Women in Tech: Take Your Career to the Next Level with Practical Advice and Inspiring Stories

by Tarah Wheeler

Choose comfort over fashion.

I heartily recommend Michael Reinhardt’s Inside the Tech Interview

First, relax and smile. Keep your voice calm, and take long, deep breaths throughout the process. You’ll be asked to write code on a whiteboard with no access to a computer, and this is often the pass or fail portion of the interview.

If you haven’t been through a whiteboard interview before and you’re preparing for an interview at your dream job, I highly encourage you to practice first. Get the books, find a tech interview coach, and do at least one or two sessions where you get some critique on your code and your responses to questions.

The Team Get-Together

Within a matter of ten to thirty minutes after getting out of the round of interviews, send an email to the people you interviewed with. Tell them you had a great time, you look forward to hearing from them, and you were grateful for the opportunity.

if you realize that the company you’re interviewing at will hold who and what you are against you, don’t work there. Go work somewhere else where people will treat you with respect.

This is why I do not pass along information on jobs from vendor and contracting agencies that will not disclose their client bill rate. I will not work for one, and I strongly encourage you to never do so, either.

“That’s a great place to start!”

Never, ever say yes to the first offer.

“That’s a great place to start!”

“That’s a great place to start! I understand that you cannot go outside the salary band, so let’s work on finding other ways to get your offer commensurate with my others, because I love this company and I really want to find a way to work here. What can you do in the way of stock options and telecommuting? If you can contractually add two days a week where I don’t have to fight Seattle traffic, we’re all winners!”

Anytime someone tries to convince you that you should take an “average” salary, turn the tables on them by forcing them either to say out loud that you’re average or to backtrack and offer you more.

The problems with tech culture tend to vary based on where you are in the world.

As a result, when applying for work, you have to pay close attention to diversity issues, how your future employer is going to treat you, and if their culture is worth fitting into.

but I know now that I am the only one who can define my potential.

Your skill set is the requirement for getting in the door, and the rest of your career is based on how you treat people and how you allow yourself to be treated.

it’s about what kind of person you are and how you treat others.

Instant messaging is a common tool in the tech workplace. Because so much tech work is now done in large rooms full of cubicles where quiet is needed and never supplied (because some wildly enthusiastic extrovert decided that developers needed to “cooperate” more and “synergize”) and where no one can get the peace and solitude they need for doing hard brain work,

and you will be personally and professionally judged on how you write.

Being responsible with your communication is hugely important for a job like development,

“For those three reasons with their supporting facts, you should give my cause money, change how you feel about this political issue, invest in my company, give me flex time and let me telecommute, or do whatever else I am asking.

Learn to actually ask for what you want.

humor is the universal solution to a bored audience.

Finally, you’re a real public speaker when you can change minds with your words.

If I could do that at a place where I was likely to be the stupidest person in the room every day, even better. It sounded really challenging and sort of scary, so I said, “Let’s do it.”

it was challenging in the best possible way.

and every time something interesting, challenging, and a little (or very) scary came around, I volunteered. I wanted to build things. I wanted

my brain kicked into problem-solving and brainstorming mode.

And even more importantly, you could judge software developers by the quality of their code versus their degrees or which schools they attended.

I remembered how transformative education could be. And I wanted to do something about it.

I’m going to talk about three things in this chapter: being genuine, being findable, and being bold.

Don’t Hide Who You Are

You’re saving yourself a lot of work by just being you.

Recruiters are much lazier than stalkers, and you need to make their job as easy as possible for them.

Get a professional headshot done.

If You Say You Can Do It, Show You Can Do It

I had better be able to see samples or a portfolio on the Internet somewhere.

BE BOLD

So when I give you the advice to be bold, what I mean by that is simply to be honest about your actual achievements.

I mentioned in the Applying for Jobs and the Tech Résumé chapter, you need to list every single thing that you’ve ever done of note in the workplace and every skill you’ve ever achieved on your résumé. And again, keep updating your résumé every month.

All hackers operate on a spectrum of choice.

We should view hacking as synonymous to innovative thinking and see hackers as I see them: creative, brilliant, daring, and bright minds that stand up for a cause. Anyone can be a hacker and make a difference in the world. This is the story I wanted to share with you.

“Never get involved in a set of fast-loop replies with someone on the Internet. It teaches them that they’re important and you have nothing better to do with your time.”

“You don’t have time to be a professional at everything. Stop doing everyone else’s job and do yours.”

Let’s plug the holes in the pipe with solid advice, support, and mentorship to solve this problem in reality.

Be Specific and Commit Long Term

“Ask for money, get advice. Ask for advice, get money.”

Make sure you follow up with mentors to let them know how things went, thank them profusely for their advice, and stay in touch from time to time.