being harassed, mis-characterized and judged are considerably different than that of women in the field. As a person of color, I knew I had to work three times as hard to gain the same level of respect and attention as other engineers, and I have always believed that Black Americans are considered to be less intelligent and have less aptitude in STEM, particularly if you are not from an affluent background or a storied academic institution.
During my early years in the mid-to-late 90s dot com wave, the average computer geek was a relatively insulated, introverted and often ostracized white male. With an entire software and financial industry supporting that population, their competitiveness with each other and hostility towards me was very tangible. This was not a great environment to locate mentors as a PoC. From my first experiences in computer repair shops to academic environments, federal science labs, infosec circles, consulting and startup environments, I often discovered a serious disconnect in how my counterparts were pursuing their careers and how I was pursuing mine. Especially in startup culture, where the success of the company often translates into chillingly consumptive behavior with extravagant perks and entitlements. I was often working to support my family; I did not spend money indiscriminately, which wasn’t necessarily uncommon among my peers (especially my older counterparts). I had to embrace a different journey in learning my craft.
My politics were informing a certain interest in exposure to the systems that run the largest industries and infrastructures in the world. However, I was encountering many fellow engineers who were deeply cynical about their undertaking; it was easy for them to gain employment at some other company across town, they didn’t care about the product or the end results, they didn’t care about the CEO or their managers, they didn’t care about their other coworkers, they didn’t care about their users. They were concerned with stocks and perks. Again, not a great place to locate mentors or those who can relate to a self-taught engineer who is on the road to becoming a technologist from relatively improbable beginnings.
After coming out as trans, there was an even greater shift in my experiences, whereas before I was struggling against the stereotypes of one marginalized group, coming out brought me into a limbo of seemingly irrecoverable misperception. I had to learn how to go about my gender transition while affecting an air of stability, while still developing my skills and facing new forms of harassment and discrimination as a black woman, and as a queer/trans person. I often had to exercise a lot of patience in just waiting for the right opportunities and for the right group of people to work with, where I knew my skills would be valued and my self-determination as a trans woman would be respected. I feel very blessed to have had a great number of positive experiences as I navigated the industry in the later half of my career, with a few exceptions, but I had the benefit of the previous years of perspective to buffer a lot of the nonsense I encountered. There was a lot of nonsense.
I believe there’s always a thread of utilitarianism in technology, the notion that there’s “the greatest good, for the greatest number of people”, so I like the idea that you can start with a piece of code that becomes useful to others or can become embedded in software that positively affects other people. As a technologist, I don’t believe you’re truly exercising your skills as an art until you’re approaching some new level/layer of understanding with your own humanity and that of others. This is one of many principles around the permeability between human/machine that makes technology a compelling subject, in any sense. I work primarily in information and application security, so the considerations often apply to a certain malicious intent — the methodologies and approach to circumventing layers of abstraction that software engineers have not anticipated, such that one breaks security controls and can breach software platforms. This can be an endless source of fun and learning. As a developer, I love being able to codify my own thinking in an automated way; there’s an intelligence I innately bring to the process of coding, and the code allows me insight into patterns of logic, and to see a subject from another perspective, like geography, social networks, audio synthesis, video processing. Above and beyond all, I like having the power to control the behavior of my own software and hardware, and the ability to understand what’s going on ‘underneath the hood’.
I’ve had so many great moments in coding! To name a few, I’ve been involved in the architecture of global science networks, as well as the US national seismic network. I love any work that involves either critical global or communal services. I’ve experienced the exhilaration of defeating card processing and point of sale systems for some of the largest retail merchants in the world, and I’ve circumvented security on a number of web platforms as a function of my work in application security. I think above and beyond all, coding has allowed me to delve further into my creativity as a sound artist and musician. I discovered audio programming languages about 6 years ago, and learning that platform has brought me an entirely new set of creative avenues in sound work.”
— Neha Chriss, Coder
