During my years of working as a developer, I have had the chance to work with some fantastic start-ups, entrepreneurs that are leading the way and help to grow many start-ups that are making a real difference to society. As a woman, my leadership role, and the very fact that I am still working in tech, is certainly not lost on me.

I have walked into meetings within start-ups and tech giants alike and have come to realise something. Every time I walk into a meeting, I notice that the only woman in the room is the receptionist. I have been to meet-ups and networking events, that at times, felt more like a boys social night, rather than a gathering of minds all interested in the next big thing in tech. Don’t misunderstand me, it is still worth it, things still get done, you still learn a lot, but could things be different?

My experiences got me thinking. What’s keeping women out of tech giants, away from the tech industry in general? Is the male-dominated environment intimidating talented women? While women represent more than half of the graduates, they make up only 30 percent of workers at large technology companies. That’s when I decided I should just do it for myself and stop relying on others and waiting to be more excepted

Time to go it alone

Almost 10 years ago now, I needed some work done, I needed a designer and I really wanted to find a woman to work with. In my experience, it is far easier to work with women and the quality of the work seems to be more, cared about shall we say. But could I find a woman to work with? Well I was in China at the time, so as you can imagine, that made things harder, but no matter how far and wide I looked, I just kept coming up with the same thing, men.

Something needed to change. I knew there were a lot of women working in tech, but where were they? Why couldn’t I find one to work with? The only solution I could think of was to do it for myself. I could be the woman that everyone was looking to work with. I could be the person that would provide an excellent service and highlight that women also have a place in what seemed like a boys only club.

Now of course, I know that things are a little different these days, and women in tech is all the rage right now and being publicised in many different ways, across multiple medias, but what is it really like to work FOR a woman in tech? Or perhaps a better question would be, what is it like to be the woman that people work for? Well with my company at hexelareum.com I have discovered a few things along the way.

Trials and bare face idiocy

Being the woman in charge has brought me joy, happiness, tears, and ‘trials and tribulations’. Some of the best and worst I have found;

1. My male employees seemed to think, because I am a woman they can actually manipulate my natural motherly instinct. One guy that came to ‘work’ for me, did nothing for a week. He tried to play the ‘my child is sick’ card, (just a cold) and he had to be with his child, even though I knew that his wife was not working. Even if he had to be with his child he could have just taken leave. So this didn’t work with me and very soon, neither did he.

2. People always try to appeal to, or take advantage of “women’s weaknesses”. They seem to think that women are stupid and know nothing about technology. They try to cheat with the code. They think that because I am a woman that I will simply not know and not realise the sloppy work that they have been doing. Which also doesn’t work for me.

3. There is a lack of inclusion. I have a very talented php developer, a woman with 20 years of experience and one of the best developers I have had the pleasure to work with. It’s always been the guys and her. It took some time and training to get rid of those attitudes. But we have done it and in fact now, the guys that work with us, have a very positive outlook on working with women.

“It’s a pleasure to work with a person who has the same vision. One would say it’s not related to gender, but I would say that when working with women you always try to be more delicate and caring, and this makes the working process more positive because it positively influences communication within the team. As a result the work done is also of a better quality because you do it with love. Female managers treat you with respect, they know how to motivate because they naturally feel your mood, whether you work hard, or pretend. And they aren’t rude like male bosses, they treat you with respect and understanding, providing of course you do the same.”

Oleksii Arkhipenko

4. Male clients. Actually, I have to say, they are awesome. A big majority of my clients are of course male, but actually they are generally men who trust women more than they do other men. They are the ones who actually support women in technology and steer away from the norm. They know I do everything with care and will go the extra mile to deliver quality results and not just satisfactory outcomes.

It’s time for change

So it’s hard to be a developer, but it’s even harder to be a business owner managing a bunch of guys who think women are stupid! In my humble opinion, that’s why we don’t have so many female tech entrepreneurs, they just feel isolated and out of the game. Women don’t experience obvious forms of discrimination. Instead, they face an underlying tone of condescension that leads to a feeling of isolation. It’s time for all tech companies to admit there’s a problem and tackle it head-on. That means implementing policies and work codes that are open to women and support their career advancement and, more importantly, getting men to buy in to it. We need to stop thinking about men vs women in tech and just change attitudes and perceptions. As Anna Rys, CEO of Anymind.com said;

“I don’t like being called a “woman in tech” or a “female tech leader”. I am simply a human who ended up in IT that also happens to be a woman. That may be it: if you want to achieve something in tech and get others to support your goals, don’t try to figure out how to do it as a woman. Forget about gender stereotypes, be yourself, put in the right amount of effort, open up to new relations, and follow your passion.”

