10 Women Working in IT and Data Share their Experience | by Kamila Hamalcikova | Mar, 2023

Is the IT industry still considered as men-dominated field, or are the times slowly changing? We asked female IT professionals from different countries in Europe about their experience in IT or data-related jobs.

Why does it matter if the people working in the tech industry are more often women or men? Today tech recruiters are often trying to ensure diversity in IT and data teams to make sure that a team of 10 software engineers or data analysts won’t come up with the same 10 solutions to a problem.

Despite these efforts, according to a study from McKinsey in Europe only 22% of all tech roles are held by women. That does not come as so big a surprise considering the low enrollment of women into STEM study fields in universities. Furthermore, based on data from Eurostat, women’s graduation rate in STEM disciplines during higher education is declining.

Therefore I have asked 10 female IT professionals with various experiences in the IT field to share some of their highlights as well as their struggles in the tech industry to help young girls to decide if they want to try a career in IT or not. (More details about the women interviewed can be found at the end of this article.)

Question 1: What do you consider as the biggest advantage(s) for a woman working in the IT/data field or in general for anyone working in this field?

Maria: I’ll answer this question in terms of the person working in IT/data. Because I think the advantages are here regardless of gender. IT or data-related jobs are in very high demand. This gives you the opportunity to choose, and for me that also means power.

You’re not desperate to get anything, you can choose what better suits you. Some other advantages are the ability to work from anywhere because you literally just need a laptop and wi-fi. The high pay rates are another consequence of the current high demand for these roles. Also, I really like the challenge and the possibility to solve something, but I would say that’s more personal than anything else.

Aya: The advantages are various job opportunities, decent salaries, and working in a dynamic environment where you always learn new things. It’s also quite flexible and you can switch fields rather easily.

Bianca: The biggest advantages are continuous learning and self-development, the environment, the salary, and other benefits.

Even though Maria, a Data Engineer from Portugal, Aya, a Software Engineer from Morocco working in France, and Bianca, a Software Tester from Romania, stated as one of the advantages a high salary in tech, it is true only partially.

Salaries in IT and data are in general higher than most other sectors, yet the gender pay gap based on economic activity is still the second highest in the ICT sector in the EU. Data from Eurostat shows that in 2020 unadjusted gender pay gap was 13%, but in financial and insurance services it was 26.4%, while Information and Communication (ICT) followed with a 19.4% of the gender pay gap.

Swati: In general; work from home, flexible working time (if permitted by a project), and not much physical effort needed.

Nadia: There are a lot of advantages; high salaries, opportunities for growth, flexible schedule: I don‘t have to start my day at 9 or end at 6. I have a relatively low amount of meetings every week, and I can plan the rest of my schedule as I prefer.

Also, the possibility to move between countries: I moved to France last year and I do not speak French, but it does not interfere with my work as everything is discussed in English. And the nature of work itself is of course also country-independent.

As mentioned by Swati Bhoi and Nadia Chirkova, who are both working in France, even though they come from different countries of origin (India and Russia, respectively), the possibility of a remote job is one of the perks, especially in IT. According to the analysis of Coresignal, IT & Services had the highest share of remote job postings in Europe in 2021 with 22.1% of remote opportunities offered by the IT sector.

Darya: Community and network. Still being underrepresented in IT, women created a lot of support groups where you can meet like-minded people. There are events dedicated to women (like HerHackathon) or special professional programs for women (like BreakLine). The community is supportive and welcoming.

Sylvie: The possibility to be a freelancer and manage my own working hours as I want. Also, good salaries in the field enable us to gain independence. It seems to me that being a woman is an advantage, because of need for diverse teams helps women find a job more easily and women are less labeled as a geek behind PC.

Andreea: In general, being able to work on a very innovative domain begins to have more and more importance in the development of technology and society overall.

Catherine: For me, it is a female quota and an opportunity to learn and grow.

Although some companies make an effort to hire more women for certain tech roles, women’s representation in tech’s fastest-growing roles is still very low.

While 46% of European UX designers are women, only 19 percent of people in the software engineering and architecture functions overall are women. Moreover, only 10 percent of the cloud solution architects and 13 percent of the Python developers are women, and these positions are in the highest demand in the job market.

Tereza: The biggest advantage for a female working in the IT/data field, or for anyone working in this field, is the creative nature of the job. There is a great variety of projects and challenges that provide the opportunity to continuously learn and grow. Additionally, the nature of the work allows for a great deal of flexibility in terms of both time and space.

With just a laptop, internet connection, and maybe a good cup of coffee, I can work from anywhere, whether it’s at home, in a coffee shop, or at our beautiful office in the city center of Prague. This flexibility enables me to pursue my career and still be able to take care of my two sons (accompany the older one to judo classes or pick up the younger one from kindergarten after lunch on Friday).

