Raghu Mohan

ThoughtWorks is one of the coolest IT solutions companies out there today. Apart from being an able software builders, ThoughtWorks is one of the few companies that takes company culture very seriously. They constantly engage with the developer community to know them better and in turn, make ThoughtWorks a great place for them.

They ensure constant engagement with the developer community to know them better and in turn, make its workplace the most sort after.

Concurrent to this philosophy, ThoughtWorks is conducting a programming challenge for developers from Singapore and ASEAN countries.

ThoughtWorks Code-a-thon is 6-hour programming contest, which will feature challenging programming problems. The top 15 programmers from the online event would be invited to ThoughtWorks' Singapore office, where they will engage in a final programming faceoff, to adjudge final winners.



Here's where it gets really good. ThoughtWorks has not held back on the prizes. Some really cool prizes are up for grabs. Winner gets an Xbox One, Oculus Rift, Quadcopters, and many other really great prizes.

Register without any further ado here - https://www.hackerearth.com/thoughtworks-singapore-codeathon-2015/

For more challenges, go to - https://www.hackerearth.com/challenges/

There are no men and women, there are only people. Similarly, in the IT industry, there should be no women or men, only programmers. Yes, there's a massive discrepancy in the gender ratio and men do have a lot on their plate to fix this but women have their part in this. Women must believe that they're equal to their male counterparts in every possible way.

Deepa Soundararajan has been doing her part for many years. She's a senior development manager at Intuit, along with being a loving wife and mother. Through the course of this interview, you'll see that Deepa's gender has no bearing on her life and professional choices. There are many women who've faced adversities in the IT industry, but not Deepa. She made her life what she wanted it to be.

This is Deepa's story.

Aeroplanes and code

Like many in the IT industry, Deepa didn't start off as a computer science engineer. She says, "I am an instrumentation engineer. I did not have computer science in my core curriculum. Like the myriads of other engineering graduates, I had done a few courses and internships in coding over various summers in college but nothing very serious."

Her moment of reckoning came with her stint with aeroplane simulators. She said, "My first job at Ramco Systems, Chennai was the turning point. We were developing a flight-simulator system. The elegance of algorithms and the logical reasoning involved in the work made me fall in love with coding."

She thrives in situations that demand the use of her analytical self. She says, "The ability to crack a problem, the feeling of accomplishment makes me love coding. The new learning, which each piece of code brings in, keeps me charged. At Intuit, we foster a culture of innovation and the ability to showcase creativity, which are great motivating factors for engineers!"

She also possesses a very rare quality for an engineer—customer focus. When asked what is her most satisfying moment as an engineer, she said, "My most satisfying achievement as a programmer is when I see how my work makes a difference in a customer’s life. Each time that I have brought 'delight' to a customer has been a very fulfilling experience."

Stand up and ask for what's rightfully yours

When compared to other streams of engineering, Deepa believes that computer science is easier for women to be a part of.

She says, "IT industry is actually easier on women when compared to many other engineering streams like mechanical/civil engineering. My personal experiences as a woman in the tech industry is that there is no distinction made between men and women. Just like any other industry, we need to be able to ‘stand up and ask for’ what is rightfully ours. It is possible but not practiced often."

She believes that a woman's tendency to step back and focus on family is one of the main reasons why there are so few women in the tech industry. She says, "Statistics may be similar to other industries, but I see that the ratio of men vs. women has increased over time at the entry level, however, when it comes to mid-career there is a significant drop in numbers and I mainly attribute it to women wanting to take a step back in their professional space to handle a growing family."

When faced with the same situation in her life, Deepa had the good fortune of an understanding family. She said, "According to me, whenever there is an adversity, one feels the pressure to take on a more traditional role. But having the support of family and friends is key in resolving these issues and reason things out."

"I come from a very traditional family background. Contrary to popular belief, I have been blessed with a very supportive family that let me pursue my dreams of studying in an engineering college far from home. I had their full support to take up a career of my choice and be independent. Even after my wedding and children, I have a very supportive husband and family that has given me the space to take a break and pursue my career once again."

"Sail out to the sea and do new things"

When asked what she sees herself doing in 10 years, Deepa said, "10 years from now I see myself in a senior leadership position, mentoring and guiding a fresh set of engineers and aspiring young professionals."

