I am a programmer with several years of coding experience, and one of the few female programmers.

Speaking of why female programmers are so rare, I think the reason lies not in gender but in the pressure that society and family place on them, as well as their own need to respond to that pressure. Programming itself is a high-pressure yet high-reward career. Adding to that is the common societal view that men are the default pillars of the family and society, which forces many men to step up ahead of us women. Interest is one thing, but putting food on the table is the main thing.

Of course, in ancient times there was the timeless tale of Hua Mulan joining the army in her father's place. I'm not as great as Hua Mulan, and disguising myself as a man nowadays wouldn't be cheap — I'd even have to go to South Korea for that. I decided to start out as a programmer instead, because lately I've become the breadwinner of my family.

My name is Chen Li, from an extremely ordinary working-class family. My mother passed away shortly after I was born, and my frail, sickly father struggled to hold the family together. My name, which carries a hint of boundless explosive power, was also given to me by my father. His wish was that one day I would hold up the sky of our family.

And so the cruel reality of life forced a little girl who could have become a beautiful swan to wipe off her rouge and powder, put away her lace dresses, roll up her sleeves, and become the future female head of the household.

Everyone says college is the most beautiful time for youth to blossom, but I couldn't afford to let my youth be wasted during college. The family mission kept me from indulging in the luxurious pastimes of youth. I clearly remember the night before my father sent me off to college, when he told me very seriously: "As long as you can keep studying, your father will support you through a master's and even a doctorate, even if it means cutting off my medication."

I knew I wasn't studying for a degree — I was studying for my father's medication. Back then, being able to reinstall an operating system or type up a WPS document was enough to land a part-time job. To make sure my father's medication never came up short, I chose computer science, a major I wasn't particularly interested in at the time.

Four years of college flew by in an instant, and with it, the so-called peak of youth came to an end. I didn't choose to continue on to graduate school. My father's illness hadn't worsened, but it hadn't improved either, and he went through a lot of medication every day. At that point, finding a job right away to fill the emptiness in my youth and my father's medicine jar was the top priority.

A senior classmate who had been through it all told me: programmers earn well at the entry level, so it's worth a try. I was thrilled — the words "high income" tempted me fiercely.

When I first entered the field, I stumbled my way through learning ASP like reading the Bible, and under a college professor's careless guidance, I built a graduation project with ASP. The project's theme was to implement statistics on the permanent resident population of residential streets, plus the management and querying of the migrant population. Fortunately, although my project wasn't rated as excellent by my advisor, after I talked it up as smoothly as "selling crutches," the neighborhood committee in my area actually bought it from me for two hundred silver dollars.

This incident taught me something: the ability to support oneself and a business sense are both forced out by the harshness of life. If I hadn't pushed myself on that graduation project, it would have been tucked away in some dark corner of a hard drive like everyone else's — later wiped out during a format or pulled out and framed on a wall.

In any case, I earned my first pot of gold in life, and I immediately developed a sense of reverence and a special fondness for the programmer profession. So I decided to enter the field and planned to dedicate my second youth to it.

Armed with my graduation project — which I felt infinitely good about — and the success story of the neighborhood committee purchase, I was smoothly recruited by a small local web company. My initial position was assistant web engineer.

The company had probably experienced the "arrival" of a female programmer for the first time. After I joined, my project manager happily told me: "The department's work efficiency has improved by leaps and bounds." I was also delighted to find that being a new programmer wasn't as difficult as my male senior had described. Whenever I didn't understand something during project development, my teammates would immediately turn into "savior" teachers; what's more, one time when a module I built had a serious bug, a stalwart teammate-teacher gritted his teeth and stayed overtime to help me clear all the bugs, going without a proper lunch and dinner. After six months, I not only made great technical progress, but also won both the company's Annual Outstanding Employee Award and the Best Newcomer Award.

I reached a conclusion: being a female programmer is definitely a very cost-effective choice.

All good things must come to an end. A year and a half later, the company dissolved due to management problems. My family's first reaction was to have me take the civil service exam. Especially my uncle, speaking as an experienced veteran, told me: "If you want to stand above others, you must sit the civil service exam."

At that time, my father's annual medical expenses were roughly the equivalent of one of my kidneys — at black market prices.

I wrestled with my thoughts under the covers, clutching the bedsheet for a long, long time. Only when the sheet tore did I finally make the resolute decision to stick to my ideal and be a female programmer without compromise. Because by then, I realized I had fallen deeply in love with this profession, to the point of no return. A girl in love with a person can give everything with zero intelligence; loving an industry is exactly the same.

