I just started my Masters in cybersecurity and i’ve been struggling to get into tech. I got an undergrad in finance but decided to switch career. I got a few finance internships and worked briefly as a freelance front end developer and did a bootcamp. I landed a position in a startup recently but i got furloughed after a bit more than a month because of Covid19. I’ve continued applying for positions. I think i’ve been to ~7 interviews and only got hired in one, and mostly because the startup was running a campaign to get more women. I’m very discouraged and i was wondering what were your experiences like?

Greetings,

Join us online to celebrate International Women’s Day (IWD) 2020 from WTMAuburn & GDGCloudAuburn. We will have WTM ambassadors from Auburn & Toronto, Canada sharing their stories.

• Date Time: APRL 14th, 5:00 PM - 8:00 PM CST
• Location [ONLINE]: https://auburn.zoom.us/j/8615604503

Together We Rise
This International Women's Day, we’re inviting our community to share their superpowers - those special qualities that make you shine. Whether you’re creating space for more voices to be heard or you’re working to secure funding as an entrepreneur, you’re a superhero in our book. Together let’s celebrate the super-women in our lives. Together let’s create a new narrative for our industry. #TogetherWeRise #WTM20 #WTMAuburn #WomenTechmakers #GDGCloudAuburn

Meeting Agenda:

• 5:00 PM - 5:15 PM, Introduction/Zoom-Networking/Icebreaker

• 5:15 PM - 5:45 PM, "Sarah Pham" presenting on WTM community

• 5:45 PM - 6:30 PM, "Nathalia Silva" presenting - The power of your personal brand

• 6:30 PM - 7:00 PM, "Shubbhi Taneja" presenting - What do I love about my career?

• 7:00 PM - 7:45 PM, Codelab on Intro to Firebase for Web

• 7:45 PM - 8:00 PM, Closing & Networking

RSVP here: https://www.meetup.com/GDG-Cloud-Auburn/events/268686354/
Fill out this form to win prizes & share your stories: https://forms.gle/Ug9VfHhJN2Gbqd8g8

NOTE: Join us with your laptop to attend the hands-on codelab session on Firebase.
Stay safe & War Eagle 🦅

Team
GDG Cloud Auburn

WTM (IWD'20)

Hi there,

I wanted to know if anyone out there has completed their Software Developer bachelor's degree with WGU. Been looking into their program and it makes me nervous that I haven't seen any "bad reviews" I guess. It looks like a program thats too good to be true to be honest.

I've been in school for sometime headed toward a bachelor's in communications but about a year and a half ago switched to a degree in computer science. As many of my friends are Software Engineers, (and because of my love of tech) they encouraged me to look into the field. After putting in months of research the torch was lit and I was extremely excited about the possibility of engineering. The problem was ... switching my major. I pretty much still needed ALL of my Math courses, now add the higher level math courses that I need in order to get one computer course. It's just going to take me another 2-3 years to graduate with a bachelor's degree, despite all of the units I've already taken.

Then I started looking at SE immersive bootcamps to at least give me some skills where I could reach an entry-level, or internship as a SE so that I could work while spending these additional years getting my CS degree.

After reading such negative reviews on these programs I started to feel totally stuck until I found WGU's 2 year bachelor program. If this is legit, it would take me so much less time to get my bachelor's this way, and from the reviews I've read, WGU degrees are widely accepted by potential employers.

Anyone have good/bad/ugly experiences to share?

Thank you,

Ash

My company has a process that when we have a new micro service, we do the first Pull Request presential, not on GitHub. Mine took 7 meetings, and here are the reasons I found to explain this:

• The boys kept interrupting with personal stories that relevant (I solved this in the 3rd meeting)
• The PR had 2 months and a half work (~ 34k lines)
• I wanted to build the micro service in small parts, but this guy instructed me to do it everything first
• The company poorly does tests, so I had to introduce many new patterns to be productive and had to explain each one
• I tried to rush jumping some details, but they insisted that I should go on the details

I think it is terrible that I took soo much time to present, some agree with me, but there is this guy that said that it took too much time because "I talk too much". He don't even think the problem was that there was too many things to present, of course he don't, he only participated of 2 of the 7 meetings.

There were other things he did like: he nicknamed me as "girl", he said a friend of mine had a naughty face (based on a Facebook photo) and he clearly didn't pay attention to a female candidate during an interview we conducted together (he even left the interview many times).

Putting all these things together, I'm starting to think he is being a male chauvinist.

My question is do I talk too much and should I address this as a negative feedback? Or is he being a male chauvinist and I should give a feedback? Or talk to my boss or HR?

Hi Everyone,

I recently interviewed Anthony Gold, a well known engineer and entrepreneur in the open source technology industry on all things entrepreneurship, mentor-ship, building positive frameworks, and creating companies with positive social impact. Anthony is the host of the podcast, Anthony's Desk and writes on various topics from leadership to growth and business.

