many more men than women work in large Silicon Valley companies. At Apple, for example, only 30% of the workforce is female, while at Intel only 25% are women. The United States is not a bad example when it comes to women in tech. In Europe, the current status quo looks no better. Less than 7% of jobs in the technology sector are held by women.* There are several reasons why jobs in this sector are filled primarily by men.
Why are so few women working in the tech industry?
The search for reasons begins with a leap into the past. One of the biggest problems begins with the establishment of gender stereotypes in society. Probably everyone has stumbled upon the prejudice that women are worse at mathematics. According to the OECD, this bias contributes to the fact that only one in 20 women decides to study the so-called MINT subjects (mathematics, computer science, natural sciences and technology). For men, however, it is one in five.
As a result, few women begin studying in one of these subject areas. Employers can therefore only rely on an already heavily male-dominated pool of qualified workers.
This result is the ultimate reason for the shortage of skilled female workers. According to a study by American Sociological Review Decision makers tend to hire people who match their cultural characteristics. For a group of young entrepreneurs who have founded a tech startup, it is more likely that the next person hired will not be an employee, but an employee.
Why does the tech sector need more women?
Studies have shown that a diverse leadership team in companies can lead to better innovation and higher financial performance than companies whose leadership teams are predominantly male. The more diverse a team is, the broader the company’s perspective becomes.
To bring about change, it needs to start at school. We need to promote the education of girls and women in the technology sector and overcome negative stereotypes. Female role models also play an important role here. Because it’s not just the Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos of this world who know about technology.
clockin, one of the most promising technology startups in Germany, is now trying to counteract this negative social development and, through close collaboration with leading German universities, specifically promotes the professional placement of women programmers.
Interview: For an espresso with a programmer
One of these programmers is Pia. He is 23 years old and studies business IT at WWU Münster. He is currently writing his thesis in collaboration with clockin in the web development sector. In this interview he tells us about his personal journey in the tech sector.
Does the low percentage of women bother you? Have you ever felt like you weren’t taken seriously?
No, so far it has never been a problem and I have not had bad experiences, on the contrary: when people hear that I study business IT, the feedback is usually very positive. Even among my fellow students I never had the feeling of not being taken seriously.
Hi Pia! When did you decide you wanted to work in the tech industry?
When it was time to graduate, I started thinking about what to do after school. By chance, a friend told me about an acquaintance who studied business IT and is very happy with her job in the IT sector. This was actually one of the first points of contact I ever had with the topic of computer science. At the time, no computer science courses were offered at my high school and my advanced courses had a language focus with English and Spanish.
Math wasn’t my thing for a long time either. I was more of a C or C in math in middle and junior high school. It wasn’t until I took some tutoring classes in middle school that something clicked and I developed an approach to the subject and enjoyed logical thinking. Because of my advanced courses, I had to take mathematics as a third subject in my GED, but in retrospect it turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to me.
Then I did a lot of research on studying business IT and read that the course is suitable for people who like to think logically, tackle complex questions and are good at mathematics. Since I think all these characteristics suit me quite well, I decided on the topic.
Hand on heart: how much truth is there in the cliché that only male nerds take part in computer science lessons?
As the name suggests, the course is made up of modules from the areas of economics and information technology. In the economics modules the gender share is almost balanced, but in the IT part women only make up around 10%. But the people I’ve met are all quite nice and relaxed.
You are already in the upper semester. Are you still satisfied with your study choice?
Yes, I am very happy with the choice. I’m less interested in the economics modules, but I think the computer science modules are even better. The content of the lessons is very theoretical, but there are also some interesting project seminars where we can gain practical experience in programming. In a seminar, for example, we should develop a concept on how to strengthen trade in the urban centers of Münster to combat the increasingly intense online trade.
Our group therefore jointly developed a concept to recognize local user behavior using small Bluetooth transmitters and thus send location-based marketing. It all took a lot of work and I spent many hours in front of the computer during the semester break, but it was definitely worth it! We have developed an app for both iOS and Android and an associated website.
What would you say is the greatest insight you gain from your studies?
[lacht] Probably the most important skill you learn as a developer is how to use Google correctly. And that Stack Overflow is your best friend. This is an online platform where software developers help each other with programming. Most of the time someone else has already had the same question, and if you’re lucky, you can copy the code from the answer and adapt it to your application.
So would you say that the contents of your studies don’t help you at all with actual programming?
Of course you can’t say it like that. Naturally I learned all the basics of computer programming, without which I would not have been able to take part in a project like the one just described. But no matter how well you know the programming language, you will always find yourself in situations when programming where the software simply doesn’t work as you would like. Then it is important not to give up. My experience is that no matter how much you think you can’t do something or that you can’t do something, you just have to keep trying until it finally works. So you basically teach yourself. The pride and happiness you feel when the application finally works as expected is incredibly motivating. Then you really feel like you can do anything!
How did the collaboration with clockin come about?
In March this year I was looking for a topic for my degree thesis. My wish was to write the thesis in the field of web development in collaboration with a company, because in this way I not only write a theoretical work, but I can also implement something practically. Due to the coronavirus crisis, the search for a cooperation company turned out to be much more difficult than expected. I have received rejection from most companies. Many were not in a situation where they had time to supervise the work.
Then by chance I spoke to Mathilde. She is an old school friend and is currently doing her marketing communications training at clockin. The collaboration with the startup finally happened thanks to his contact. After a few days and some conversations with the CEO Frederik and my contact and supervisor Florian (responsible for system development), we quickly clarified everything that was important and decided on a topic
It looks fantastic! What is the topic of your thesis?
I’m working on a better time display for users of the clockin app. To do this, I first developed a concept for how the user interface could be designed to be as intuitive as possible. In addition to simple time recording, additional information such as comparison between planned/actual hours, break times and a list of individual tasks of a project and their respective duration should be visible to the user. I am currently planning and putting my ideas into practice.
Are you satisfied with how your work went or were there any difficulties that prevented you from making any progress?
Not really, I really like programming. I spent last weekend almost exclusively on my laptop; I was really in the flow. It was somewhat comparable to reading a great book, being completely absorbed and no longer noticing anything around you. Some people might get jealous when they read how much fun a senior thesis can bring. [lacht]
Tell us how the collaboration works…
Collaboration is very simple. Remote working is common among programmers, so the lockdown hasn’t affected collaboration. Once a week I have scheduled a digital meeting with my supervisor where we clarify questions and discuss how to proceed.
And do you already have plans for what will happen to you in the future?
Next I would like to work in application development. What I like most about programming is that you always have the result directly in front of your eyes and can follow exactly how the overall result is put together step by step.