Women often take a roundabout route to coding interest
In Atostek’s ERA team, which develops digital services for the social and health care sector, half of the software designers are women, even though nine out of ten coders in Finland are men. What’s behind this?
Looking at the numbers, coding is still perplexingly male-dominated. Industry associations and organizations in the ICT sector estimate that about 90 percent of software designers are men. It has been speculated that a tech bro culture prevails in the field, pushing women away.
Atostek, a company specializing in software for robotics, healthcare, and artificial intelligence, recently noticed that in their ERA team of 22 software designers, exactly half are women.
Atostek’s HR expert Annamari Lehtinen explains that they became aware of this by chance, but as they discussed it, the matter seemed to become more complex than a mere curiosity.
“In our recruitment, gender has no significance. When placing people within teams in the company, gender plays no role; the focus is on expertise and the individual’s own interests and aspirations. That’s why we were also surprised when we noticed that the ERA team has a completely equal gender distribution,” says Lehtinen.
Software developer as a profession, even without prior experience in coding before university
One of the software developers in the ERA team is Henna Urhonen, who started her university studies in the natural sciences with biotechnology as her major.
“I took a programming course at university and was immediately hooked. I have always enjoyed mathematics and studying languages, and I am interested in problem-solving. Coding seemed to combine these,” says Urhonen.
She had no prior experience in coding, nor was Urhonen particularly interested in computer games or information technology as a younger person. Now Urhonen is proficient in several programming languages and other technologies. At Atostek, she has been involved in a research project exploring the automatic utilization of health data, for example, in calculating risks for cardiovascular diseases. In addition to a master’s degree in bioinformatics, Urhonen also studied to become a graduate engineer in information management.
“Code is a tool, but the end result and the reason why the work is done are particularly important to me.”
Jasmin Pellinen, a software developer and project manager in the ERA team, shares this view.
“I believe that our team has more female coders than the industry average because we develop software for health and social care. At least I find the field meaningful and interesting,” says Pellinen.
Pellinen also came to the ICT sector via a roundabout route.
“I majored in physics during my bachelor’s phase and had never programmed before university. However, I switched to the computer science track in my master’s phase. Mathematics and problem-solving have always interested me and been my strengths. Both are important in programming as well, which is why it captivated me.”
Pellinen has graduated as a graduate engineer in computer science. She is one of ERA’s main developers and works as a project manager. Her tasks include designing new features, development work based on regulatory requirements and customer wishes, as well as general project manager duties.
Diversity in software development is to the benefit of the end user
Pellinen believes it is not meaningful to compare software designers based on gender, but diversity itself is valuable in a workplace, as it is in all other industries.
“Users of digital services are of all ages and from diverse backgrounds. Therefore, it is good that the developers of the software also design services from as many different perspectives as possible.”
Both Pellinen and Urhonen encourage young girls to consider studying programming with an open mind if they are interested in problem-solving.
Photos: Riikka Ala-Hulkko
