ORACLENERD: Random Things: Volume #9

Random Things: Volume #9

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Who's worked with a female developer?

How to Scare-off Female Candidates (from Josh Perry)
At a company I once worked at, several of the developers would cycle into work each day. It was an exercise/eco-friendly thing, I guess. One of the more hard-core cyclists would often wear a full-body Lycra cycling suit for his ride... and would usually not bother changing out of it. He'd just hang out all day, wearing his spandex suit, and writing his code. Being a heavily male-dominated office (like most in the IT world), he could get away with this.

When it came to hiring a new developer, we found that rarest of gems: a qualified female candidate. Being female, she was pretty much guaranteed a job offer as soon as she sent in her résumé, but they brought her in for an interview just in case.

While she was in the interview, one of the interviewers casually joked, "so, how do you feel about working with men wearing full-body spandex suits?"

An uncomfortable silence ensued. They offered her the job. She declined.
The Daily WTF

Friends and I joke about this all the time. Working in IT, we tend to notice women, especially those in our profession, a lot more. Why? Because we're dorks/geeks/nerds?

I wish there were more women in our field. My team is currently made up of 4 women and 2 men. How cool is that? I even once worked with Doctor Colonel Irina Spalko...or was it Colonel Doctor? Eh...who cares?

OpenWorld
Just a little over 2 weeks away...I hope you're ready. With the announcement of Exadata 2 and 11gR2 in the past month; SQL Developer today...what will they unveil at OpenWorld? It has to be big right?

There are still ways to get a free pass if you are so inclined. A week ago, the Oracle OpenWorld blog announced that they were accepting Video entries:

We're starting a video challenge on the blog today where every entry will receive the same registration discount that was open during the Early Bird registration period.

Just make a 30-second video describing why you want to go to Oracle OpenWorld 2009.Use any camera you have close at hand—Webcam, cell phone, handheld. Give us your best, most creative, most innovative pitch, and post your video as a response to ours above on the Oracle Web Video YouTube channel before September 30.

OK, maybe it's not completely free...but it's better than paying full price.

SQL Developer: 2.1 Early Adopter 1
A new, early adopter release has been...umm...released.

Labels: oradb, random

¶ 9/24/2009 08:00:00 PM

Comments:

Are female developers really that rare? I know tons of them... Also, I'm not sure all the hiring managers know that a female developer is guaranteed an offer the moment she sends the resume - from my experience me and my sisters are getting rejections just as often as my male friends...

Well, maybe I didn't get the joke. Feminists are known for having no sense of humor :)

# posted by

Chen Shapira : September 24, 2009 at 8:41 PM

No, they (hiring managers) don't know of course.

Many (most) of my friends are women, I tend to get along better with them. Why? I'm not sure, I just do.

Ultimately I want to work with the best and the brightest be they male or female.

# posted by

oraclenerd : September 24, 2009 at 8:45 PM

[Ch/Gwen]: Are female developers really that rare?

I don't think it's an area that is overly endowed with women; I certainly didn't start off my working career as a developer (and if you had asked me 10 years ago if I wanted to be a developer, I'd have said "No way!"...).

I know lots of women in IT, but they tend to be on the analyst or the project manager side of things. As I sit here, in amongst the rest of my team of 20 or so developers, there's me and one other woman, and I'm not entirely sure her job is strictly "developer".

It's never bothered me, though, and I dislike being invited to all the "Women in IT" sessions they put on in my current company... I don't think one way or the other that the job itself puts women off, so I don't see the need to try and encourage more women into the area, any more than I would try to discourage men from entering the area!

# posted by

Boneist : September 25, 2009 at 3:59 AM

Through the years, I've been in many medium or large business programming shops that have a maybe 30% proportion of women. Real hard-core places I've been in, not so much. Of course, my experience may be skewed, but I think the makeup has been more of a reflection of who was escaping which war or economic calamity than any inherent attribute. So, there are simply more places where someone can [come to the US|get laid off from some other type of job], go to a tech school and get a dev job. The hard-core places tended to reflect those who chose the programming life, not necessarily with a degree - at least in the '80s, maybe now it might be more a reflection of school demographics.

Then again, I don't count flashy pink pony sparkles Frontpage users as developers, regardless of self-styled monikers.

I did work at one all-male place that was strongly biased against women, and they asked me about one lady I had worked with previously. I had to be compulsively honest and say I thought she would be an excellent programmer for what they were doing, and trouble. She wound up doing better than that, anyways.

Sometimes it ain't who you know, but what you know about who you know.

# posted by

Joel Garry : September 25, 2009 at 7:05 PM