Female Developers Share Advice for Career Changers
Heard of Bloc’s Close the Gap Scholarship for our technical programs, and wondered why we called it “close the gap”?
Here are the facts:
- There’s a “gap” in equality between male and female developers (according to a study done in 2016, the ratio was 80% men, 20% women).
- To address this gap, we recognized that something drastic has to change
- Our scholarship was created to provide an access point to relieve barriers to entry for women in tech
- Since our scholarship launch back in October — the numbers of enrolled female students is greater than 50%. Our attempt to increase diversity in tech is working; and we want to keep up this momentum by inspiring more female developers to keep doing what they’re doing!
Most of Bloc’s female web developers came from “non-traditional” and “non-technical” backgrounds including a range of individuals who join the program from all different kinds of circumstances.
These students are bold career changers who are disrupting tech with their newfound skills — and to inspire more women to do the same, we wanted to feature female developers to share parts of their story on how they switched careers to successfully enter into, and push through the barrier to enter into tech as women.
Read more about a few of these women who’ve changed careers with Bloc!
Keri Spencer | From Bloc Student Success to Jr. Software Developer
Did you have a traditional computer science background?
Nope!
How did you decide a developer career path was right for you?
I studied many topics and subjects in schools and various education sources. I could never really settle on anything long term. I eventually jumped into coding when I saw how much my husband and our friends enjoyed programming, building applications, and solving problems.
A huge plus for me is as a developer is you always have the opportunity to learn and grow in your field — and get paid for it.
What’s the piece of advice that you would like to give to aspiring female developers as they plan ahead for their career changes?
Move as fast as you can and set big goals for yourself.
You are only doing yourself a disservice if you commit a little bit of time per week. Jump in with both feet. Get up early and stay up late. The biggest change in my performance came when I pushed myself to get up earlier, stay up later and limit my social life. Live, work, and breath coding. Use a timer and make sure that you aren’t selling yourself short by taking more time overall than absolutely necessary. By committing more time you are reaching your goals sooner but providing less time between coding sessions to forget all of the knowledge you have been soaking in.
Be sure to surround yourself with like-minded people and a great support system.
When you aren’t coding but need some social time or can’t stare at a computer screen any longer, hit nearby meetups about frontend / backend / or generally geeking out. Find out where other programmers hang out (hint: Search Reddit in your area too!), ask your friends to help you with coding challenges or find alternate ways to expand your mind in this field. It can be a lot of fun working through tutorials together and getting creative with your education. These friends can be extremely useful when you get stuck, need motivation and provide great resources and links like Confreaks to keep your finger on the pulse and education moving forward.
I find that doing something simple like puzzles or trying something new like installing a faucet but still flexing those mental muscles can be a great way to break away from the computer and come back refreshed. This will also allow your mind to expand on those problems that you might not have been able to solve when concentrating at the time.
One last thing I would recommend is Learning How to Learn on Coursera.
It’s free and will help you make the most of your time you are committing in your education now and moving forward.
Jessica Roque | From Project Management Intern to Full-Stack Developer
What’s the best piece of advice that you received when you switched careers into development?
A mentor that I had here at Bloc advised me to start to think of Google as an extension of my brain, and this really helped when I would start to get overwhelmed by just how much there is to know about developing. While it definitely helps to commit some things to memory like keyboard shortcuts and a general understanding of the topics, you can dive into the nitty-gritty details of the topics as you go and as you need them. When I first started it was hard to not feel like a failure when I had to look up syntax or would read an article and didn’t know what a term meant. But that’s just a part of the job. You don’t need to be a memorizing machine and you don’t have to know it all.
Take solace in the great resource that is the Internet. If you have a good sense of reading comprehension, practice often, and use your resources, you will succeed.
What gave you the final push/encouragement to make this career change, and join Bloc?
I had wanted to learn how to code since I was just a little kid but a general lack of confidence and a series of excuses had prevented me from learning enough to make the full career change. After making the transition from college to the real world, I craved a career where there was a continuous challenge to learn, a sense of autonomy, a way to objectively measure my progress, and the possibility for remote work. I had ideas of apps that I would make if only I knew how and I really wanted to learn how. The options were to either keep doing work that wasn’t fulfilling or take a leap into the unknown so that I could create the lifestyle that I wanted.
