Once upon a time in Hollywood, when a female coder was all but unheard of, I was working in promotions at LA Weekly. Part of my job was to generate excitement for the then newly launched website. At the time social networking was not mainstream. In fact, some considered it the root of all evil (some may now argue they were right…) Prior to starting at LA Weekly I had been fired from a job for being on MySpace. They didn’t understand or appreciate my obsession. LA Weekly was much more forward-thinking than my previous employer. They happily embraced my idea to be among the first businesses to reach their target audience through social networking. MySpace proved to be a very successful promotional tool. Soon the Weekly had friends in the thousands. We were able to promote local events as well as the website.
My MySpace Mania
MySpace, and my afore-mentioned obsession, also proved to be a surprising segue for me into the world of web development. Back in the day, you could override the MySpace code and design your own pages. I found that I enjoyed doing that far more than snooping on other people’s pages. I loved using code to change colors, add images and even change text. Also I loved that I felt a little like a hacker. This was especially true when a friend of mine taught me how to hack in to pages set to private so we could spy on old boyfriends…
As much as I loved event & promotional marketing, I was really finding a passion for coding. Around this time a friend of mine told me about a two year program at UCLA where I could learn web design and development. Why not put these new skills to *good* use instead of just snooping? The university campus was just a 5 minute walk from my house at that time. So, I drove there to check it out. Nobody walks in LA. (haha) Two years later I graduated from what proved to be a challenging program that taught me a lot. Two months after that I had my first job as Webmaster for Joico hair products.
Since then I have never gone for very long without work as there is always plenty to go around. Even if I randomly quit a job I knew I could have another one within a week or so. Where the marketing job market was saturated and viciously competitive, internet jobs were plentiful. In fact, companies found it hard to find people to fill all of the roles available. Far from backstabbing their colleagues, most people in tech were/are always collaborative. Always willing to share ideas or help you solve a coding problem.
Woman Coders are In Demand
And the woman thing? I can honestly tell you that I have never felt that I was paid less than a man for the same job. While I will admit that I have always been able to speak up for myself in a way that most men do (and many women do not) during the hiring process and that may have helped, most tech jobs pay based on ability and not sex, gender or age. These days web developers have to take tests and/or provide code samples from previous projects. It truly is the best person for the job in most cases. If anything, women have a bit of an edge over men because the tech departments are desperate to have more women on their team. Even now, 10 years since my first tech job, I’m usually one of the only girls.
To all my friends out there with kids who are starting to think about their careers, and even to my friends who are thinking of mid-life career changes, I would highly recommend the tech industry. Trust me, it’s not the boring math you might imagine. It’s a lot more creative. Take it from a highly creative woman who hated math in school.
Added bonus: As cool as I thought I was as an event planner, I have heard from far more guys that they think female coders are way hotter.
