Changing codes
More women emerge in coding industry as companies upskill staff to code.
THOUGH tech continues to be known as a male-dominated industry, female representation in the Malaysian scene shows signs of improving, says Women Who Code’s (WWC) Kuala Lumpur chapter.
Chee Yim Goh, one of WWCKL’s directors and founders, said the sea change was building up momentum as companies started to upskill their staff, which gave a chance to women already in the company to get the training needed to take on more technical roles.
“It says a lot about the company that’s willing to train up their people. Normally if the company doesn’t upskill, they have to hire from outside and won’t see that many women applicants,” she said.
A LinkedIn report – “A Snapshot of Progress Among Women in the Workforce” – found that STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) jobs were one of the fields seeing growth in female representation. Despite that, women still made up less than 20% of software development professionals.
Chee said the process would take time, as even in her team she was the only woman among 25 computer engineers.
She added that there were more women in the less technical departments like testers, though they were being trained to code and could eventually be absorbed into the engineering teams.
Asked if having a male majority workforce resulted in antagonism against women, or discouraged women from entering the field, Chee said she had not experienced such discrimination.
“But statistically, without women role models, it would perpetuate the rift, with not many women wanting to enter the industry,” she admitted.
Fellow WWCKL director, Jecelyn Yeen, shared the sentiment that she had personally not faced discrimination from the men on her team.
However since founding WWCKL and hearing stories from other women in the industry, she realised that female representation was very much lacking in the field and could lead to unfair situations for some.
“It’s a glass ceiling you don’t realise is there, since you’ve been facing these challenges since the beginning,” she said, during a recent forum organised by WWCKL in conjunction with International Women’s Day.
She warned that gender discrimination was not always the cause of issues in the workplace, adding that women should observe the situation a bit before calling out a colleague or superior on the issue.
“There was this manager who always gave me a hard time and I thought he had it in just for me. I asked around and found out he’s a difficult person and that everyone hated him,” she recalled, drawing a round of laughter from the 40-plus attendees.
WWC is a global non-profit that started in San Francisco, dedicated to inspiring women to excel in technology careers. The Malaysian chapter – Women Who Code KL – was established in 2014.
The KL chapter has around 1,700 followers on Facebook and around 450 members on MeetUp, where they organise events to help train those interested in learning coding or networking with fellow members of the industry.
Managing the WWCKL board, Chee noted opportunities for women coders had improved tremendously since they first founded the chapter.
“We used to at most get grants for coding courses, but now companies – especially American ones – are providing scholarships and funding specifically for women to travel and attend overseas programmes and congresses,” she said.
Chee encouraged women to seize such offers, saying with such opportunities presenting themselves, it was about time women affected the change they wanted to see.