We could start by changing the perception that subjects like science and math as well as coding and tech in general, are masculine fields, by providing girls with female role models, and giving them hands-on experience with all different kinds of technology. Awesome and inspiring organizations like Girls Who Code and Women In Technology (based here in Poland) are already making headway with these problems, and future tech companies will be able to reap the benefits. Currently we as women live and work in a world where we are told ‘you need to have balls’ to show the guys who is the boss, and do everything 10 times better than male bosses. Well I would like to say ‘you need to have ovaries’ to be able to give birth to a new generation of women in tech and lead the way in changing perceptions and the working world we all exist in. Besides, ovaries are far more tough and resilient than ‘balls’ ever will be.

On my pursuit of software houses, I decided it would be a great idea to go and meet some of the reps face to face (or at least that was the story to my CEO), whilst at the same time, representing my company and visiting a few prospective clients (that one was for HR and Payroll). So I booked my ticket and my apartment, on expenses naturally, and off I went.

Krakow took me by surprise a bit. I was expecting post-communist grey and danky, but actually, it was pretty incredible. Off topic a little, but if you are a fan of Jazz, or jazz influenced music, Krakow is the place to be! Beautiful architecture, great little cafes and restaurants, and so many bars, I couldn’t fit them all in, of course I tried, and the women! Oh boy, Polish women are some hot little things, and the Ukranians too, whoever knew! Speaking of Hot Ukrainians, I bumped into one in a bar, Viktoria Pavlova her name was. She had a lot to say I can tell you, but the funniest part of the conversation we had was when she insisted she was the head of and owner of her own company www.hexelareum.com, I looked it up, it is actually real.

I mean come on, do these women think we are stupid? Ha, still makes me giggle now thinking about it. Anyway, I wanted to share every dreadful minute with you. At one point she told me

“During my years of working as a developer, I have had the chance to work with some fantastic start-ups, entrepreneurs that are leading the way and help to grow many start-ups that are making a real difference to society (awwwww) As a woman, my leadership role and the very fact that I am still working in tech, is certainly not lost on me”. Maybe that isn’t, but I bet most other things are I thought to myself.

She told me how she had worked with start-ups and tech giants alike and had come to realise that every time she walked into a meeting, she would notice that the only woman in the room was the receptionist. Of course none of us are surprised by that, but I was shocked at how much of a, albeit quite cute and adorable, little dream world she lived in. I mean she was really believing the stuff coming out of her mouth. She told me how she had been to meet-ups and networking events, that at times, felt more like a boys social night, rather than a gathering of minds all interested in the next big thing in tech. Don’t misunderstand me, but I don’t see anything wrong in what she just described, do you?

Then of course, came the feminism baloney. She was saying how her “experiences got me thinking. What’s keeping women out of tech giants, away from the tech industry in general? Is the male-dominated environment intimidating talented women? While women represent more than half of the graduates, they make up only 30 percent of workers at large technology companies. That’s when I decided I should just do it for myself and stop relying on others and waiting to be more accepted” (at this point I was beginning to look around the bar for a different one to take home, this one was boring me a little) “Almost 10 years ago now, I needed some work done, I needed a designer and I really wanted to find a woman to work with. In my experience, it is far easier to work with women and the quality of the work seems to be more, cared about shall we say. But could I find a woman to work with? (derrrr) Well I was in China at the time, (yea love, that’s it, it was because you were in China) so as you can imagine, that made things harder, but no matter how far and wide I looked, I just kept coming up with the same thing, men.”(SURPRISE!)

Now stay with me boys, there is a little bit more you need to hear. She went on, and on, and on, sorry I will get on with it, “Something needed to change. I knew there were a lot of women working in tech, but where were they? Why couldn’t I find one to work with? The only solution I could think of was to do it for myself. I could be the woman that everyone was looking to work with. I could be the person that would provide an excellent service and highlight that women also have a place in what seemed like a boys only club.”. Awwww, I had to commend her at this point, just the sheer belief, some might say faith, in women and their capabilities, maybe there is hope for women? Who knows.

