We talked to PRPL's female developers about their journeys and the role of women in tech.

My name is Sherise Rogers. I am a product developer here at PRPL. I create websites, and I’m starting to create apps and app interfaces, but basically I code. I create things on the web.

Hi! I’m Jessica Stewart. I am also a product developer here at PRPL. My primary expertise is as a WordPress developer, which I have been doing for the last seven years.

Well, for me it was a mixture of experiences that I had when I was a kid. When I was younger, I did community service for this magazine that we had on the island, the Virgin Islands, where I’m from. I was tasked with helping create this comic — the whole process was pretty amazing to me. They had this guy come who did the sketch, and I got to watch the whole process. I asked him how the sketch goes from being on paper to being in a digital publication, so he showed me. I watched him sketch, scan, and then trace his artwork onto the computer. It was so cool! I knew from that moment that I was a computer geek, and I went from there. 

My journey was totally by accident. I went to school for video game development because well, I loved playing video games. I thought that because I loved playing video games, then I’d love making them too, but as I was sitting there in my cap and gown with my degree I realized: “I’ve made a terrible mistake.” Luckily the semester before I graduated with that degree, I had gotten a recommendation for a web development job through a friend who was leaving that position. I told him, “Yeah! I totally know how to do that!” but I didn’t, it was a complete lie. So I got that position solely based on charm and hope. Once I was there and faking my way through it, I realized how immediately gratifying it [web development] can be, and it’s just been a love story ever since. 

This is probably going to be the hardest question to answer. In my opinion, being a woman in development is sort of like being a unicorn. I mean you see it, but you don’t see it very often. Sometimes it can just be lonely as a woman, not often seeing another woman doing it or being as passionate about code. I also think there’s this gender expectancy of men being more suited for this industry. It’s more common for men to be represented as the “techy” person or the “smart” person working on these intricate things. Though the positive to that is that we are unicorns, we can do this, it is achievable, and to be a woman in this field makes me proud. 

And when it is in the media, the geeky woman is usually very sexualized. She might be the subject of a romance in a supporting role, and it’s not a case of her being independent and doing her own thing.

Yeah - there’s this idea that women don’t do this job because it’s not beautiful or glamorous. That it’s not feminine. And although it’s 2019, I think a lot of those outdated idealisms still stick to this industry. We just need more representation. 

I think that there’s definitely been a shift. I mean, even when I graduated in my program: which was Digital Media, specifically Video Game Development and Computer Science- it was sort of interesting for me to see that in the Computer Science major that the ratio of women to men was greater than in the Video Game Development program. I have heard that since graduating that ratio has drastically improved. I don’t think the ratio is quite 50/50 for Digital Media, but it’s getting there. You and I probably got into our careers just ahead of that curve where more women realized it was a cool thing to get behind a computer and like, live there, rather than just being a face. A lot of women have careers that are faces of things. You’re in front of the client, you’re in front of the board...

Yes, exactly! Women are traditionally nurturers; they’re normally viewed as the people who take care of things. People don’t think “Oh, this lady is creating my website and sending stuff to the server and other things that I don’t understand.” They think we’re answering the phones. That view of us being behind the scenes isn’t mainstream yet. 

This is a catch-22 for me, personally. I know that from childhood, I’ve always been a tomboy. So, I sort of just melted into this type of role. I actually think I’ve gotten more feminine as time has gone on. In my experience, I don’t think femininity is completely lost, but you don’t inherently have a way to express that with anyone else who would understand because you’re usually the only woman. 

I feel that way, too. Usually anywhere that I’ve worked on a development team, I have been the only female. I feel like femininity is lost a little bit, but it’s because you have to have this strong outer appearance of professionalism.

Yeah, I don’t know if I would come in Legally Blonde, hair pinned up and covered in pink: not that that’s my style anyway. Since I want to be respected, I wouldn’t want to appear as though I’m sexualizing myself. I guess that mindset is a symptom of the problem.

I’ve had a few experiences that come to mind, but overall what I’ve noticed is that if leadership is primarily composed of men, in any industry, it can be really difficult to break into that group. It’s harder to get promoted. It might be because they don’t respect you, or maybe it’s because they don’t want it to appear to other colleagues as if they are coming on to you. They’ll deliberately pass you over or not take your opinions into account, which is something I’ve had happen in the past. I’ve pitched an idea when I was working with a male colleague in a management role at a past job, only to find out that he had taken the credit entirely for it. That company had a leadership team completely comprised of men. Sometimes the only way to handle those situations is to just keep moving forward.

For me, I feel like the only thing that I’ve experienced that was keyed into my sex was when I was interviewing. Usually during my interview process, I’ll reach out to recruiters and have them pass around my resume. I normally get a lot of interviews because I have a lot of skills. However, when I get to the interview, I think sometimes people have a skewed perception of me. Maybe they feel like I’m not the face that they want to put in the seat. Now that could be for any number of reasons, but my first thought is always: well, that could be because I’m female. That could be because I’m gay. That could be because I’m black. I’m a triple threat, haha. I feel that way every time I go through the interview process, so sometimes when it doesn’t work out I want to ask - which one is it? Why wasn’t I selected? 

Actually in this specific environment, I feel really proud of that.

Yeah, I agree.

It’s an honor to be here and to have the opportunity to prove myself every day. To let people know that I am as capable as the next guy. Being here is a positive experience for me. I’m really proud of the team that I work with, they’re a great bunch. I don’t think this environment is influenced by sex. We curve a lot of that with meetings and events that are gauged towards collaboration and brainstorming. We open the floor for diversity.