As parting advice for budding programmers, she quoted Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, "'A ship in port is safe, but that is not what ships are for. Sail out to the sea and do new things'. Keep learning new technologies and sail the seas you never sailed before. That is how you grow and enjoy life!"

Wanting to feel valued and wanting to be the center of attention are subtly different. While both are attention-craving behavior, the latter doesn't care much for where it comes from or what it means. The former, however, is a need to be recognized for good work. It is a need to be known as a symbol of positivity and excellence.

Anuradha Sinha, a Program Manager, is driven by feeling valued. For all the doom and gloom that surrounds women in tech, Anuradha remains optimistic and always sees the positive side of things. And not to mention, she's a really good coder!

This is Anuradha's story.

"Being valued will make you go the extra mile"

Anuradha's started coding in her junior year. She says, "I think it started when I was learning Object Oriented Programming in C++. That was the first time C++ was introduced in any school. My teacher was always appreciative of my logical reasoning. It kind of set the stage for me to study computer applications."

At work, she's a people person. She says, "I like my current job because of the people I work with. I get to work with a smart and somewhat crazy bunch of people. I think the biggest motivator for me has always been the feeling of being valued. Any employee who is valued tries to go the extra mile in the interest of the organization."

Her most satisfying moment in her professional life was being recognized as an expert .

"I think the most satisfying achievement was at a time when I was in the fourth year of my career. I was declared the expert for a couple of specialized tools which I had learnt on my own. Soon I was mentoring people who were using these tools. I felt important and of considerable value to the organization."

"The 19% women in tech who have done quite well for themselves"

While Anuradha is cognizant about the lack of women in tech, she doesn't give it too much thought. She says, "I have not given the gender equation in professional life much thought. Having said that, yes, I have noticed at times that I am the only woman in a discussion with 20-odd men."

While she hasn't been at the receiving end of inequality, she has seen it happening. The so called banter against women in tech, according to her, is one of the main reasons for the lack of women in tech.

She says, "The IT industry, unfortunately, brings along some unconscious stereotypes. Read any joke around an engineer/IT professional’s life and you will get the drift. These stereotypes have made some people, in particular women, apprehensive about the quality of life as an IT professional."

She further adds, "As a woman professional, I have found people coming up to me and saying, “We have never found a woman manager good. You are different.”

While that is meant to be a compliment, I am not amused. Sometimes, women in middle and senior management find themselves constantly judged for being ‘too strict’ or ‘too gentle’. A woman’s strictness or an instance of rude behavior at work is often attributed to how things are in her personal life: being single, childless, divorced, or widowed. This is very unfortunate. While I have not been at the receiving end of such remarks, I have seen others making such remarks."

2 changes that can get more women to tech Anuradha has a different perspective about the 19% of women in tech. She says, "You know, the picture is not so glum. Yes, the number of women in technology are only 19%. However, at this point in time, let us look at the percentage of literate women. And the percentage of educated working women who started their careers in the last three decades. You will know that these 19% have done really well for themselves."She has 2 ideas to get more women to tech:

1. "First, we have to wage a war against societal stereotypes to get more women working in the tech industry. I know of women engineers starting tuition classes at home because they consider working in the IT industry unsafe and uncomfortable. The perception of working long hours and an unstable work-life balance are reasons many a talented woman change their career course.
2. Second, we have to get girls excited about technology at the school level. I am really a big fan of Microsoft’s work called ‘Women in Technology’ where they intend to train and mentor 1 million girl students (in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths) for a year. That’s the base-level change we need."

Fight stereotypes, fight sexism

Anuradha's family has been very supportive of her career choices. She says, "Thankfully, no. My family would have supported me even if I had chosen another career. Their condition has always has been that I should be self-sufficient."

In the same context, she agrees that society has a major influence in working women in general. She says, "Many times, even friends who I consider close, have argued that women have it easy as they are not necessarily expected to ‘earn’. Our society still expects men to be the breadwinners while women have a choice. I am waiting for some men to become homemakers and declare to the world that change is possible."

Going forward, Anuradha hopes to work on her own social impact venture. She says, " As a child, I dreamed of being a high-flying professional at the prime of my career. Now at the prime of my career, my professional ambitions overlap with my life’s dreams. In ten years, I want to see myself running an organisation that gives vocation to the less privileged."

