Last month my daughter turned 13. I know she is watching me, observing me. She has seen my struggles since October 2014 to find job as a software developer. Today I want to apologise to her and girls like her for failing them.
Background: For 4 years in undergrad and 1.5 years in Masters Computer Science program I hated coding with utter passion and then one quarter I stumbled into a database class. I found love. I was lucky enough to land a job in Database development group in Tandem Computers. In March 1997, I started my journey as a software developer and the next 16 years, 5 months, 21 days had been amazing glorious times. I joined as a Software Test Developer for their new SQL/MX database product. About 2 years in that role one day I observed a development manager talking in the corridor with a developer. She was talking intricate design considerations, she was talking very fast, and so coherently. To me it sounded like poetry. I remember thinking : that is the group I want to work in. And how wishes come true. Soon after I landed in that group. Though I did not get to work with my inspiration (she retired early) I continued working in that amazing group for the next several years until September 2013.
Everyday I woke up with a joy for my work. I started as a novice, I gained expertise. I went from fixing bugs to architecting, design and development of intricate features. By the time I left the group, I had overhauled the backend of the database engine, I had successfully put in place several features, upgrade and versioning mechanism. And all of these were in use in the company’s infrastructure until it was replaced by Vertica. In the intermediate years there had been times when a lot of my friends left for other companies (voluntary and involuntary). Through all those times I had a clear vision of what I would like to achieve. I knew that I was in a unique position that would allow me to work in core parts of engine in a way and extensiveness that I would not be allowed in other companies. I put in foundation code and built features on top it for next few years. It’s the most gratifying experience to watch my designs hold up over time.
During that time, I got married, had 2 kids, experienced the really kind, nice, generous people I worked with. I worked part time when kids were little, I went back to full time. I went from being a developer to tech lead to architecting features. I was very proud the two times I resolved high visibility customer problems under time constraint and scrutiny. While female gender has been a vanishing breed in software development, I went through the years completely oblivious to reality. Many among my mentors, my managers, senior architects, colleagues were all smart engineers who were also women.
In 2014 I was part of workforce reduction at HP. At that time I was confident I would land a job lickety spick. How wrong was I.
Present: I tried networking, reaching out to my connections. I put myself through interview skills retooling through Interview Kickstart. For a person who implemented Breadth First Search and Depth First Search algorithms in features, I went back to putting code on whiteboard for tree traversals. I relearned the art of writing code from main(C/C++ coders will get this). Professor Sedgewick videos on algorithms are amazing. I would go to interview after interview with no success. I made progress in not flunking phone interviews. I would make it to in person a few times. I stopped bombing the whiteboard coding interviews. There were a few I came out thinking I did good. In the 2.5 years, I picked up after each failure to learn, retool and go back, for a few simple reasons. (a) I loved solving problems through writing code. (b) My kids are watching me. I cannot let them watch me quit. (c) I wanted female role models for my daughter and her friends too see and get inspired, just like my role models were there to inspire me.
Apology: After 2 years 7 months, with a few intermediate short term contracts in between I finally realized my futility in trying to find work as a software developer. When my compilers didn’t ask for color, gender or age my resume reflects the work I did. Many, many of my ex-colleagues are still friends with me, so I must not be that bad to work with. And yet I failed my daughter and other young ladies when I cannot be an positive example for them. I have tried all and every options that I could think of, read about or was advised. In writing this piece I am probably even scorching any other slim chances. But I owe the future women an apology, for not making the difference. I followed my heart, I am very proud of the work I did, I would not change anything about it, but I wish I had found a way of showing the future women the joy, beauty, artistry of software development.