Now of course, I know that things are a little different these days, and women in tech is all the rage right now and being publicised in many different ways, across multiple medias, but what is it really like, I wondered, to work FOR a woman in tech? Or perhaps a better question would be, what is it like to be the woman that people work for? The answers I got were just utter feminist drivel of course but I shall list them.I want to start with the female sentimental bit, just to get it out of the way;

1.Being the woman in charge has brought me joy, happiness, tears and ‘trials and tribulations’. (grab the violins)

2. My male employees seemed to think, because I am a woman they can actually manipulate my natural motherly instinct. One guy that came to ‘work’ for me, did nothing for a week. He tried to play the ‘my child is sick’ card, (just a cold) and he had to be with his child, even though I knew that his wife was not working. Even if he had to be with his child he could have just taken leave. So this didn’t work with me and very soon, neither did he. (I think she was starting to get quite confident at this point)

3. People always try to appeal to, or take advantage of “women’s weaknesses”. They seem to think that women are stupid (!!) and know nothing about technology. They try to cheat with the code. They think that because I am a woman that I will simply not know and not realise the sloppy work that they have been doing. Which also doesn’t work for me. (getting braver)

4. There is a lack of inclusion. I have a very talented php developer, a woman with 20 years of experience and one of the best developers I have had the pleasure to work with. (of course, because she is woman right?!) It’s always been the guys and her. It took some time and training to get rid of those attitudes. But we have done it and in fact now, the guys that work with us, have a very positive outlook on working with women.

5. Male clients. Actually, I have to say, they are awesome. A big majority of my clients are of course male, but actually they are generally men who trust women more than they do other men. They are the ones who actually support women in technology and steer away from the norm. They know I do everything with care and will go the extra mile to deliver quality results and not just satisfactory outcomes. (It doesn’t hurt being attractive either, right?:))

Well now, I found all this quite unbelievable and hard to swallow, but then one of her friends, who is also a guy that ‘works’ for her, said “It’s a pleasure to work with a person who has the same vision. One would say it’s not related to gender, but I would say that when working with women you always try to be more delicate and caring, and this makes the working process more positive because it positively influences communication within the team. As a result the work done is also of of better quality because you do it with love. Female managers treat you with respect, they know how to motivate because they naturally feel your mood, whether you work hard, or pretend. And they aren’t rude like male bosses, they treat you with respect and understanding, providing of course you do the same.” Clearly gay, that’s all I can say.

So it’s hard to be a developer, but it’s even harder to be a business owner managing a bunch of guys who think women are stupid! In my humble opinion, that’s why we don’t have so many female tech entrepreneurs, they spend too much time moaning about how they feel isolated and out of the game or, women don’t experience obvious forms of discrimination. Instead, they face an underlying tone of condescension that leads to a feeling of isolation. For me, that’s just part of being a woman, get over it. Next they will be telling us that we need to ‘tackle it head-on’. That means implementing policies and work codes that are open to women and support their career advancement and who the hell wants to do that! Besides, they still need to get men to buy in to it.

A Polish one I ran into, who claimed to be the CEO of AnyMind.com who quickly turned the conversation to herself like the last one, saying we need to stop thinking about men vs women in tech and just change attitudes and perceptions. And then to my surprise said; “I don’t like being called a “woman in tech” or a “female tech leader”. I am simply a human who ended up in IT that also happens to be a woman. That may be it: if you want to achieve something in tech and get others to support your goals, don’t try to figure out how to do it as a woman. Forget about gender stereotypes, be yourself, put in the right amount of effort, open up to new relations and follow your passion.” Actually it’s quite a good point, but still, CEO, good one sweetheart, of course you are.

But you know what. One thing that I did get from my trip, other than drunk, was perhaps a little epiphany in terms of my view of women in general. I mean don’t get me wrong, they will always be inferior, but I still think they could be more useful to us than they already are. But of course we would have to make the change. We could start by changing the perception that subjects like science and math as well as coding and tech in general, are masculine fields, by providing girls with female role models, and giving them hands-on experience with all different kinds of technology. Awesome and inspiring organizations like Girls Who Code and Women In Technology (based here in Poland) are already making headway with these problems, and future tech companies will be able to reap the benefits.

So on that bombshell revelation, I want to close with my favourite quote of my few days in Krakow, from yet another hopeful and beautiful girl who was hanging off me at somepoint. She had been saying that currently we (women) live and work in a world where we are told ‘you need to have balls’ to show the guys who is the boss, and do everything 10 times better than male bosses. Well I would like to say ‘you need to have ovaries’ to be able to give birth to a new generation of women in tech and lead the way in changing perceptions and the working world we all exist in. Besides, ovaries are far more tough and resilient than ‘balls’ ever will be. We still have to fill them for you though don’t we! Awwww bless them all, made me giggle, so thought I would share.

Of course we all know by now, the first place that people think of when it comes to cheap and cheerful IT outsourcing, or outsourcing of any kind for that matter! However, we also know that it can be time wasting, hard to communicate with the developers, there is a distinct lack of activity from their side and you end up with bad code, full of glitches and security leaks. “So where else?” I hear you ask.

