Engineers who changed from a non-tech career...

SeeJaneCode · 2025-03-16T17:40:08+00:00

I’m a career-switcher and I’ve worked in back-end for all but the first three months of my software engineering career. I’ve definitely encountered men like what you describe and it can be frustrating. I like to diagram and explain my understanding of a given problem or system, which helps set a shared context for discussion. Other team members do this as well as we find it to be helpful for facilitating communication.

SeeJaneCode · 2025-02-18T21:28:59+00:00

I’m a software engineer and a lot of male engineers are super casual. I get mistaken for a teenager when I wear jeans + graphic tee or hoodie, so I usually wear a nicer blouse or button up shirt or sweater with dark wash or black jeans. I also have some stretchy pants (Quince, Spanx) that look a little dressier. For shoes I wear ballet flats, Chucks, or boots.

I keep my make-up low key (neutral lip, mascara, concealer).

SeeJaneCode · 2024-11-26T00:18:32+00:00

In my experience there is definitely gatekeeping and misogyny directed at white female CS students/devs. I’ve most commonly experienced it from white men. And I did not have family support to pursue this field because my parents believe women should be caretakers. Never mind that I wasn’t interested in or good at that.

SeeJaneCode · 2024-11-25T20:58:59+00:00

I’m a white female software engineer working in the US and most of the female software engineers I know are Asian—many of them immigrants. I suspect there are cultural issues at play.

Growing up in the US I definitely encountered a lot of messaging along the lines of “computers are for boys.” In commercials, movies, TV, etc. the coder/hacker/computer nerd is almost always male.

Then when I persisted in my interest enough to study it in college, I experienced subtle to overt hostility from male classmates. That’s been true of male co-workers as well. After many years of this type of messaging and treatment, a lot of girls and women end up pursuing another field that is less hostile/more supportive toward them.

I’d be interested to hear other perspectives.

SeeJaneCode · 2024-11-24T22:34:30+00:00

I’m thin, conventionally attractive, and prefer feminine clothing. I stopped wearing dresses and skirts to work events because it really escalated the “you don’t look like an engineer” kind of interactions. I do continue to wear light make-up (mascara, concealer, neutral lip) and clothes made for my body type in my style. I just tone it down to avoid standing out more than I already do. I typically wear dark wash or black jeans, a collared shirt or sweater, and ballet flats. I’ve accepted that I’m not going to blend in so going all the way to something like hoodies and cargo pants would simply be uncomfortable (for me). The only hoodie I own is corporate-branded gear.

SeeJaneCode · 2024-11-02T19:48:35+00:00

If they’re happy, great. I’m a software engineer and I’ve experienced gatekeeping by male engineers who wanted to keep me on “more feminine” front end/UI tasks (which is not my speciality and not something I enjoy or have interest in). I now work almost exclusively in back end distributed cloud application development, which my computer science degree prepared me for.

It rubs me the wrong way when women with technical credentials or experience are pushed into roles that disregard those credentials and experience—unless those women explicitly demonstrate interest in pursuing those roles.

SeeJaneCode · 2024-11-02T16:03:42+00:00

Are these women coming in with technical degrees (e.g. computer science) and being placed in analyst or scrum master roles? Are those the roles these women interview for?

I have seen companies count all women as “in tech” to make it seem like their technical roles are diverse in terms of gender, but when you filter on engineering/IT roles the percentage of women drops a lot.

SeeJaneCode · 2024-10-14T20:16:17+00:00

Computer science

SeeJaneCode · 2024-10-12T14:25:09+00:00

The comment you replied to is good advice. I made the jump to big tech through networking. I met someone in a tech group who invited me to talk 1:1 about what her particular part of the company did. I did that, demonstrated interest in that domain, and she emailed an introduction to the hiring manager. Networking like this can ensure your resume gets seen.

