Women in IT

Peaksians’ views on women in IT

Interview with Gabrielle, Full Stack developer in Lyon

Who are you ? Where do you come from?

I have been a Full Stack developer at Peaks for a year and a half, working on a project for the client OVH. I joined Peaks after completing a 1-month training course at 3W Academy which I had started after completing a degree in mathematics/computer science.

In your opinion, what explains the disparity between women and men in this sector?

In my experience, women are more generally in functional, design and integration positions than technical ones.
Before, project managers were mainly women, now, the profession is becoming more mixed, men are also moving towards these professions, such as PO positions.
Perhaps this can be explained because we generally associate femininity with human relationships and masculinity with technical relationships. For me, this is confirmed in tech.
I know women who have gone to functional positions after years of development because they were looking for more connections or did not feel legitimate as a woman in their positions (especially in positions where they trained men).
This is of course not a generalization, it simply reflects my experiences.

Were there any women in your studies? What is the situation in your current professional environment?

There were very few women in my training and it’s the same thing with my client.

What I explained above is verified by this anecdote: during my “retraining” training, the CSS trainer was a woman, the JS trainer a man.
However, a new female developer has joined the OVH team. We are now 2 women and 2 men in our squad but overall at OVH, women remain in the minority and when you are in the minority, it is more difficult to feel legitimate...

What do you think are the advantages, if any, of being a woman in this industry?

Studies show that the more mixed a team is, the better the results. We therefore have every interest in moving towards this type of team to improve our performance.

Interview with Allan, Full Stack developer in Reims

Who are you ? Where do you come from?

Full Stack Java React Developer at Cristal Union in Reims, I started at Peaks last year after a DUT in networks and telecommunications, a professional license in web development and a master 2 in web and mobile development.

In your university course, were there any women?

Throughout my studies, women were very poorly represented.
I was able to start observing this disparity from my DUT in which there were around 40 of us and only 5 girls. This diploma made it possible in particular to become a network and telecom technician and to access fairly manual positions (installation of optical fiber, repair of copper telephone lines, installation of network equipment, etc.).
Arriving at the end of the DUT, the majority of them moved towards a bac +5 to become a networks and telecommunications engineer. To have kept certain contacts, I know that some currently hold pre-sales engineering positions, or network design positions.
Then, out of my class of 16 undergraduate students, there was only one woman. In my master's degree, focused on web development, there were 2 girls out of a class of 12.
Overall, over my 5 years of study, the percentage of women has never exceeded the famous 20%. What I would deduce from my experience is that in our professions, women must pursue long studies to claim a certain legitimacy.