Careers in Tech for Women: You Don’t Always Progress Vertically

The issue of women in tech is a sizzling topic. But what’s it really like at the coalface for the minority of women in the field? One person doing things in style is Thu Trinh.

She’s a software developer at RotaGeek’s Melbourne base. The start up offers smart, data-driven employee scheduling software for businesses. She’s also worked for companies such as SnapFeed and carsales.com.au to develop website architecture and apps, release code and create new features.

Thu’s interest in computer science began way back. As a kid, she loved gaming with her dad, pulling things apart and putting them back together.

Here, she talks about her career trajectory, the lure of horizontal progression, how she keeps on top of her game, and why she’s just as passionate about tech now as when she started more than a decade ago.

Take us back to the beginning. What were some of the things you were interested in early on?

I studied computer science at uni. I was always into gaming because my dad would bring home consoles and games. He got our first computer when I was in Year 8. That’s when I started playing around with computers, and it went from there. I’ve always had that curiosity, that mindset of wanting to know how things worked. When I was really young, I got a toy electronic washing machine. I found the motor and took it apart because I wanted to see how it was put together. My parents were absolutely furious.

What were some of your early moves? At what point did you realise you could turn that curiosity into a career?

At uni, I gravitated towards a double degree in management and computer science because I thought it would help me career wise and because I enjoyed science-based subjects. I knew I wanted to do gaming development because I loved games. A few years in I decided management wasn’t very interesting. So I focused on pure computer science. I got a job before I graduated and it happened to be in web development. I found out early on that game development wasn’t as romantic as I thought it was. It was actually quite gruelling, so I decided to stay in web development.

How have your web development roles evolved over time?

My first web development role was as a Junior developer at a company named Chimo in Adelaide. I had to pick up a new programming language during my first week. In my experience there is no barrier to becoming a Senior Developer if you have the skills and are willing to put in the effort to do a good job and continuously improve. As a Senior developer, these days I spend my time architecting and implementing whole solutions for the business as well as mentoring junior developers.

Where do you think you’ll take your career from here?

I’ve always really liked problem solving. So I don’t stay with one particularly technology.  I like to explore because technology changes every day. My toolkit gets bigger and bigger. What you’re using today may not be as good as something that you may find tomorrow. In terms of progression, I probably don’t want to climb the corporate ladder too much because I want to stay in coding. Recently I’ve gone into mobile. These horizontal shifts mean you pick up new ideas. They change the way you think about problems and solutions, and to come up with cleaner ways of developing. It’s awesome.

What’s been your experience of meeting other women in tech?

I don’t really think of it as women and men, more as people. I’ve only met a handful of coders who’ve been women. But the women I do know in IT love it. Women in IT is not a new concept. The codebreakers who broke the Enigma codes in World War 2 were mostly women. Also around this time, the first compiler was created by Grace Hopper. It was the women doing those jobs because the men were out fighting.

What do you do to keep on top of your game?

I do a lot of reading. As soon as I hear there’s a new technology or language I might be interested in, I go and learn it in my own time. Or if I think it may benefit the business, I try and persuade people to use it at work. You need to know what’s out there to make your own mind up about the benefits and drawbacks. If you don’t, your solutions tend to be limited. You don’t get to think far ahead enough. But it’s not just about the shiny new tech. Newer technologies and frameworks can often provide a means to create a cleaner and more elegant solution. However, you have to balance that against business needs. You can’t truly know about anything unless you’ve done it yourself.

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