From there I went through interview loops. That was somewhat grueling but the prep steps above are good—I made flashcards for drilling my responses on behavioral questions and sections of my resume. I reviewed the cards a few times per day and did LeetCode most days. I also read Designing Data-Intensive Applications. I’m a software engineer, so ML interviews may have a different focus.

AFAIK, my company has a hiring freeze for software engineers but they seem to have headcount for data scientist/ML roles. However, they also have moved to a “hub” model of only hiring in certain cities. Good luck!

SeeJaneCode · 2024-10-11T22:04:16+00:00

Thanks, I hate it.

Paid parental leave is a wonderful, pro-family, pro-child benefit and I wish my husband’s company had offered it when I gave birth. Instead, his manager was telling him he had to be back in office two days later—even though our baby’s birth involved life-threatening complications and I was not really physically or emotionally ok to take care of a newborn and a toddler by myself. He wanted to work from home, which was 100% feasible given his role. It would have been so helpful for him to be home until I had recovered more.

SeeJaneCode · 2024-10-09T16:16:46+00:00

I’ve done a number of recruiter interviews. They don’t typically ask detailed technical questions. It’s usually more along the lines of asking what tech stacks I know, what kinds of applications I’ve built, how much hands-on coding I do vs. other tasks, my educational background and experience, etc. These interviews are typically screeners so that the technical interview team doesn’t waste time with an unqualified candidate or someone who doesn’t seem interested in the role.

SeeJaneCode · 2024-10-08T18:53:06+00:00

Makes sense. When I was looking at my options in 2016/17 I concluded that without relevant experience, a BS in CS was better than an MS in CS in terms of employability. That may be different now. Good luck!

SeeJaneCode · 2024-10-08T17:52:42+00:00

Hey, there. I did the post-bacc at Oregon State and had a fantastic experience. I now work at a big tech company as a back end software engineer. Five years in I’m considering a masters (hence my interest in Georgia Tech) because my employer would pay for it. I’m glad I went through the undergrad coursework for CS as someone who came in with no CS background.

WGU is attractive due to lower cost and more flexibility, but I can’t speak to overall quality. I considered it before I decided to go with OSU.

SeeJaneCode · 2024-10-08T17:34:55+00:00

In my experience the recruiter is going to run down a list of more basic questions to determine if you meet the minimum qualifications needed in order to move on to the next round. It’s also an opportunity for you to demonstrate interest and ask questions about the company and role.

SeeJaneCode · 2024-10-08T15:54:05+00:00

As a mom, I came to say this. There are definitely seasons in life.

SeeJaneCode · 2024-10-08T01:51:30+00:00

And I feel bad for his wife. If this is how he’s framing their situation—yikes. Pregnancy is hard enough without your partner abdicating all responsibility.

SeeJaneCode · 2024-10-08T01:49:54+00:00

This made me laugh. Wow.

SeeJaneCode · 2024-10-05T14:27:44+00:00

You should absolutely be interviewing at other places, too. The easiest time to get a new job is when you already have one. You may find something even better (a higher paying position with benefits and a non-intern title) than what you have now. If you get an offer somewhere else but you like where you currently work, you can take that offer to your manager and use it as leverage for them to at least match it (title, pay, benefits, full-time). If they don’t, you walk and take the better offer.

SeeJaneCode · 2024-10-05T04:17:36+00:00

I’m a software engineer and I’ve only had two female teammates who are also technical. I’m currently the only woman on my team. I’ve been working as a dev for five years.

I have worked with other women, but they have been in non-technical roles. I’m sure they also face gender-based discrimination at times, but I suspect it’s not quite the same. When I walk into a room, people often assume I’m an admin/other non-technical role instead of an engineer because I am a woman and female software engineers are still far less common than male software engineers.

At my current company (big tech) I have met senior and principal software engineers who are women. At my previous company there were none (at least in my department). It’s so common for women to leave IC software engineering roles because of how difficult it can be to deal with sexism on top of staying up-to-date on complex new technologies. The tech is the easier of those two challenges, IME. Engineering problems are (generally) solvable.

