The Road to More Female Programmers
Software coding has been getting a lot of positive attention lately. New programs that encourage children to learn coding has been a popular topic of conversation. Another topic that is becoming more frequently talked about is coding coaching for women.
Women in IT and why there is a gender gap in terms of positions filled and pay given has been widely discussed through the years. The industry has become very cognizant of these issues lately, and attempts are being made to encourage women to grow into leadership positions and take a more active role in the STEM world.
Some of the key resolutions to fixing the gender gap include more training and increased exposure for women in IT. To this effect, internal training alone is insufficient. External training, either sponsored by the organization or proactively taken by the individual, gives an added edge to not only fulfilling the training goals but also the much needed exposure to other women in the industry.
Code Fellows was one of the first to offer women-only programming classes for Ruby on Rails. It went a step further and stated that the $10,000 training fee would be reimbursed if the trainee did not land a job. Code Fellows also makes claims about the earning potential for trainees once the training is complete. This is a positive indicator of the market demand for programmers and the openness of organizations to hire women after attending these training sessions.
A few other training groups have joined the list of those providing coding classes for women, and interestingly most of them are based out of Seattle. Seattle is leading the drive to empower women in IT and is hosting a women's geek conference in October 2014.
Whether women code better than men is a topic that is periodically floated around. This is difficult to generalize and does not help to promote a balanced workplace that provides equal opportunities to both groups. These discussions no doubt will continue, but at the end of the day it is nice to see an increasing number of programs that empower women to travel down the road to programming.
