This weekend Michelle and I will be mentoring and presenting at Reed College’s Working Weekend on women in tech. Here’s the handout we’ll be giving to students on resources for women interested in pursing a career in tech. Please note that these resources are for students located in Portland, Oregon, and skew toward that region.
Resources for Women in Dev
If you’re interested in becoming a software or web developer, seek out mentors, learn as much as you can, and join others who are also learning. You can do this in female-centered environments or not. Some feel safer and more confident in women-only spaces in tech, others are fine reaching out to men for mentorship.
No matter how you choose to approach a career in tech, don’t be afraid or self-conscious about asking all the questions you have, failing often and learning from your mistakes, trying things out for yourself, and getting help when you need it.
You will not be a perfect dev right out of the gate. No one is.
Men and women alike have a learning curve and the more you practice the better you’ll get. Also, it is absolutely crucial for your career to network. Meet women and men actively working in the technology sector by joining meetups, becoming members of tech organizations, and seeking advice. This will ingratiate you to the community, create more job opportunities for you, and potentially get you some new friends!
Here are some resources that focus on helping women learn to code and supporting them in their job search in tech.
Passion Projects (online)
Women speakers in tech with presentations available to watch online.
Code Scouts (Portland)
Empowers women to become programmers. They have a mentorship program using existing dev training resources, like Treehouse (see below for more details).
PyLadies (Portland)
A meetup for female python developers and those who want to learn.
Code N Splode (Portland)
A networking group for women and genderqueer identifying people in the tech industry or interested in getting into tech.
Women in software engineering on Github
The Ada Initiative
A resource that supports women in technology by hosting conferences and camps, advocating for gender diversity in tech, and teaching men how to be better allies.
WITI – Portland Chapter
Networking opportunities for women working in the technology sector.
Women 2.0
Conferences, job board, videos, and other resources for women in tech.
Geek Feminism
A website that discusses issues that women face in geek communities, “including science and technology, gaming, SF fandom, and more.”
National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT)
Advocacy for getting more women into technology, as well as resources to help women and girls.
DevChix
Support and resources for women in software and web development. Not incredibly up to date, but their archives might be a good resource.
Women in Tech on Social Media
While LinkedIn is a great way to make your professional presence known, Twitter is the platform of choice for most devs. Follow, interact with, and get to know other women in technology on Twitter.
Here are some places to start.
Training Programs
Code schools are popping up across the United States as demand for software devs explodes. Some of these programs have courses just for women or offer scholarships to women, which we’ve indicated below.
While these programs exist across the world, we’ve listed the ones in Portland, Seattle, and northern California. We’ve also included code schools in Denver and Boulder to try to convince you to come to Colorado, where Commerce Kitchen is.
Prosper IT (Portland)
10-week program
Call for pricing
.NET programming only
Epicodus (Portland)
4-month program
$4500-5000
Javascript, Ruby, PostgreSQL, Active Record, Ruby on Rails, APIs, AJAX, Ember.js, HTML and CSS, jQuery
Code Fellows (Seattle)
$500 and up per class
Foundations of computer science classes, plus bootcamps in Rails, iOS, Javascript, Python, and UX.
Coding Dojo (Seattle)
12-week course, 50-70 hours per week in class
$9850
HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, MySQL, OOP, MVC, Ruby on Rails, and more
Rails Bridge (Seattle, Denver, and other locations across the world)
Free
Workshops in Rails, with some specifically for women.
Hackbright Academy (San Francisco)
For women only
10-week program
$15,000, with $3000 refundable after getting a job from someone in their network
Python focused, with HTML5, Javascript, SQL, and CSS, plus methodologies like paired programming, interview skills
Dev Bootcamp (San Francisco)
9-week program
$12,200 – women get a $500 scholarship or a potential Levo Scholarship, offering women $2500 off tuition
Ruby on Rails, HTML5 and CSS, Javascript, agile development, SASS, HAML, AJAX, jQuery, Coffescript
Hack Reactor (San Francisco)
12-week program
$17,780
Javascript
App Academy (San Francisco and NYC)
12-week program
“App Academy does not charge any tuition. Instead, you pay us a placement fee only if you find a job as a developer after the program. In that case, the fee is 18% of your first year salary, payable over the first 6 months after you start working.”
Git, PostgreSQL, Ruby, Rails, HTML5, jQuery, Backbonejs
Apprentice.io (San Francisco)
3-month apprenticeship
Pays $500 a week
Must have intermediate knowledge of Ruby on Rails to apply
Ruby on Rails, jQuery, Backbone.js, HTML5, SCSS, git, Unix, and agile software development.
Zipfian Academy (San Francisco with some online classes)
12-week program
$16,000 with a $4,000 reimbursement if you get a job through their hiring program.
Focused on “data science” and requires a background in quantitative thinking.
General Assembly (San Francisco, online, and other locations across the world)
One-day classes and workshops to 12-week courses
Free workshops, $85 one-day classes, $550 three-day bootcamps, $12,000 12-week classes
Ruby on Rails, APIs, javascript, jQuery, AJAX, sys admin, front end and UX, business, marketing
GSchool (Denver and Boulder)
24-week program
$20,000 with a three-year payment plan available
“As long as you will work in the US, participate in 75% of our “matchmaking” activities and graduate from the program, we’ll help you get a job with a software development team in the Colorado region — or we’ll refund your tuition.”
CSS, HTML5, Javascript, Ruby, Rails, SQL, source control, test driven development, pair programming, deployment, scaling, presentations, leading group discussions
DaVinci Coders (Boulder)
11-week program (not full time)
$5000 – $6000
Ruby on Rails, HTML, CSS, and jQuery
refactorU (Boulder)
10-week program
$12,500 – 10% discount for women
Python focused, with HTML5, CSS, jQuery, MongoDB, JSON, Javascript, Node JS, Websocket
Lynda (online)
$25 – $37.50 a month membership
Basic online courses, videos, and tutorials for software and web development. Courses wouldn’t prepare you for a job but would give a great introduction into the field.
Treehouse (online)
$25 – $49 a month membership
Online courses in HTML, CSS, Design, JavaScript, Ruby, PHP, WordPress, iOS, Android, Development Tools, Business
Georgia Institute of Technology’s Online M.S. in Computer Science
$6,600 for an entire master’s degree
Requires undergraduate degree in computer science, math, or related degrees, with a GPA of 3.0 or above.
Computational Perception & Robotics, Databases & Software Engineering, High-Performance Computing, Interactive Intelligence, Machine Learning, Networking, Social Computing, Systems