The Underrepresentation of Women in the Software Industry: Thoughts from Career-Changing Women

Abstract

Women are increasingly encouraged to change their career to the software industry, partly to increase versatility inside the industry and partly to overcome the labour shortage. Although women show great interest towards the different opportunities in the software industry and an increasing number of women are participating in the trainings and recruitment events - which usually are focused on recruiting more women to the software industry - there are still signs that gender bias is affecting the attitude climate in and about the industry. In this paper, the respondents' prejudices and attitudes towards the industry are analysed. The data is from an open internet survey collected in Finland during May-June 2018. The target group of the questionnaire was composed of women who are planning or have already made a career change to the software industry. The study shows that although the industry is attracting women, some of the respondents are suffering from low self-esteem and impostor syndrome when talking about their software engineering skills, as well as found the male-dominated industry sometimes challenging.