What I really enjoy about working in IT is the support and community available for women. There are numerous initiatives aimed at supporting and empowering women in this industry (like Czechitas or PyLadies), and the community is strong and welcoming.

Question 2: What do you consider as the biggest challenge(s) for a female working in the IT/data field or in general for anyone working in this field?

Catherine: I think men are more listened to in the IT or data world.

Swati: From my viewpoint as a woman, it can be a risk of not being taken seriously when you propose a solution, sometimes a lower salary, and also a need to be way more convincing to justify your worth.

Aya: I think one of the biggest challenges is having to break the stereotype that it’s a man’s field and that we’re not as competent or as smart. This pushes us to double the effort at work for our skills to be acknowledged.

Maria: A common challenge is a need to constantly keep learning. You have to put a lot of effort into studying and developing your programming/analytical skills. But what they don’t tell you is that you need to keep doing this if you want to be successful. There’s always something new, something better and you must keep up with the speed of IT and its market.

Speaking as a woman, more than I would like to admit, I’ve felt I had to prove myself double or triple to male clients to be taken seriously, compared to my male colleagues. More than once their questions were directed to the men on the call, even when I was leading the discussion. This also triggers the “am I good enough?”, “am I just filling a quota?” and you start doubting yourself and feeling like an imposter.

The shared concern among interviewed women, that female workers in IT have to prove themselves more in comparison to their male counterparts, might be also one of the reasons why 69.2% of all tech layoffs in 2022 were women. The figure comes from research by the WomenTech Network.

Bianca: The biggest challenges are the rapidly changing technologies and the fact that clients’ requirements are vague and often incomplete.

Sylvie: I don’t think there is anything special for women in IT, apart from my period which annoys me once a month. I feel respected among my peers.

Andreea: In general, keeping updated with the advancement of the technology, as well as showing the importance of data literacy and data democracy to different actors, when the data infrastructure is not in place.

Darya: This is definitely the imposter syndrome. I met a lot of amazing women with various backgrounds, experiences, and professional levels, and all of them from time to time suffer from the feeling of ‘not being good enough’. The IT field is vast and fast-changing, so it’s impossible to know everything.

Also, this field is highly competitive, so people compare themselves with others. All this creates an illusion of being not good at programming, data, public speaking, etc. There is always someone who does it better. So in my mind, success often depends on a person, if they can be brave and start to compare themselves only with themselves in the past.

While imposter syndrome mentioned by Darya Petrashka, a Belarussian Data Scientist currently residing in Poland, is something quite common in IT and data due to the rapidly changing technology landscape, women tend to struggle with this syndrome more.

As the website womenintech.co.uk/ points out: “Women often have feelings that they don’t belong and aren’t as highly skilled as their male counterparts. Similarly, employees from a minority background might experience similar feelings for the same reasons.”

Nadia: The biggest challenge is keeping your knowledge up-to-date: the frameworks you use may change quite frequently, or new tools appear. But, there are usually a lot of tutorials or blogs written in a friendly and comprehensive way, so it is not that hard. In my field, this is more intense because, in addition to tools, you have to keep up with scientific literature. New articles relevant to my work are published literally every day. But this is also fun, as reading all those articles is exciting and inspiring.

Another challenge is a low level of physical activity and a lot of screen time, which have a really negative impact on health. You have to compensate for that with other activities like walking or sport. I personally cannot look at the screen without special blue light-blocking glasses, as my eyes get tired very quickly.

Tereza: I feel that a lot has changed lately, but one of the biggest challenges that still persists is overcoming stereotypes in our minds. When I was considering my options for college, I initially leaned towards more traditional majors for women, such as languages and economics. I did not consider a career in IT.

However, after discovering organizations focused on educating women in IT I realized that my true passion lies in programming and data analytics. To wrap things up — keep an open mind to all the possibilities and never stop learning and discovering.

IT or Data professionals who were interviewed:

Catherine, a BI Analyst with 1–2 years of experience (exp.), from UK working remotely for clients in London, UK

Bianca, a Software Tester with 2 years of exp., Romanian working in Iasi, Romania

Sylvie, Data Analyst and Teacher (Freelancer), 7 years of exp., French working in Grenoble, France

Swati, IT Consultant with 4+ years of exp., from India, working in Paris, France

Darya, Data Scientist, with 3.5 years of exp., from Belarus, working remotely in Poland

Tereza, Data Analytics Manager, 8 years of exp., Czech working in Prague, Czech Republic

Andreea, Customer-Facing Data Scientist, 6 years of exp., French working in Lyon, France

Maria, Data Engineer with 2 years of exp., from Portugal working remotely for clients in London, UK and Prague, Czech Republic

Nadia, Research Scientist in Computer Science, 5 years of exp., Russian working in Grenoble, France

Aya, Software Engineer with 1 year of exp., from Morocco working in Grenoble, France

Disclaimer: Certain names were changed at the request of the interviewed women.