In this section I will describe the experiences I have had within my career, the difficulties that I have faced as a woman, and how my journey has become easier and more enjoyable since I started working with XP. I will cover the following topics: Non-XP Workplaces, Imposter Syndrome and its Effects, and finally The Welcoming Environment of XP.
2.1 Non-XP Workplaces
I have 17 years’ experience in the profession, but due to a four-year career break in the middle, it is twenty-one years since I started my first software engineering job. At that point I had just graduated from an MSc in Computation, which was a “conversion” course - designed to transform people from diverse academic backgrounds into computer graduates. My previous degree was a BSc in Mathematics and Philosophy. It was 1995, and Agile and XP were barely heard of.
During the course of the MSc, we were told that the main careers available to us would fall broadly into two categories: Analysis, and Development. The course was a popular course, and split quite evenly between men and women. It was noticeable that the women tended to be drawn towards analysis, with the men being attracted to coding. But personally I was more excited by code than anything else. The object-oriented C++ we were taught was very attractive to my logical, analytical, puzzle-loving brain.
It didn’t surprise me to find that I was the only female developer in my first job. I was used to being in a minority – as a mathematics undergraduate, myself and my fellow female students represented approximately 10 % of the total population. I was also used to an accompanying feeling of inferiority: In this case it seemed to me that my male colleagues knew everything there was to know about computing, whereas I had walked straight into the job after a year’s study.
I suppose it was at this point that a thought took root in my brain, which I have never quite lost: These men know so much more than me. I’m only a girl, I’ll never catch up. This is a common experience for women in our industry, and in fact for anyone operating in an environment as a member of a group which suffers from an adverse stereotype. That is to say, assumptions are often made about women in technology which suggest they will not have the skills they need to succeed. The general term for the way people respond to this is Stereotype Threat, and it is discussed at more length in section three of this paper.
It’s worth stating at this point that I have never seriously believed that men have a superior intellect to women. But the inner voice which tells me I’m inferior is one that sneaks in without my permission. It curls up without me noticing, and can stay there for quite a while before I spot it and shoo it away (I now know that this voice has a name: It is called unconscious bias, and I will describe this more in section three).
Between them, my first three jobs in software engineering lasted twelve years (four years, then one, then seven). There was one feature that all these experiences had in common: I found it hard to ask questions. When I was struggling with a piece of work, my approach tended to go like this:
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Try to work it out on my own. I was proud, and hated the thought that people might think I was ignorant – particularly if they thought I was ignorant because I was a woman.
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Stall. If I was stuck and too proud or scared to ask for help, I would simply cease work. Daily stand-ups were unheard of, we worked alone, and we were given large tasks which could last several weeks, so it was possible to do very little work for some time before anyone noticed.
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Ask for help. There were three problems with this approach:
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It meant admitting that I didn’t know what I was doing.
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It meant interrupting someone. Everyone always seemed to be very busy.
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When people explained things, this involved me looking over their shoulder while they whizzed through complex concepts at break-neck pace. I would sometimes end up none the wiser.
2.2 Imposter Syndrome and its Effects
For those first ten years, I suffered significantly from self-doubt. I rose to the position of senior developer very quickly, and always got good feedback. I loved writing code and took it seriously. By all objective standards, I was in fact good at my job. But I still believed that most of my colleagues knew more than me.
I frequently suffered from imposter syndrome, i.e. the idea that I was not good enough for the role, and would be “found out”. This is not unique to women – men can suffer from it too – and not all women have it. But it tends to be common amongst women in IT, and it’s not difficult to see why: If you’re part of a minority, you feel like you don’t fit in. Like you’re an imposter.
After those first twelve years as a software engineer, I was made redundant. At that point I had been with the same company for seven years, but my interest in the job had waned significantly. There were several factors at play:
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I had several times asked to work on the more interesting and complex software, but had repeatedly been denied this opportunity.
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I had started working a four-day week. My best guess as to why I might have been denied the opportunity to work on the more interesting software, based on conversations with other colleagues, was that because I worked reduced hours, I wasn’t taken seriously. People working on the really exciting stuff were expected to work evenings and weekends, and of course five days during the week.
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I wasn’t giving the job my full attention. It was a vicious circle: I wasn’t given interesting work to do, so I focused more on hobbies and family, which meant that I was taken less seriously, which resulted in me paying less attention to my job.
So, when I was offered voluntary redundancy, the decision to leave was not hard. In my exit interview, it was suggested I might try being a social worker! This did not appeal to me.
2.3 The Welcoming Environment of XP
By the time I was made redundant, I was very bored of my job. My skills had stagnated so much, that as well as having very little enthusiasm for finding another software role, I doubted my ability to find anything new. As a result of these factors, I left the career altogether.
After four years out of the industry, I realised that I was more suited to software development than anything else. I decided to return. I was honest about my out-of-date skills, and got myself a job with a company that specialised in taking on graduates and training them up. It was a revelation. Because of the emphasis on training, employees were not only encouraged, they were exhorted to ask as many questions as possible. There was no problem with people being too busy to help. Everyone in the company was expected to both ask and answer as many questions as possible.
The teams I worked with had daily stand-ups, where each team member would report on what they were doing and flag up any problems. The company’s design methodology was largely waterfall, but the cultures of communication and collaboration were filtering through from XP working practices in other parts of the industry. This included regular and in-depth code reviews, and an introduction to the concept of clean code.
All of this helped to counter the problems I had experienced before, in the following ways:
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If I got stuck, I knew that someone would be eager to help me.
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Daily stand-ups meant that there was nowhere for me to hide. If I had problems, I had to admit them. This was liberating.
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My code was regularly reviewed in depth – so that I was always getting feedback.
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The emphasis on clean code meant that I and my peers were focused on making our code accessible to each other.
I was now back in the career and enjoying myself enormously. The idea that it was OK to ask questions was exhilarating. It also helped that I had those twelve years of experience behind me, so I no longer felt like everybody else was more experienced than me.
I deliberately made coding my hobby, and got involved in events run by organisations like XP Manchester [3]. This meant that I was learning about such practices as TDD and pair programming. This excited me, and I was able to move to a more XP-focused company. My progress at this point accelerated rapidly. It wasn’t long before I gained the confidence to become a contractor, at which point I moved between several companies on various contracts, and experienced several different implementations of XP.
My confidence increased, but when I felt the old insecurities creeping back in, I decided to approach specific colleagues and ask them to act as sponsors or mentors on my behalf. I also gained the security to discuss the value of positive feedback with my line manager. I have learnt over time that, because of the various insecurities I face as a minority within this profession, I benefit enormously from explicit encouragement. I believe that there is level of openness and communication implicit within XP that has given me the strength to ask for this kind of support.