I believe everyone here might find this episode to be interesting because we talk in detail on his mission to make a positive difference in the world, specifically in regards to empowering women in the technology and engineering fields. I found it to be incredibly insightful as there is a lot of inequality that we fail to see and that needs to be addressed in the workplace. I hope everyone here enjoys the episode

Libsyn // iTunes // Google Play // Spotify // Overcast

The episode is also available on most platforms.

When this Coronavirus stuff hit, I started reviewing our analytics every morning. When we reached 10 Million page views in 2 weeks, I called an emergency meeting to begin planning to scale up our web servers.

Scaling up is very expensive between hardware and licensing so I got a bit of push back there but after a 30 minute conversation, they were convinced and we began prep for adding 2 new servers.

Last Thursday we had 1 Million page views in just one day. I'm super happy that my proactive approach paid off. We increased CPUs on our existing servers immediately and the new servers go online tomorrow. We also deployed a new alert banner feature and bug fixes to help with performance at 4 am on Monday morning with perfect execution and the live site was not affected at all during our deploy.

I have had a time of this, I have terrible anxiety and over the weekend I was so tired and anxious about everything I was literally crying silently while doing my work. I am very proud of myself and my team for pushing through all this to ensure the site does not go down and the public has access to accurate up-to-date information. ❤

The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Innovative Training Network (H2020-MSCA-ITN-2019-859957) “Intelligent Prognostics and Health Management in Composite Structures” (ENHAnCE) invites applications for 10 early-stage research (ESR) positions available with a starting date in the interval June 1st –Sept 1st 2020 for a period of three years. ENHAnCE will be based on 9 partner beneficiaries and 6 partner organisations involving universities, research organisations, government agencies and industries, and will perform cutting edge research and training in the field of intelligent prognostics of composite structures satisfying all Principles for Innovative Doctoral Training. The ENHAnCE Consortium, led by Dr. Manuel Chiachío Ruano (University of Granada, Spain) as coordinator, is based on an international, inter-sectorial network based on institutions from 9 countries: Spain, United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, The Netherlands, Poland and Brazil.

The ENHAnCE project provides research and training opportunities for early-stage researchers in the fields of Prognostics and Health Management (PHM), structural health monitoring (SHM), Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE), Maintenance Modelling, Damage Modelling, Manufacturing Engineering and Smart Structures. Research within the network encompasses a number of disciplines like structural engineering, mathematics & physics, materials & manufacturing engineering, electrical and electronic engineering, aeronautical engineering, mechanical engineering, and computer science.

Full posting here: https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/471470

Deadline is next week!

I don't particularly enjoy being a software engineer but have no idea how to transition out of this. I don't mind tech but I really don't want to code every day. I don't know what I want, but it is not this.

Just some excellent advice I received lately. Happy Monday! Have a great week, ladies!

I started a new job a few months ago at a software company. I am early 20s in my third real job and I am trying really hard to fit it but it just feels off. I have a coworker (let's say Jim) who just REALLY doesn't seem to like the sight of me and it started during the interviews.

Normally at the company, there are two interview stages. I aced the first one and was invited to the second. It was with Jim and another developer. From the moment I walked in, Jim wouldn't even look at me. He acted bored, yawned and made snide remarks when I said I wasn't familiar with a specific framework. I guess he gave really bad feedback so they invited me for a third special interview with different people since I had such different interview feedbacks. I aced the third and then got the job.

Fast-forward to my first day and I end up on the same team as Jim. He still won't look at me. He shakes his head when I speak. When he talks to me, it sounds like he is trying to prove that he knows more. Like he is trying to educate me. He treats me like an idiot. He does this with ONLY me and I get on fine with everyone else in the company. When he reviews my code he never ever approves it even when everyone else in the team does.

I try really hard not to ever play the race or gender card in my life but I am the only black and the only female employee in this company. I am really starting to wonder if this has anything to do with it. For the record, Jim isn't white, he's of Arab descent, late 20s.

I don't know what I possibly could have done to attract this guy's ire besides existing. There's only four of us on this team in a tiny office so I can't avoid him. In fact, a lot of the time, we are the only two people in the office.

I have never felt like this with anyone I have worked with and it just makes me not want to get out of bed. I have actually started looking for other employment but I shouldn't have to be pushed out by this guy.

Women in CS! Please take a minute to complete this survey for my research which is looking at culture, climate, and the importance of belongingness for women in STEM, specifically in male-dominated STEM fields. I am currently working on my honors thesis and would really love to hear about your experiences.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdS6N015O0ximjYcFgmZGJi4ewqmpH8_wvTRB1xyl3j950h6Q/viewform?usp=sf_link

There's a guy (30s? M) who has never shown me (39F) any respect. I was given the lead on a project that he used to lead but showed he was very weak and lacking in leadership skills. Literally everytime he was faced with a challenge, he would either run away or delegate to me. Fast forward to last week when I was awarded a very prestigious award for developers in our industry. Less than 200 people worldwide win this award every year and I am 1 of 4 women in my country who won. Guess who hasn't congratulated me?