I found Bloc and loved that it was project-based, flexible paced, remote, offered mentorship, and taught computer science principles too.
It seemed like a great fit, so I leaped. Best decision ever.
What’s the piece of advice that you would like to give to aspiring female developers as they plan ahead for their career changes?
I have two pieces of advice:
Expect to be imperfect and know that your failures mean that you are making progress.
If you can get past the initial holy-crap-I-don’t-know-what-any-of-this-means-bangs-head-on-keyboard, the mumbo jumbo will start to become more familiar and you will understand it. Tenacity is key.
2) You don’t have to like to play video games in jeans and a hoodie while you eat pizza to do this kind of work.
Bring your unique background and interests to the table and think of how you can make apps to serve those areas in your projects.
Coding is more fun when you’re making something that interests you, and when you’re having fun you’re more motivated to go outside of your comfort zone.
Laura Slingerland | From Graphic Design/Project Management to Web Developer
What’s the best piece of advice that you received when you switched careers into development?
The best piece of advice I received was to:
“Fake it ’til you make it.”
It sounds cliché but I really do find it true in this field while switching from a different one. For me, it applied more to my confidence than my actual skill. I took every opportunity to talk about being a developer and introduce myself as a developer before I even had a job. I really think it helped me be confident in that role during interviews.
What gave you the final push/encouragement to make this career change, and join Bloc?
I was in a unique season of life where I had a newborn daughter and was working from home for a design firm. I had always been interested in development but couldn’t see an opportunity for me to make that transition. When my daughter was about 8 months old, the firm I was working with downsized and I was out of work. That unexpected life change opened the door for me to enroll in Bloc!
What’s the piece of advice that you would like to give to aspiring female developers as they plan ahead for their career changes?
Put into it what you want to get out of it.
There are aspects of the Bloc curriculum that I dug deep to understand and those are the concepts that I still have a solid understanding of. There are certainly other concepts that I rushed through and those are the one’s I don’t know as well. You really do have to take responsibility for your own learning. All the brilliant curriculum is there, it’s up to you how much knowledge you walk away with.
Samantha Nelson | From Illustrator to Web Developer
What’s the best piece of advice that you received when you switched careers into development?
Practice.
Talk with people who work with the languages you’re interested in learning.
Lean on your friends for support when you don’t understand something, find members of the coding community who can help you understand new things. One of my biggest struggles was learning javascript, when I got my developer job I was still a little nervous when it came to using both vanilla JS and jQuery. I talked to our senior developer a lot and made quite a few friends in the coding community online. Being able to talk with multiple people and explain what I wanted to work really helped me learn the language instead of trying something and failing on my own all the time (although that helped too!). Collaborative work really helped me and now I’m very confident with my javascript, I’m working on PHP and React Native as we speak!
What gave you the final push/encouragement to make this career change, and join Bloc?
Getting my scholarship from Bloc really threw me into my career change. I was over the moon about it. I had known since my senior year of college that I was going to look into further schooling in coding, because I realized too late in my under-grad that user experience and web development was what I really loved and wanted to do. At the time I was working as an AmeriCorps member for a social services program helping runaway youth, and while I enjoyed what I was doing I knew coding was my passion. I have not regretted the change since, I’m working every day to make awesome usability and aesthetic on websites and I have so much fun! The scholarship was a huge motivator for me, that and the wonderful correspondence I received from Bloc’s student relations team.
What’s the piece of advice that you would like to give to aspiring female developers as they plan ahead for their career changes?
Find women who code!
Literally, WWC! That and ‘Girl Develop It!’ were both very supportive and validating groups to be in. The development and coding industries can be very intimidating for women, I think, but we have a really strong support network. GDI was a space I felt completely accepted and I was more eager to socialize and ask questions. I learned a lot from both groups, and I’m starting my own Girls Who Code group in my hometown.
Women have always been in the tech industries, and I think finding other like-minded women is very important during a career change like this. I’m a confident developer, and I feel important every day, because I am!
