Yes, I’m actually good!

Why is everyone surprised that I actually am better than most of my male colleagues?

I didn’t get any preferential treatment being a female programmer. At first it was cute, but never taken seriously, ever since that first project in college that I couldn’t have made it myself, since it was one of the best from the class.. And after all, we girls entered the IT section only to teach in schools, right?

Never wanted to take the teaching courses only to make sure I won’t end up a teacher, I wanted more for myself. After graduating I tried some freelancing, after that some shitty beginner job, not actually related to programming, but working nights and weekends with small projects only to make some experience in programming, hoping for a real IT job.. After a few years (it should have been less) finally got that job, and all my passion for programming actually brought me a financial stability. Changed a few start-ups, each one better for my new skills, that I realize now that are not limited to actual coding, but more like problem solving.

And here I am, almost 15 years since I wrote the first line of code in high school, and more than 8 years of work experience, one of the senior developers in a gaming start-up. I still think I could have done more, but at this time of my career I am still pretty confident with myself. What I do mind is that I constantly feel that I have to prove myself in front of my other developer colleagues, the project managers or investors - that I actually am good at what I do!

They all think it’s so cool having a girl programmer, and she’s not just on front-end, she makes decisions and colleagues come to her for advice, and all that.. The only problem is that my gender shouldn’t make it such a surprise to everyone. Girls code. Even more girls would code if they would have the chance, and be taken seriously.

That is why I’ve decided to dedicate more time to mentoring women into coding and anything else that I could offer from my experience, so that the next wave of young IT women will take them all by surprise until we’re all just programmers and the gender won’t actually matter.