On Staying Technical

I was 10 years into my career when I met her. I could count the number of other women programmers I had worked with on one hand and none of them had young children at home like me. She was not only incredibly experienced and competent, but also had a son in college. I was curious about her career path so I asked her one day at lunch why she was still programming and hadn’t become a manager instead.

She smiled at me kindly and replied, “I’ve worked very hard to stay exactly where I am”, and I was enlightened.