Yesterday I had a question and I reached out to this guy on slack for help. He literally googled the issue and instructed me on how to google the issue. I had already read the article that he sent because I'm not fucking horrible at my job. I basically ignored him and proceeded to figure out the issue on my own and told him what I had found. His response, "so there is hope."

How would you have responded to this? I'm definitely going to tell our manager about it but I doubt it will get anywhere. Me and a whole group of people have complained about this guy for a year but the company will not fire him. He's toxic and needs to go IMO. Luckily, I work from home 100% and I can just not go to him for help in the future. But his job is Developer Enablement so....WTF?!?!

Edit: Spelling

Hi, I am writing my thesis on the gap between female and male leaders and managers in STEM Careers especially in the IT sector. I am looking for women who have faced the challenging obstacles with this choice of career to answer my 10 minute questionnaire for my thesis!
I believe it’s time we highlight the issues we face and help each other to make the stereotypes shrink little by little. If you feel like you can spare 10 minutes of your time, and hold a managerial position in the IT Sector or know someone that would be so helpful!

A while back I did form a Telegram group mainly focused on the discussion for bioinformatics. But we have expanded that to computer science, biotech, transhumanists, and a few investors. We have a strong community of intellectual people. But having more people that are from the investing side can bring a new perspective of ideas.

​

One of the things we have is the lack of diversity in this space. We have lots of men and entrepreneurs here helping each other. Unfortunately, we don't have many women and we want to get the opportunity to get a variety of people involved in this space.

​

The group is: https://t.me/bioinformaticsdiscus

So whether you are a VC, angel, or just wanting to discuss markets, opportunities, and get to network with people you are all welcome to join.

​

The reason why we didn't look into a subreddit is that you don't get to have this kind of discussion amongst various kinds of people. There can be useful connections to be made and good knowledge shared so that is why I started the group.

​

Please Note: The group is not for startup pitching. It is merely for discussions and networking. We do tend to talk a lot about biotech, transhumanism, and tech. But we do talk about venture investments as well.

Last year's Grace Hopper Conference sold out in one day!! Here are some travel scholarships that are if you are interested in attending this fall's conference.
https://reufinder.com/2020/01/19/scholarships-to-attend-the-grace-hopper-celebration/

given the extremely troublesome politics of non-scientific + non-empirical views that occurred in the 'discussions' within the marissa orr ama https://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/dzg7m5/ama_marissa_orr_at_google_fb_how_would_you_add/

a topic that i had shared across 18 or so reddits, i do not know of any worthwhile scientific evidence that shows that encouraging girls to go into the sciences & engineerings is overall harmful, and is not a longterm net positive to societies

there's not been anyone that has ever r/changemyview when something was explicitly & expressively said - i do not hold any empirical views that is not based on good science or what the accumulation of empirical evidence says, and neither should you

having views that are about the imagination or the artistry of things, that considers or factors in the accumulation of empirical evidence, is fine, and i do have some of those, so long as we understand that they are designs of the imagination & of artistry, and not of scientific basis

Hi cswomen

My husband is currently hiring. I wanted to share with you to make sure he gets the best talent out there. The only caveat is that you need to be legally allowed to work in the US (but you don't have to be an American - me and my husband are originally from Sweden.)

Apply if you're interested here:

https://careers.dispel.io/

Hi CSWomen!

I am working in a company mainly employing software engineers and computer scientists. We are worried about the low number of applications that we receive from women and also about the fact that we have less than 10 women working as SE (we are a small company, but that is a tiny number anyway). We want to organize an event both to attract female talent and understand what is happening and why we are unable to attract more women. If any of you have experience with these types of events and communities or always wanted to participate on this, what would you expect from an event like this? More of a workshop coding-focused? A networking event? Discourses from inspiring women in tech? (Btw in my opinion an event like "all pink/women need help with tech/simple and easy stuff" like some organizations do is not even worth it, but maybe I am wrong!)

All help and opinions will be very appreciated! Thank you!

Hi cswomen,

I'm a UX Designer + Researcher who is dipping my toe into entrepreneurship. I've been learning about how female founders often struggle with finding technical advise, partnership, guidance, and resources. Now that I've talked to a bunch of female entrepreneurs, I would love to learn more from the software engineers and cs professionals' perspective, too.

So...

Have you ever thought about helping out / advising a startup, but you don't want to take the financial and career risk to jump in full-time? If so, I'd love to learn from you as I do discovery research for an idea I'm working on: https://sarah367659.typeform.com/to/Jh0pHH . Thank you!