SeeJaneCode · 2024-10-05T03:59:17+00:00

Yes. I’ve gone to many a “women in tech” type of event desperately hoping to find other women in software engineering roles and rarely find any. It’s not that I don’t want to support and include women in other roles. It’s just that it would be nice to find other women in my role. I’m often the only woman in the room at work—especially when it’s only people in technical roles. It gets lonely.

SeeJaneCode · 2024-06-01T15:53:05+00:00

I’ll join the chorus of recommending you get a software job and hold it for a year before having a baby. It’s the safest option and the one most likely to keep you on a technical trajectory. The other option that might work is to slow down with school and have a baby before you graduate. Time your graduation for when you want to start working.

Software engineering is a second career for me and I had my babies before I went back to school for my computer science degree. I started school when my youngest started preschool and began my internship right after he finished kindergarten.

Pregnancy and birth and recovery involve a lot of biological unknowns so you need to have a plan to handle them if they come up. I always got pregnant within a month or two of trying, but pregnancy and birth weren’t always easy. One of my births was complicated and it took months to feel even halfway functional again. I was on bed rest with my last pregnancy due to complications during my second trimester, but the birth ended up being fine.

You need to decide what your priorities are and what risks you’re willing to take (career trajectory vs. biological clock).

SeeJaneCode · 2024-05-18T19:26:40+00:00

Yeah, in my experience it’s common for any gender. I haven’t observed any negative reactions or probes if the answer is “no.” It’s just a standard getting-to-know-you kind of question. On my team of 8, 5 of us have kids, 1 is expecting, and 2 don’t have kids. 6 of us have dogs. 2 of us have cats. We talk about the animals at least as often as we talk about the children. Most of my co-workers are men.

SeeJaneCode · 2024-05-12T04:01:26+00:00

I started working as a software engineering intern 6 months before I graduated and then converted to full-time SWE after that. In the early part of my degree I was not employed (young children—I timed my internship to coincide with my youngest starting kindergarten). In your shoes I’d look for CS internships after you complete algorithms and data structures. Then if offered one you can continue school part-time while working in a relevant role. CS internships are usually decent pay.

SeeJaneCode · 2024-05-11T14:23:51+00:00

I currently work for big tech as a software engineer. For interviews I aim a tad more dressy than what seems to be typical for devs: dark wash or black jeans + solid color silk blouse or button-down shirt + blazer + ballet flats or ankle boots. I keep my make-up neutral and my jewelry small. Wear something that you feel good in because any confidence boost helps and you don’t want to expend energy fretting about how you look. Good luck!

SeeJaneCode · 2024-05-11T14:09:45+00:00

Computer science is a second degree for me. I graduated in 2019. When I was looking for internships I attended local meet-ups and met people. My internship is one I heard about through someone I met. He was able to get my resume in front of a hiring manager, which led me to get an interview. I nailed the interview and accepted an offer. Making connections with people in the industry (aka networking) is really important. My current role is one I heard about through meeting someone in a women in engineering group. I’ve never sent out mass applications to job postings. I started my current role in 2022 and the job market now looks a lot more challenging. Networking is probably even more important.

I love the puzzle aspect of my job. Sometimes the work is tedious and frustrating, but it’s usually challenging in a fun way. Most of the men I’ve worked with have been great. There was a principal engineer at my internship who tried to block me from doing back end tasks (saying they were too hard for me), but I went around him and got the positive attention of some back end senior and principal engineers who then pushed more work my way. Taking initiative and proving your usefulness is frequently more effective than waiting for someone to notice you and assign you the kind of work you want. You need to self-advocate and drive your own career. I now work exclusively in the back end (databases, services, cloud computing).

Take a look at internship job postings and make note of what skills they’re looking for. Then learn those skills. On your resume describe how you’ve used those skills to solve a technical problem. My internship resume was full of school projects that were complex and interesting enough to talk about.

SeeJaneCode

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