"If worse comes to worst, I'll sell a kidney." That was a bold statement I made after brushing aside the objections of all my relatives, slamming the door behind me as I left. Thinking about it now, it was pure nonsense.

To keep my kidney, I packed up and left my hometown for Beijing, where I applied for a developer position at a fairly large software company.

That year, wrapped in a bedsheet in an unheated rental apartment, I learned Java, which was extremely popular at the time.

Big companies really do have a different atmosphere. There were two female colleagues in my department. Setting aside their looks, their learning ability was absolutely of the "T-Rex" type — they never worked overtime during holidays, and when it came to conquering new technical points and difficult problems, they were in no way inferior to the male colleagues. I felt the pressure immediately. I realized that even barefoot and without a bedsheet, I could hardly keep up with their learning pace. What's more, these two sisters strongly excluded me — when discussing technical issues, they never asked me to join in. Sometimes, to close the distance, I would invite them to go shopping on the weekend:

"No, thanks." was their eternally unchanging answer to me.

After three months, I barely passed my probation period. When I went to the manager's office to sign the paperwork, the manager suddenly leaned close to my ear and whispered: "Little Chen, you know, I had to override a lot of objections to get you confirmed as a regular employee..."

Three sensory perceptions hit me in succession: one, the manager definitely hadn't bathed for a week; two, I should act flattered and honored; three, at least one of my kidneys was safe.

After becoming a regular employee, I began a frantic, hellish push to improve, and started trying every way to blend into the team, especially with the two sister colleagues. The first step to blending in was to keep my appearance in sync with everyone else, which specifically meant: no makeup, no shopping, no dating, only overtime.

After a while, my humble, cautious, willing-to-share, and sincere way of dealing with people finally made the two goddess-like sisters in the department stop excluding me and begin accepting me. They would even invite me to join their technical discussion meetings from time to time. What pleased me even more was that they would call me every weekend to ask if I wanted to work overtime together.

That year, my goal was simple — to put it bluntly, everything was for the other kidney.

At the end of my first year on the job, I received the company's "Most Effective Effort Award." Like everyone else, I had never heard of such an award before. It was only years later that I truly understood that effort also requires skill — mindless effort will only gradually earn you the "Effort in Vain Award."

In my second year, I received the company's "Most Substantial Programmer Award." My confidence soared instantly, and I also came to feel that a company that refuses to be bound by convention and values creativity is reflected not only in its external product output, but also in how it motivates its employees.

In my third year, I privately earned the title of "Worst Manager." I won't go into the details of the process. My conclusion is: for people in tech, it's very important to know your strengths and weaknesses. It's like racing Liu Xiang — rather than competing with him at running, it's better to compete with him on who's fatter.

In my fourth year, I wore makeup, fell in love, and got married. A special note: when it comes to choosing a partner, listening to your parents is mostly right. Don't be brain-dead and act on emotion. In the face of feelings, most of us women can't even reach zero IQ. And everyone knows how important a partner is, because he will directly affect the second half of your life and even your next reincarnation. Better safe than sorry.

In my fifth year, I bought a house and moved my father and his medicine jar to Beijing. It's true that our nest is in Tong County and a mortgage was inevitable, but I don't mind.

In my sixth year, the baby-making plan was completed. Forgive me, but I'm not at liberty to disclose the process and details.

The saying "Hard work pays off" is absolutely correct. At this point, I encourage everyone: no matter the circumstances or your own conditions, as long as you work hard, you will move upward. Edison once said: genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration. Although the old man's follow-up point was that the 1% is more important, most people can never produce a truly qualified 1%, so we all start from the same starting line — it all comes down to who works harder. Of course, if you're unfortunate enough to run into a genius like Jack Ma, please step aside voluntarily.

Years later, as I've grown older, I've found that everything has naturally become clearer and clearer. Although I stopped doing frontline coding work long ago, I still maintain that unique toughness (stubbornness) of programmers — that spirit of charging forward and never admitting defeat. I believe this is an inherent trait of the programmer profession, and it can be brought into full play even more vividly in us female programmers. Even if you switch careers in the future, or like me now, give up the breadwinner role to become a supportive wife to your husband, this trait will deeply influence you and help you along the way.

Source: http://www.techug.com/woman-programmer