Introduction
I encountered throughout my carrier an amazing amount of talented women in the tech industry. I did interviews, collaborations, peer-coding sessions and I am always amazed by the results!
However, the percentage of women in the tech industry is very slim due to several reason that we will explain later in details in this article.
But first let’s go through some numbers!
How many women are in tech industry?
Let’s take the software developers as an example. In 2022 only 5% of software developers are women and we can notice the huge difference in percentage comparing to man which estimated around 92%.
Source: Software developer gender distribution worldwide as of 2022 https://www.statista.com/
After doing more research I realized the hiring of women technologist shows a progress from 29% to almost 32% in the last couple of years. This progress can be explained by several factors like the pandemic, the easy access to job by working remotely and the tech industry needed to enlarge their workforce but it is still a small percentage.
Source: Positive trend in hiring women https://anitab.org/
Is there a salary gap between male and female in tech industry:
In the US for example 25% of the employed software engineer are women. The current average salary for software engineers is $86,157, with female software engineers making 0.93 cents per every dollar earned by male coworkers.
To clarify the salary gap let’s take Google as an example:
Average salary: $115,000
Average men’s salary: $120,000
Average women’s salary: $109,000
Reasons of the gender gap in tech industry
Companies should give more chances to women who like to change their carrier or start a new challenge. This can lead to reducing the gap between different genders in the tech industry.
Let’s take the IT industry for instance. I am part of a team that consist of 11 male and 1 female. Since the last 5 years we hired only once another female programmer and after a year she decide to go back to her original carrier. Not because she’s not competent enough to deliver results, but the communication and the tasks where not allowing her to do a progress in her expertise.
In the tech world, we often talk using fancy technical words, assuming everyone knows them. But in reality, starters will mostly learn from online courses which is not enough to catch everything.
There is a lot to be improved but in the other hand we have to accept the way how things are done in the tech industry since everything is constantly changing and not everyone could keep up but let’s manifest a wish to motivate more women to join and close the gender gap.
“There are many wonderful things that will never be done if you don’t do them.” — Charles Gill
One another reason for the gender gap in tech world is the constant update and learning. It’s definitely mandatory to keep a fresh knowledge with the latest trend of the industry. Therefore, not everyone is able to keep an eye on every detail of those changes. That’s why they relate tech to being smart.
What are the basic skills to be part of tech job?
There is many jobs in tech are simple. An employee is receiving input and excepting to deliver an output. In a certain fields advanced concepts of engineering are not required. Learning while doing the job is also a way to deliver an output.
Keeping in mind that basic technical knowledge is necessary for most tech jobs because it’s excepted in this era to know how to use this essential services since nowadays our lives revolve around them like messaging, calendars, and email . Alongside technical know-how, soft skills such as motivation, team player, continuous learning, and clear communication are also crucial.
Source: Google.com
Those skills are not depending on a gender and should be considered as the first step to get into a tech job. Later you will have to be followed up with performance reviews to keep up with your progress in your carrier.
Conclusion
While the tech industry boasts talented women, their representation remains low, with persistent gaps in hiring and salary. To address this, companies must offer more opportunities and challenge biases that hinder women’s progress. Success in tech depends on fostering an inclusive environment where both technical skills and soft skills are valued, regardless of gender.