Her parting advice is that she urges women in tech to take a strong stance against sexism and stereotyping. She says, "Fight sexism. Fight stereotypes. Do not laugh when your men friends make fun of a woman’s IQ. As an educated women, we should not be okay with stereotypes. Let us not try to blend in. Let us be different. And bring a difference."

Mark Zuckerberg once said that coding is the closest thing to a super power today. If you think about it, it really is! With the Internet and computer technology, humans are doing the unthinkable today like talking to people who live millions of miles away from us, watching street views of far away cities without leaving the comfort of your couch and interacting with a virtual reality - all possible, because of coding and computer technology.

When you meet someone who wields the power of creating such amazing things the last thing you expect from them is humility. However, that's what we got from Divya Anand, who's a software engineer at Akamai. We caught up with her on what it takes to be a woman in tech, and we got some key insights into her life as a computer engineer and her humble personality.

"Women can be fiercely logical"

Divya is not your stereotypical girl. She says, "Everybody considers women to be emotional beings. But I discovered a fiercely logical part of me that loved solving puzzles and it turned out that I was good at it. That’s when i decided coding was definitely for me."

Her love for solving puzzles is equal to her love for coding. She says, "It (coding) gives me the same adrenaline rush that I get when I crack a tough puzzle. Isn’t it gratifying when something works the way you expect it to?"

However, she isn't easily satisfied. When asked what her greatest achievement as a programmer is to date, she said, " Yet to come I guess".

"When you love what you do, you'll figure out a way"

For those who struggle to find the balance between their professional and personal lives, Divya is a new working mother. And she is balancing both aspects of life well. She also believes that her example is a statement that the IT industry is warming up to women. She says, "I think the gender gap in software industry is improving. Women are getting smarter in managing their professional and personal lives and men are slowly becoming more empathetic. My journey has been more or less smooth sailing so far especially given the fact that I have just joined work after my maternity break! If you love what you do, I guess you’ll figure out ways to work it out."

She credits her family for supporting her a lot. She says, "I am blessed to have a supportive family but the journey is not without hiccups. The key is to focus on the bigger picture and adapt to changes. However there is no denying that its a hard balance to hit. I personally take things ‘one day at a time’."

While she doesn't take a stand on the reason behind less number of women in the IT industry, she credits some of it to a lack of motivation on the women's part.

"Can’t say. The dynamics are very different from people to culture to places.", she said.

"If you're having fun, keep at it."

When we asked Divya what she see's herself doing in the next 10 years, she simply said, "More coding!", which wasn't very surprising, given her one-day-at-a-time attitude.

Her advice for budding women programmers is simple (applicable to men as well). She says, "If you are having fun, continue at it. Hang on long enough and things are bound to get better. Meanwhile just relax and don’t be too hard on yourself."

If you were to go to an engineering college today, you will often see electronics engineers being placed in software companies. You'd even find some of them complaining about a lack of core companies during placement season. But you will also see a few students, who've embraced the era of computer science and code. Take Vithya Kannapan, from SanDisk, for example.

Her love affair with coding started from her days as an intern. She said, "When I started as intern in a company, I got to know that in future, embedded software would be key for electronics systems and an electronics engineer would be incomplete without coding knowledge."

This is Vithya Kannapan's story.

"Women are good executors!"

Vithya is very logical. She says, "I always try to solve the problems logically and coding is in line with this. It is because of this that I love to code and implement functionality in devices or systems."

Vithya loves seeing her code in production and being recognized. She says, "I converted some of my ideas into practical devices and systems using programming thus leading to some patents in SanDisk Inc., I felt most satisfied during these moments."

Vithya believes that a lot of women are just as logical as their male counter parts. Being execution-driven, Vithya feels that computer science is her calling. She says, "Since women are precise in thinking and efficient in execution, the IT industry is the most suitable industry for them. I personally feel that being a woman I get motivated by new challenges everyday (both at work as well as at home) and solve them effectively."

"Women are discouraged from technical work"

A lot of women are discourage from taking up a career in technology. She says, "Despite excelling in school/college, women in India traditionally chose jobs that were not technical in fields like medicine and education as a career. However, in the last decade, there was a rise in the number of women who chose technical careers, thanks to the growing IT industry. I am sure more women will be seen in the tech industry in the coming years."