I decided to take a look at outsourcing to Poland. From what I know there are no big differences in terms of working ethics, in fact I’ve heard, they have particularly good work ethics in Poland. I began my Google search for software houses based in Poland and came up with, what seemed like, some surprisingly good options. And after a lot of research, I disappointedly came to the conclusion that outsourcing to Poland would, to put it simply, ruin my life. Here’s why….

1.The Quality Is Too Good.

After speaking to a few of the clients of my chosen company, I found that often they said things such as; they had too much free time because everything was taken care of. The testing was too good and they had nothing to complain about at all. That the software came complete with no bugs, or close to it. They remained on top of things at all times and were clearly checking things at all stages to assure a high standard of QA and usability. So that wasn’t a great start for Poland I think we can all agree.

2. Too Cheap For What It Is.

This was one of the biggest complaints. If all you expect is to get a really good looking, easy to use, fully functioning piece of software, whilst using a outsourced development company, Poland would be a great choice. But then of course you need to look at cost. We all have a budget to work to after all. Well with a budget of 100,000 GBP for my project, which it would cost me, almost anywhere in Europe, to the standard I needed it to be. If I went with the company in Poland, it would cost me nearer 60,000GBP for the same level of quality as I might get elsewhere. I mean come on, how stupid did they think I was,.and all just to achieve quality that was as good as, if not better, than anywhere in Europe or the rest of the world. Yet another negative mark against Poland.

3. On the same page.

One of the most enjoyable parts of my working day is to go through the battle of having to try to communicate with an outsource company. You spend 60 minutes on the phone, arguing and shouting and trying to explain what it is you actually want done or, what the problem might be. And so of course, the third biggest complaint I heard was; that they found the competency levels to be annoyingly high and that the communication was just to easy and became a bore. I mean come on, who wants to work with a group of people who have good work ethics, and work hard at what they do. As if achieving the best results and remaining focused on doing the best work they can for your company is something that any of us want to deal with.

Poland, nothing but a good use of your time and money.

So the conclusion I came to, Poland is a bad choice to look at when you are faced with having to outsource your IT. If all you want is to spend less, achieve more, finish with a great quality product and make your working day a lot easier, then go to Poland. If not, then I suggest you do like me and look elsewhere. That way you can make sure that you things will go badly and nothing will work properly and you will be really glad that you saved that extra 4K by going to the place that everyone else thinks of first too.

In my 20 something years experience in IT, I have worked with companies that continually make the wrong choice when outsourcing. And I have seen this cost their software and the company considerably. Not just in terms of monetary cost, but cost of time, glitches, delays, security issues amongst many others. Take mobile apps for example, there are some reports that say almost 75% of apps contain up to 10 bugs on launch. One 2015 Mobile Development Survey put the number of bugs as high as 50! So making the right software outsourcing choice is essential.

If you find yourself a great developer to work with, you find that they not only ensure high quality standards, they focus on your companies overall objectives and intended results. This means they put time and effort behind your development rather than just slapping some regurgitated code together. Taking this into account, I would highly recommend that you never base your decision on a quick Google search, and never just simply choose the cheapest option. It will end badly.

Experience and Collaboration = Quality

When outsourcing work, everyone involved must share the goal of creating high-quality software, which will ultimately grow your company. The right developer will bring a wealth of experience from working on software involved in multiple industries and sectors. Viktoriia pavlova of Starlight Management Group says, “outsource your software and you get a group of partners that can use their collective experience to see themselves through difficult challenges. Because they work in many sectors with many companies, on a variety of projects, we can easily call upon critical skills and expertise and use that with every product or software development project.”

Obvious right? Outsourced teams use their collective and extensive knowledge to efficiently solve problems and be as innovative as possible. You usually find that many software houses hold regular meetings, where team members share information and problems with the current projects — their successes, challenges and of course creative solutions. By sharing things in this way, they easily benefit from a wealth of information and even find solutions to problems that they personally hadn’t thought of yet. One software house could potentially have 10–20 developers sharing their knowledge, which ultimately gets applied to your software.

Remember; When you are talking to potential developers, both individual and, the point contact from an entire team, ask them about their portfolio, their current projects, and their success across different markets. Spend some time talking with them about their previous work and what they learnt from those experiences and projects. Are they Agile? Or are the they DevOps? Are they aware of the latest technologies and standards? Is security a priority? By getting to know your provider properly, you make a more informed choice, therefore choosing the right partner that is focused on the quality and the success of your software and ultimately your business.