During her own journey, she's faced adversity being a woman in tech. She says, "During the initial years of my career, I had a lot of challenges in balancing work and life. Especially the expectations from my family put a lot of pressure on me. At some point of time I decided to talk to family and explained the importance of my career. Eventually I got their full support."

Learn, grow, and achieve Going forward, Vithya wants to be an experienced professional. She says, "I would like to excel in my technical knowledge as well as in managerial capabilities. In 10 years I would like to see myself as a technical director and manage complex projects."Her advice to young professionals is three-fold. She says:

• "Learn: Learn new things every day along with the technical and leadership skills necessary to be efficient in your job.
• Grow: Grow your career along with your team.
• Achieve: Exceed the expectations and achieve your goals quicker and smarter.

Positive people are a pleasure to deal with. Their demeanor and approach to is infectious! It is the same positivity that helps them advance in their careers. In many ways, this is the story of Shwetha Kashyap, software engineer at Harman Connected Services.

We caught up with Shwetha to know more about her journey as a techie, and more importantly, her journey as a woman in tech.

Coding and motherhood

Like good old school techies, Shwetha her career with assembly-language coding.

"Coding started just before college, however, those trials never made me understand what my school teachers meant when they said “Computers understand zeros and ones” My first time with assembly-language coding and manually translating code into machine instructions during college opened up the whole digital world for me. This kindled my interest in coding."

It was particularly endearing to see her equate coding with motherhood. When asked why she loves coding, she said, "Coding is as good as teaching a child (in our case, a computer) what, when, and how to do something. And the joy of watching your "baby" perform tasks as instructed and perform it quickly is what keeps me motivated."

What she enjoys the most is solving tough problems. When asked about her most satisfying moment as a programmer, she said, "They say “To bug is human, to debug is divine!” To debug a coding problem is the best way to experience adventures. My most satisfying moments are when I have debugged those "non-recreatable" in-house crash issues with no clear call stack information and absolutely no takers for the bug."

We cannot agree more.

Being a woman in tech

Shwetha is enthusiastic about the state of women in tech in India. She says, "IT in India is definitely warming up to women. There is a lot less gender prejudice than there was earlier. Having said that, there is much more to go. To date, I hear about recruiters being skeptical about hiring women who are married because they can’t work late! The number of women in coding is still very less and there are very few examples at the top of the ladder to look up to. But, I am sure this will change soon."

While most women might be apprehensive about being a part of the minority group, Shwetha doesn't mind it. She says, "So, far I’ve loved being the only woman among the male developers. You are offered seats in meeting rooms and drops when you work late. That’s not such a bad thing!"

On a more serious note, she has some interesting insight into why there are so few women in technology. She says, "Development has always been portrayed as a job that requires you to burn the midnight oil. This is especially threatening for married women, who are scared that their work-life balance will be lost if they ever step into coding.

The more our industry works towards respecting work-life balance of its workers, the more women they will see in coding. Facilities like “Work from home for mothers” are still considered impossible-to-give facilities, which is very discouraging for those women who want to pursue a career in programming. The lack of support from the industry is one of the key factors for the lack of women in tech."

The solution to this, according to her, is simple—treat coding like any other job. She says, "Society has now convinced itself that IT jobs are a slaughter house. I’ve been asked “Why don’t you take up a teaching job, so that your timings are fixed and there is less pressure? “ However, these things don’t matter. In today's world, no job is a cakewalk. Teachers too have the similar pressures of meeting the deadlines. Once you make your family aware of this, they won’t worry anymore. Coding is like any other job."

On ambitions and growth

Her ambitions are interesting. She says, "My dad learnt 2 types of Vedas just for hobby. I wondered, how many ways of praising God does one have to learn? Nowadays I feel crippled not knowing many languages in which I can communicate with my computer. I want to learn as many languages as I possibly can to talk to my computer differently each time. That’s probably what went through my dad’s mind as well!"

In the future, Shwetha aims to become a technical architect. "10 years from now, I see myself working for groups that are trying to promote Kannada in the Information Technology field," she concluded.

We wish Shwetha all the best in her future endeavors.